PEPACTON 



PEPACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE 



WHEN one summer day I bethought me of 

 a voyage down the east or Pepacton branch 

 of the Delaware, I seemed to want some excuse for 

 the start, some send-off, some preparation, to give 

 the enterprise genesis and head. This I found in 

 building my own boat. It was a happy thought. 

 How else should I have got under way, how else 

 should I have raised the breeze ? The boat-build- 

 ing warmed the blood ; it made the germ take ; it 

 whetted my appetite for the voyage. There is no- 

 thing like serving an apprenticeship to fortune, like 

 earning the right to your tools. In most enterprises 

 the temptation is always to begin too far along; we 

 want to start where somebody else leaves off. Go 

 back to the stump, and see what an impetus you 

 get. Those fishermen who wind their own flies 

 before they go a-fishing, how they bring in the 

 trout; and those hunters who run their own bullets 

 or make their own cartridges, the game is already 

 mortgaged to them. 



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