2 PEPACTON 



When my boat was finished — and it was a very- 

 simple affair — I was eager as a boy to be off; I 

 feared the river would all run by before I could wet 

 her bottom in it. This enthusiasm begat great 

 expectations of the trip. I should surely surprise 

 Nature and win some new secrets from her. I 

 should glide down noiselessly upon her and see 

 what all those willow screens and baffling curves 

 concealed. As a fisherman and pedestrian I had 

 been able to come at the stream only at certain 

 points: now the most private and secluded retreats 

 of the nymph would be opened to me; every bend 

 and eddy, every cove hedged in by swamps or pas- 

 sage walled in by high alders, would be at the beck 

 of my paddle. 



Whom shall one take with him when he goes 

 a-courting Nature ? This is always a vital question. 

 There are persons who will stand between you and 

 that which you seek: they obtrude themselves; 

 they monopolize your attention; they blunt your 

 sense of the shy, half-revealed intelligences about 

 you. I want for companion a dog or a boy, or a 

 person who has the virtues of dogs and boys, — 

 transparency, good-nature, curiosity, open sense, 

 and a nameless quality that is akin to trees and 

 growths and the inarticulate forces of nature. With 

 him you are alone, and yet have company; you are 

 free; you feel no disturbing element; the influences 

 of nature stream through him and around him; he 

 is a good conductor of the subtle fluid. The qual- 

 ity or qualification I refer to belongs to most per- 



