By Dan Beard
Summer Camping for the Boy Pioneers in Town or Country
Fig. 87
A Baker's Tent
The more time a boy spends out-doors, the stronger and healthier he will become. In the country it is easy for a boy to camp out, but there is no good reason why the city boy should not learn to sleep in the open. Even a small back yard is large enough in which to pitch a tent and build a camp-fire.
If you are going to camp out this summer you will probably want to use a tent. Fig. 87 shows a small, water-proof Baker's tent. They vary in price from $6.00 to $24.50.
Fig. 88, miner's water-proof tent, may be had in several sizes. The prices run from $4.20 to $25.00.
Figs. 88-90
Three Useful Tents
Fig. 89 shows an old-fashioned A tent--prices from $5.50 to $30.00, There is a special water-proof wedge tent made which runs as low in price as $2.10.
Fig. 90 shows a wall tent high in the center--prices, $6.00 to $38.00.
Figs. 91-93
A Wall Tent
Fig. 91 is a canoe tent -- prices from $6.00 to $25.00.
Fig. 92 shows a wall tent with a dining fly in front. Fig. 93 shows a teepee, or Sibley tent. This is made with or without side walls, and varies in price from $4.50 to $49.00.
Figs. 94-96
Setting Up the California Tent
Fig. 96 is a V X L tent sold in San Francisco, California.
Fig. 94 shows the method of putting up the tent upon a hoop pole.
Fig. 97
This Can be Used as a Tent
If you boys want to make a tent of your own, either for the back yard or for the woods, you can take a piece of drilling of the shape of Fig. 97, then take a piece of chalk cord or top string and hem the drilling with the top string stitched in the hem and so arranged that a loop of it extends beyond the hem every few feet, as in Fig. 97.
Fig. 98
Back Yard Camp
Fig. 98 shows a tent made of a piece of cloth of this kind used in the back yard of a city house. Fig. 99 shows the same used as a shelter for a hammock in a city backyard.
Fig. 99.
Back Yard Camp
If you want to make this piece of cotton drilling waterproof, take some boiled linseed-oil, spread your sheet out on some boards, then pour the oil on the sheet a little at a time and rub it in with the palm of your hand. Put one hand under the cloth and the other over that, and rub the palms together until the cloth will take no more oil. Stretch 89 as your sheet out smoothly in a shady place where the air will circulate under and above it.
At the end of eight or ten days take it down from the shady place and stretch it where the direct rays of the afternoon sun can reach it. After sunset turn the sheet over so that the opposite side will be exposed to the next afternoon sun. This will set the oil and keep it from rubbing off, and you will now have a waterproof blanket in which to carry your camp bedding, a water-proof shelter tent, also the skin of a boat, for by tying the sheet around the framework of the boat you can have a makeshift canvas canoe.
