For their honeymoon, Martin had loaned them his camp up in northern
Wisconsin--uncut forest mostly, with a river and a lot of little lakes
in it. There were still deer and bear to be shot there, there was
wonderful fishing, and, more to the point in the present instance, as
fine a brand of solitude as civilization can ask to lay its hands on. It
was modified, and mitigated too, by a backwoods family--a man and his
wife, a daughter or two, and half a dozen sons, who lived there the year
round, of course; so that by telegraphing two or three days in advance,
you could be met by a buckboard at the nearest railroad station for the
twenty-five-mile drive over to the camp. You could find the house itself
(a huge affair, decorously built of logs, as far as its exterior
manifestations went, but amply supplied on the interior with bathrooms,
real beds and so forth) opened and warmed and flavored with the odor of
fried venison steak. Also, there was always a boy to paddle a canoe for
you, or saddle a horse, if you didn't feel like doing it for yourself.

Rodney and Rose spent a night in this establishment, then rigged up an
outfit for camping of a less symbolistic sort, and repaired to an island
out in the lake, where for two weeks they lived gorgeously, like the
savages they both, to a very considerable extent, really were.

But, at the end of this fortnight, a whipping north wind, with a fine
penetrating rain in its teeth, settled down for a three-days' visit, and
drove them back to adequate shelter. One rainy day in an outdoor camp is
a good thing; a second requires fortitude; a third carries the
conviction that it has been raining from the first day of Creation and
will keep on till the Last Judgment, and if you have anywhere to go to
get dry, you do.