IV PREFACE. 



unlike in its savage and inhuman aspects anything he 

 had ever seen at home, nestled close to his mother, 

 and asked with bated breath, "Mither, is there a 

 God here?" 



Yet the Pepacton is a placid current, especially in 

 its upper portions where my youth fell ; but all its 

 tributaries are swift mountain brooks fed by springs 

 the best in the world. It drains a high pastoral 

 country lifted into long, round-backed hills and rug- 

 ged, wooded ranges by the subsiding impulse of the 

 Catskill range of mountains, and famous for its supe 

 rior dairy and other farm products. It is many long 

 years since, with the restlessness of youth, I broke 

 away from the old ties amid those hills ; but my 

 heart has always been there ; and why should I not 

 come back and name one of my books for the old 

 stream? 



