Outdoor Sports and Games

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Outdoor Sports and Games, by Claude H. Miller This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Outdoor Sports and Games Author: Claude H. Miller Release Date: July 16, 2005 [eBook #16316] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTDOOR SPORTS AND GAMES*** E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Karen Dalrymple, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 16316-h.htm or 16316-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/3/1/16316/16316-h/16316-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/3/1/16316/16316-h.zip) The Library of Work and Play OUTDOOR SPORTS AND GAMES by CLAUDE H. MILLER, PH.B. Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1911[Illustration: A Boys' Camp] [Illustration: Title Page] CONTENTS I. Introductory The human body a perfect machine--How to keep well--Outdoor sleeping--Exercise and play--Smoking--Walking. II. The Boy Scouts of America Headquarters--Purpose--Scout Law--How to form a patrol of Scouts--Organization of a troop--Practical activities for Scouts--A Scout camp--Model Programme of Sir R.S.S. Baden-Powell Scout camp. III. Camps and Camping How to select the best place to pitch a tent--A brush bed--The best kind of a tent--How to make the camp fire--What to do when it rains--Fresh air and good food--The brush leanto and how to make it. IV. Camp Cooking How to make the camp fire range--Bread bakers--Cooking utensils--The grub list--Simple camp recipes. V. Woodcraft The use of an axe and hatchet--Best woods for special purposes--What to do when you are lost--Nature's compasses. VI. Use of Fire-arms Importance of early training--Why a gun is better than a rifle--How to become a good shot. VII. Fishing Proper tackle for all purposes--How to catch bait--The fly fisherman--General fishing rules. VIII. Nature Study What is a true naturalist?--How to start a collection--Moth collecting--The herbarium. IX. Water Life The water telescope--How to manage an aquarium--Our insect friends and enemies--The observation beehive. X. The Care of Pets Cats--Boxes for song birds--How to attract the birds--Tame crows--The pigeon fancier--Ornamental land and water fowl--Rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and mice--How to build coops--General rules for the care of pets--The dog. XI. The Care of Chickens The best breed--Good and bad points of incubators--What to feed small chicks--A model chicken house. XII. Winter Sports What to wear--Skating--Skiing--Snowshoeing--Hockey. XIII. Horsemanship How to become a good rider--The care of horses--Saddles. XIV. How to Swim and to Canoe The racing strokes--Paddling and sailing canoes. XV. Baseball How to organize a team and to select the players--The various positions--Curve pitching. XVI. How to Play Football The various positions and how to select men for them--Team work and signals--The rules. XVII. Lawn Tennis How to make and mark a court--Clay and sod courts--The proper grip of the racket--Golf--The strokes and equipment. XVIII. Photography The selection of a camera--Snapshots vs. real pictures--How to make a photograph from start to finish. XIX. Outdoor Sports for Girls What to wear--Confidence--Horseback riding--Tennis--Golf--Camping. XX. One Hundred Outdoor Games ILLUSTRATIONS A Boy's Camp A Child's May-day Party Fishing is the One Sport of Our Childhood that Holds Our Interest Through Life The Moth Collector and His Outfit The Exciting Sport of Ski-running Swimming is One of the Best Outdoor Sports In Canoeing Against the Current in Swift Streams a Pole is Used in Place of the Paddle Photographs of Tennis Strokes Taken in Actual Play How an Expert Plays Golf I INTRODUCTORY The human body a perfect machine--How to keep well--Outdoor sleeping--Exercise and play--Smoking--Walking Suppose you should wake up Christmas morning and find yourself to be the owner of a bicycle. It is a brand-new wheel and everything is in perfect working order. The bearings are well oiled, the nickel is bright and shiny and it is all tuned up and ready for use. If you are a careful, sensible boy you can have fun with it for a long time until finally, like the "One Hoss Shay" in the poem, it wears out and goes to pieces all at once. On the other hand, if you are careless or indifferent or lazy you may allow the machine to get out of order or to become rusty from disuse, or perhaps when a nut works loose you neglect it and have a breakdown on the road, or you may forget to oil the bearings and in a short time they begin to squeak and wear. If you are another kind of a boy, you may be careful enough about oiling and cleaning the wheel, but you may also be reckless and head--strong and will jump over curbstones and gutters or ride it over rough roads at a dangerous rate of speed, and in this way shorten its life by abuse just as the careless boy may by neglect. It is just so with the human body which, after all, is a machine too, and, more than that, it is the most wonderful and perfect machine in the world. With care it should last many years. With abuse or neglect it may very soon wear out. The boy who neglects his health is like the boy who allows the bearings on his wheel to become dry or the metal parts rusty. The chief difference is that when the bicycle wears out or breaks down we may replace the parts or even buy another machine, but when our health is injured, money will not restore it. In order to keep well we must observe certain rules of health. By exercise we keep the working parts in good order. If we are lazy or indolent we are like the bicycle that is allowed to go to pieces from lack of use. If we are reckless and foolhardy we may injure some part of the delicate machinery from excessive exercise or strain. Play is the most natural thing in the world but we must use judgment in our play. A boy or girl who is not allowed to play or who is restrained by too anxious parents is unhappy indeed. Nearly all animals play. We know, for instance, that puppies, kittens, and lambs are playful. It is a perfectly natural instinct. By proper play we build up our bodies and train our minds. The healthy man never gets too old to play. He may not care to play marbles or roll hoops, but he will find his pleasure in some game or sport like tennis, golf, horseback riding, camping, fishing or hunting. In this book we shall talk about some forms of play and recreation that are not strictly confined to children, but which we may still enjoy even after we have become grown men and women. We shall alsotalk about some children's games that some of the older readers may have outgrown. While we play we keep our minds occupied by the sport, and at the same time we exercise our muscles and feed our lungs and our bodies with oxygen. It is unfortunate that in school or college athletics those who need exercise the most are often those who are physically unfitted to play on the school teams. In other words, we select our runners and jumpers and football players from among the stronger boys, while the weaker ones really need the benefit of the sport. Every boy should take part in school games when possible even if he is not as swift or as strong as some other boys. It is very unmanly of one boy to make fun of another because he is weak or clumsy or unskilful. After all, the thing that counts and the thing that is most creditable is to make the most of our opportunities whatever they may be. If an undersized or timid boy becomes stronger or more brave because he joins in games and sports, he deserves a hundred times more credit than the big, strong boy whom nature has given a sturdy frame and good lungs and who makes a place on the school team without any real effort. If we live a natural, open-air life we shall have but little need of doctors or medicine. Many of our grandmothers' notions on how to keep well have changed in recent years. Old-fashioned remedies made from roots and herbs have been almost completely replaced by better habits of life and common-sense ideas. We used to believe that night air was largely responsible for fevers and colds. Doctors now say that one of the surest ways to keep well is to live and sleep in the open air. In many modern houses the whole family is provided with outside sleeping porches with absolutely no protection from the outside air but the roof. I have followed the practice of sleeping in the open air for some time, and in midwinter without discomfort have had the temperature of my sleeping porch fall to six degrees below zero. Of course it is foolish for any one to sleep exposed to rain or snow or to think that there is any benefit to be derived from being cold or uncomfortable. The whole idea of open-air sleeping is to breathe pure, fresh air in place of the atmosphere of a house which, under the best conditions, is full of dust and germs. If we become outdoor sleepers, coughs and colds will be almost unknown. General Sherman once wrote a letter in which he said that he did not have a case of cold in his entire army and he attributed it to the fact that his soldiers slept and lived in the open air. [Illustration: A Child's May Day Party (Photograph by Mary H. Northend)] One can almost tell a man who sleeps in the open by looking at him. His eye is clear and his cheek ruddy. There is no surer way to become well and strong than to become accustomed to this practice. Then you can laugh at the doctor