26 PEPACTON 



The camper-out often finds himself in what seems 

 a distressing predicament to people seated in their 

 snug, well-ordered houses ; but there is often a real 

 satisfaction when things come to their worst, — a 

 satisfaction in seeing what a small matter it is, after 

 all; that one is really neither sugar nor salt, to be 

 afraid of the wet; and that life is just as well worth 

 living beneath a scow or a dug-out as beneath the 

 highest and broadest roof in Christendom. 



By ten o'clock it became necessary to move, on 

 account of the rise of the water, and as the rain had 

 abated I picked up and continued my journey. 

 Before long, however, the rain increased again, and 

 I took refuge in a barn. The snug, tree- embowered 

 farmhouse looked very inviting, just across the road 

 from the barn; but as no one was about, and no 

 faces appeared at the window that I might judge of 

 the inmates, I contented myself with the hospital- 

 ity the barn offered, filling my pockets with some 

 dry birch shavings I found there where the farmer 

 had made an ox-yoke, against the needs of the next 

 kindling. 



After an hour's detention I was off again. I 

 stopped at Baxter's Brook, which flows hard by the 

 classic hamlet of Harvard, and tried for trout, but 

 with poor success, as I did not think it worth while 

 to go far up stream. 



At several points I saw rafts of hemlock lumber 

 tied to the shore, ready to take advantage of the 

 first freshet. Eafting is an important industry for 

 a hundred miles or more along the Delaware. The 



