Five feet is long enough for a tent made on the “shelter” principle; when pitched with the roof at a right angle it is 3-1/2 feet high, and nearly seven feet wide on the ground.

Although a shelter-tent is a poor substitute for a house, it is as good a protection as you can well carry if you propose to walk any distance.  It should be pitched neatly, or it will leak.  In heavy, pelting rains a fine spray will come through on the windward side.  The sides should set at right angles to each other, or at a sharper angle if rain is expected.

There are rubber blankets made with eyelets along the edges so that two can be tied together to make a tent; but they are heavier, more expensive, and not much if any better; and you will need other rubber blankets to lie upon.

If you wish for a larger and more substantial covering than a “shelter,” and propose to do the work yourself, you will do well to have a sailmaker or a tent-maker cut the cloth, and show you how the work is to be done.  If you cannot have their help, you must at least have the assistance of one used to planning and cutting needle-work, to whom the following hints may not be lost.  We will suppose heavy drilling 29-1/2 inches wide to be used in all instances.

THE A-TENT.

To make an A-tent,[15] draw upon the floor a straight line seven feet long, to represent the upright pole or height of the tent; then draw a line at right angles to and across the end of the first one, to represent the ground or bottom of the tent.  Complete the plan by finding where the corners will be on the ground line, and drawing the two sides (roof) from the corners[16] to the top of the pole-line.  This triangle is a trifle larger than the front and back of the tent will be.

The cloth should be cut so that the twilled side shall be the outside of the tent, as it sheds the rain better.

Place the cloth on the floor against the ground-line, and tack it (to hold it fast) to the pole-line, which it should overlap 3/8 of an inch; then cut by the roof-line.  Turn the cloth over, and cut another piece exactly like the first; this second piece will go on the back of the tent.  Now place the cloth against the ground-line as before, but upon the other side of the pole, and tack it to the floor after you have overlapped the selvage of the piece first cut 3/4 of an inch.  Cut by the roof-line, and turn and cut again for the back of the tent.

In cutting the four small gores for the corners, you can get all the cloth from one piece, and thus save waste, by turning and tearing it in two; these gore-pieces also overlap the longer breadths 3/4 of an inch.

The three breadths that make the sides or roof are cut all alike; their length is found by measuring the plan from corner to corner over the top; in the plan now under consideration, the distance will be nearly sixteen feet.  When you sew them, overlap the breadths 3/4 of an inch the same as you do the end-breadths.