No?
Then you have missed one of the rarest treats of life.
The dining-room is a tent opened at one end, through the centre extending a stationary table made of planed boards. On each side is a bench nailed to the table, capable of seating about six persons. To seat one's self, sit on the bench with back to the table; gracefully raising the lower limbs, right about face, your seat acting as a pivot for the body, swing over quickly, drop the feet beneath the table, and you are ready for preliminaries. Before you is new bread, white and tempting; butter of a rich golden hue; tomatoes, crimson and juicy with richness; cucumbers, pickles, sauces, and other relishes. The waiters are clothed in habiliments of blue surmounted by elegant crowns of native straw.
The cool breezes blowing from the lake, golden yellow-jackets in swarms hover about your head, occasionally swooping down into the sugar-bowl to see if the sweetness is first-class.
Presently bowls of delicious turtle soup are placed before you, and the aroma that rises is more than appetizing to a hungry man. As you convey luscious spoonfuls to your mouth, another aroma greets your olfactories: it is the fumes of coffee.
S—p—p—p—p!
A pair of red squirrels go scampering up a tree near by, intent on getting over the dining-room to enjoy the rich odors wasting themselves on the desert air.
Soup is followed by fish—none of your canned salmon or salt cod—none of your stale shad, a week out of water—but fish almost wriggling their tails as you spear them with a fork. They are smoking hot, with a rich hue of brown—the edge of the dish being ornamented with small clippings of fried pork.
Take the fish on your fork, insert a knife-blade in the back, when the white meat falls on your plate anxious to be eaten. Drop the knife and with your fingers catch hold of the skeleton at the head, pull gently, and it will divide itself from the other half. Your plate loaded with mealy potatoes, squash, boiled onions, and corn, you have before you a dinner fit for an epicure. How good everything tastes! All formality having been left at home, the camp dinner is the Eden of banquets.