Temple Camp

“ A few pages from my wife's "Journal" of September fifteenth describes our camp at Lu-ho-we and our life on the road to Ta-li Fu.
We are sitting on the porch of an old, old temple. It is on a hilltop in a forest grove with the gray-walled town lying at our feet. The sun is flooding the flower-filled courtyard and throwing bars of golden light through the twisted branches of a bent old pine, over the stone well, and into the dim recesses behind the altar where a benevolent idol grins down upon us. ”

“ While it was still light he decided that he would follow the familiar trail down to Temple Camp and spend the night there. He had the key to the main pavilion, and there he could enjoy the comfort of a couch and a much-needed night's rest. ”

“ Sometimes they stand in the midst of a populous town and we ride through long streets between dirty houses, swarming with ragged women, filthy men, and screaming children; suddenly we come to the dilapidated entrance of our temple, pass through a courtyard, close the huge gates and are in another world.
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We leave early every morning and the boys are up long before dawn. As we sleepily open our eyes we see their dark figures silhouetted against the brilliant camp fire, hear the yawns of the mafus and the contented crunching of the mules as they chew their beans. ”

“ No troop shall leave Temple Camp on account of a house. If they come along the road they shall not pass. We’ll put them in the house and send them back. We defy everything and everybody. What do we care about the housing shortage?”
Warde said, “Well then, keep still a minute and let me talk to the man.” He has a lot of sense, Warde has, I’m glad I’m not him.
He said, “Hey, mister, we’re boy scouts and we belong at Temple Camp that’s over there in the woods near Black Lake. This road goes around through Hink’s Junction and around through Pine Hollow to the camp. ”

“ He's a fresh kid. Maybe you think it's easy to flop flapjacks—I should worry.
Oh, boy, now comes the best part of this whole story. As soon as we could get our stuff into the duffel bags and the boat all tied fast, we started out on our hike for Temple Camp. You can bet I always like to hike, but early in the morning, oh, it's simply great. Some fellows can drink sodas early in the morning but I can't, but anyway, early hikes are my middle name. You know, just when the sun is coming up, all red like, and peeking over the hill, just as if it was stalking. ”

“ I said.
"A good turn is a good turn," Westy said. "Maybe everything has changed, but good turns haven't changed. Their own tent is gone, their canoe is smashed—you said so yourself—and they're on the opposite side from Temple Camp. ”

“ CHAPTER XII TELLS ALL ABOUT OUR ROW ON BLACK LAKE So that's the way we went to Temple Camp, but there are short cuts to the Hudson besides that When we got near to the lake we all got anxious—you know how a fellow is when he's almost to a place he's been thinking about a lot. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV TELLS ABOUT HOW I TOLD A SECRET I don't know how it got out, but inside of an hour every fellow in that camp knew. I bet Mr. Ellsworth never said anything. Maybe somebody went with him to the house-boat, or maybe somebody followed him, hey? But that's always the way it is at Temple Camp. Things get out.
The first thing I did was to go straight to see Bert Winton. I said, "I've got something to tell you. Can you come out alone?" Because, honest, that fellow was so popular he could never get away from his troop. ”

“ They divide the camp within into streets, very conveniently, and place the tents of the commanders in the middle; but in the very midst of all is the general's own tent, in the nature of a temple, insomuch, that it appears to be a city built on the sudden, with its market-place, and place for handicraft trades, and with seats for the officers superior and inferior, where, if any differences arise, their causes are heard and determined. ”

“ CHAPTER XI TELLS YOU HOW TO GET TO TEMPLE CAMP Gee whiz, I wouldn't say anything against the Elks, that's sure, because they're all peachy scouts when you come right down to it, but I have to admit that they're crazy about stunts. They have more merit badges in their patrol than there are in the Ravens and Silver Foxes put together. Hunt Ward's sleeve looks like one of those Indian totem poles, there are so many badges on it. Anyway, I should worry, we have twenty-two badges in our patrol, and more good turns in the troop book than either of the other patrols. ”

“ So here at Jerusalem, the temple was called the camp of the Majesty of Jehovah, the exterior courts, the camp of the Levites, and the city, the camp of Israel. Thus the stranger, when he came from foreign parts, to celebrate the festival of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, found here the names and divisions which had been in use among his ancestors in the desert, and the whole city became as it were a permanent encampment, a standing memorial of that wonderful event, which is incomprehensible to those who consider Israel as only under human guidance. ”

“ He would bring the prairies and the Rockies and the long, winding trails, and all the associations which cluster about Indians and grizzlies and buffaloes to Temple Camp in the romantic person of an old western scout and guide whom he had met while in the Far West on railroad business. Old Jeb Rushmore had guided Mr. Temple and a party of surveyors to a pass in the mountains following what he called a trail which was about as discernible to Mr. ”

“ As the Good Turn, free at last from prosaic rollers and plank tracks, rolled easily in the swell, pulling gently upon the rope which the excited Pee-wee held, it seemed that she must be as pleased as her new owners were, at finding herself once more in her natural home. How graceful and beautiful she looked now, in the dying light! There is nothing so clumsy looking as a boat on shore. ”

“ George found himself thinking and talking of Allen's views quite enough to please even Bailly. Blodgett, on the other hand, perhaps because of the heavy, settled atmosphere of the marble temple, had changed his tune.
"Things are bound to come right in the end." ”

“ The white tents crouching close to the shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various as those of Joseph’s coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open camp, resembles a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels suffer no Volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without a pass or the word. ”

“ Our camp, with two others consisting of Europeans and Fingoe Levies, was on a green level plain, between the fort and the River Chumie, beyond which rose a fine range of lofty mountains.
Anything more miserable in the shape of barrack accommodation than the officers' quarters in the fort can hardly be conceived; uneven floors of dried cow-dung, bending walls of "wattle and daub," smoke-blackened rafters and thatch, crazy doors, and ill-fitting windows, which exclude the light and admit in turn, wind, rain, and clouds of sand, are the characteristics of the best. ”

“ A camp is a resting-place for the victor, a shelter for the vanquished. How many armies to whom the fortune of battle has proved unkindly have been driven inside their ramparts and then at their own time, sometimes almost immediately, have made a sortie and repulsed their victorious foe? Here is the soldier's second fatherland, here is his abode, with the rampart for its walls; here each finds in his tent, his home and his household gods. Ought we to have fought as homeless wanderers with no place to receive us after our victory? ”

“ We felt the magic spell of it just the same and promised with all our hearts to seek beauty and give service and all the other things in the Wood Gatherers’ Desire. That is the wonderful thing about Camp Fire. It makes you have exactly the same feelings whether you learn it in a mansion or in a shack, in an exclusive girls’ school or in a third-rate country schoolhouse. If Nyoda only could have seen us! Of all people to whom I had expected to pass on the Torch, this group of Arkansas Hard-Uppers would have been the very last to occur to me. ”

“ And as the sage looked down on that well-ordered camp, he seems to have forgotten for a moment that every man therein was a stern and practised warrior. ‘How goodly,’ he cries, ‘are thy tents, oh Jacob, and thy camp, oh Israel.’ He likens them, not to the locust swarm, the sea flood, nor the forest fire, but to the most peaceful, and most fruitful sights in nature or in art. They are spread forth like the water-courses, which carry verdure and fertility as they flow. They are planted like the hanging gardens beside his own river Euphrates, with their aromatic shrubs and wide-spreading cedars. ”

“ A line of lights follows from the landing to the headquarters tent, springing up at once behind the running boatmen, until every tent, bush and tree-top is gleaming with lanterns and torches. The fort is all ablaze. And such cheers! The camp is wild with joy over some great event. ”

“ Assuming the lodge—there was but one—as the centre of the camp, it was placed upon the edge of a small grove, and fronting the stream. From the tent to the water’s edge, the plain sloped gently downward, like the glacis of a fortification. The smooth sward, that covered the space between the trees and the water, was the ground of the camp. On this could be seen the dusky warriors, some afoot, standing in listless attitudes, or moving about; others reclining upon the grass, and still others bending over the fires, as if engaged in the preparation of their evening meal. ”

“ On March 1st the camp was broken up, and the long western march began. The Mormons were divided into companies of fifty or sixty wagons, and every night the cattle were carefully rounded up and guards set to protect them from attack. From time to time they built more elaborate camps, and men were left in charge to plant grain, build log cabins, dig wells, and fence the farms, in order that they might give food and shelter to other Mormons who would be making the journey later. The weather was all against their progress. ”

“ The odor of warm food was good in the nostrils of old “Ladder” Lane, the fire warden of Jerusalem, as he strode down the valley wall towards the camp. He hung his extinguished lantern on a nail outside the cook camp and stooped and entered the low door. Among woodsmen the amenities of a camp are as scant as welcome is plentiful. Lane seized up a tin plate, loaded it with what he saw in sight, and began to eat hastily and voraciously. ”

“ Early in the morning of Wednesday, the 12th of April, without the stirring drum or the bugle call of old, the camp awoke to the new life. Whether or not they had a country, these soldiers did not know. Home to many, when they reached it, was graves and ashes. At any rate, there must be, somewhere on earth, a better place than a muddy, smoky camp in a piece of scrubby pines;347 better company than gloomy, hungry comrades and inquisitive enemies, and something in the future more exciting, if not more hopeful, than nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. ”

“ The flecks lay like snow upon the earth of the Wilderness.
“We’re tired of war on the old camp-ground
Many are dead and gone....
“We’re tenting to-night on the old camp-ground,...
Tenting to-night, tenting to-night.
Tenting to-night on the old camp-ground.” All the spirit of this army was graver than it had been a year ago, than it had been six months ago. During the past winter a strong religious fervour had swept it. This evening, in the Wilderness, in many a command there was prayer and singing of hymns. Swaths of earth, black copses of cedar and gum, divided one congregation from another. ”

“ Early in the morning, they heard, all about them, sounds as if a camp of people were there. They heard a young man shouting a sort of war cry, as young men do; women chopping wood; a man calling for a feast, asking people to come to his lodge and smoke,—all the different sounds of the camp. ”

“ It is a solemn Sunday, and the camp, with its white tents looking snug and peaceful in the sunlight, holds its breath that the beating of its heart may not be heard. On such a day as this the services of religion would appeal with passionate force to thousands. ”

“ It was an interesting and exciting experience 97for them to see and feel the bustle and hustle of a military camp and to know that they were part of it. Horses were tethered under all the trees, tents sprang up on all sides as if by magic, while everywhere men were busy with the thousand and one duties of camp life. ”

“ All over the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as I sit at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and glee. Boys laugh and shout,—a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some tent, not an officer's,—a drum throbs far away in another,—wild kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead slave-masters,—and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous sound of that strange festival, half pow-wow, half prayer-meeting, which they know only as a "shout." ”

“ On the first day of March, the ground covered with snow, we broke encampment about noon, and soon nearly four hundred wagons were moving to—we knew not where.
As applicable to the circumstances, I here insert two poems which I wrote in Camp:
CAMP OF ISRAEL.
No. 1.
Although in woods and tents we dwell,
Shout! shout! O Camp of Israel:
No "Christian" mobs on earth can bind
Our thoughts, or steal our peace of mind.
CHORUS.
Though we fly from vile aggression,
We'll maintain our pure profession—
Seek a peaceable possession,
Far from Gentiles and oppression. ”