THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK
OF CAMPFIRE STORIES
THERE, STANDING KNEE-DEEP IN THE WATER, WAS THE BIGGEST AND BLACKEST MOOSE IN THE WORLDTHE BOY SCOUTS BOOK
OF CAMPFIRE STORIES
EDITED
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED FOR
THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
INCORPORATED
NEW YORK 1933
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
The campfire for ages has been the place of counciland friendship and story-telling. The mystic glow ofthe fire quickens the mind, warms the heart, awakensmemories of happy, glowing tales that fairly leap to thelips. The Boy Scouts of America has incorporated the"campfire" in its program for council and friendshipand story-telling. In one volume, the Boy Scouts Bookof Campfire Stories makes available to scoutmasters andother leaders a goodly number of stories worthy oftheir attention, and when well told likely to arrest andhold the interest of boys in their early teens, when "stirsthe blood—to bubble in the veins."
At this time, when the boy is growing so rapidly inbrain and body, he can have no better teacher than somemighty woodsman. Now should be presented to himstirring stories of the adventurous lives of men wholive in and love the out-of-doors. Says ProfessorGeorge Walter Fiske: "Let him emulate savage woodcraft;the woodsman's keen, practiced vision; his steadinessof nerve; his contempt for pain, hardship and theweather; his power of endurance, his observation andheightened senses; his delight in out-of-door sports andjoys and unfettered happiness with untroubled sleepunder the stars; his calmness, self-control, emotionalsteadiness; his utter faithfulness in friendships; hishonesty, his personal bravery."
The Editor likes to think that quite a few of thestories found in the Boy Scouts Book of Campfire[vi]Stories present companions for the mind of this hardysort, and hopes, whether boys read or are told thesestories, they will prove to be such as