A SUMMER BOATING TRIP 23 



dangerous passes that awaited me, and in good faith 

 began to warn and advise me. They had heard the 

 tales of raftsmen, and had conceived a vivid idea of the 

 perils of the river below, gauging their notions of it 

 from the spring and fall freshets tossing about the 

 heavy and cumbrous rafts. There was a whirlpool, a 

 rock eddy, and a binocle within a mile. I might be 

 caught in the binocle, or engulfed in the whirlpool, or 

 smashed up in the eddy. But I felt much reassured 

 when they told me I had already passed several whirl- 

 pools and rock eddies ; but that terrible binocle, 

 what was that ? I had never heard of such a monster. 

 Oh, it was a still, miry place at the head of a big eddy. 

 The current might carry me up there, but I could 

 easily get out again; the rafts did. But there was an- 

 other place I must beware of, where two eddies faced 

 each other; raftsmen were sometimes swept off there 

 by the oars and drowned. And when I came to rock 

 eddy, which I would know, because the river divided 

 there (a part of the water being afraid to risk the 

 eddy, I suppose), I must go ashore and survey the 

 pass; but in any case it would be prudent to keep to 

 the left. I might stick on the rift, but that was nothing 

 to being wrecked upon those rocks. The boys were 

 quite in earnest, and I told them I would walk up to 

 the village and post some letters to my friends before 

 I braved all these dangers. So they marched me up 

 the street, pointing out to their chums what they had 

 found. 



"Going way to Phil What place is that near 

 where the river goes into the sea ? " 



" Philadelphia ? " 



" Yes ; thinks he may go way there. Won't he have 

 fun ? " 



