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76.
Saturday, August 22.

For the first time since Sunday we awoke to find a pleasant day ahead of us. The light revealed three other camps near our open camp which we later found to be the sleeping, dining, and "sitting-room" camps of our hosts, Dr. and Mrs. Allis of New York City.  We had breakfast all together on the porch of the dining camp, relating our experiences and exchanging the latest war news.
   Just consider what hospitality we were meeting with! Here were two strangers dressed in the roughest of clothes, torn in countless places, reaching the dock at ten at night, being given a fine place to sleep in and a splendid breakfast and the whole family coming to the dock to see the strangers off.
   Hospitality and friendliness to strangers and visitors are the most striking characteristics of the people of the Adirondacks. Nor do I think this is because faces are rare in the wilderness. It is partly because most people who live in the great out-doors have a generous and kind nature, and partly because no person can live in this peaceful land of trees, lakes, and mountains without soon throwing off the suspicion and crabbedness which our Twentieth Century life has created for us, and taking on the friendliness and cordiality which nature intended we should have. When we first started on our trip, we found that fellows in passing canoes always seemed to say, "Hello!", "Fine day!", or something of that nature before we did. Soon we tried to see how often we could get it off before they did. It's like trying to say"Merry Christmas" before the other person does.
   One instance will serve to show how this feeling works upon one.