had thought of asking you to
go, Jack, but as 'boys don't cook'--of course--"

"Oh, but they do camp cooking!" Jack exclaimed enthusiastically; "all
sorts of things--bacon, and fried eggs, and corn-bread--"

"But, you see, you can't make any of those, and my digestion being
delicate, I don't feel that I can be experimented upon," said his
father, with a twinkle in his eye. "Now if only you had taken lessons
all these months as the girls have, I might consider taking you."

"I'll learn right off, honestly I will! I'll begin this very day. And I
can make cheese dreams, and--and boil eggs, now."

"How long do you boil them, Jack?"

"Till they're done!" said Jack, triumphantly.

Father Blair went off laughing, and said he was afraid he wouldn't be
able to stand his son's cooking.

Jack spent a nervous day. Would his father really take him to Maine, to
the camp in the woods he had always heard about, where his father and
his men friends went nearly every year? Or would he be left at home
merely because he did not know how to cook? At last he consulted his
mother.

"I think Father will surely take you," she said comfortingly; "and he is
just pretending about the cooking; he can do all kinds of camp cookery
beautifully, and up there he will teach you himself how to make things."

So, sure enough, in just a week, Jack and his father were off for the
woods of Maine, to a lake where the fishing was wonderful. They had a
little log-cabin to sleep in, with a lean-to for their stores and
cooking things, and there was a circle of stones, all blackened from
other fires, where they could cook out of doors. The trees ran right
down to the water's edge, and it was so still, and cool, and lovely
that, if they had not been so hungry they could have sat and looked out
at the lake for hours. As it was, as soon as they were settled and the
guide had paddled off, they decided to have supper at once.

The first thing was to make a fire, and Jack brought an armful of twigs
and began to lay them in the stone fireplace.

"No, that's not the way," said his father. "There are several kinds of
camp-fires, and the one we want to-night is the quick one. You must get
two green sticks, about three feet long, with crotches at the top, and
stick them well into the ground so they will cross at the top; then you
can fill the kettle with water and hang it up, two feet from the fire,
and under it you arrange loosely some very dry small twigs; have