PEPACTON 



a few inches of the surface. My rod mended and 

 the elm cleared, I anticipated better sailing when 

 I should reach the Delaware itself; but I found on 

 this day and on subsequent days that the Delaware 

 has a way of dividing up that is very embarrassing 

 to the navigator. It is a stream of many minds: 

 its waters cannot long agree to go all in the same 

 channel, and whichever branch I took I was pretty 

 sure to wish I had taken one of the others. I was 

 constantly sticking on rifts, where I would have to 

 dismount, or running full tilt into willow banks, 

 where I would lose my hat or endanger my fishing- 

 tackle. On the whole, the result of my first day's 

 voyaging was not encouraging. I made barely eight 

 miles, and my ardor was a good deal dampened, to 

 say nothing about my clothing. In mid-afternoon 

 I went to a well-to-do-looking farmhouse and got 

 some milk, which I am certain the thrifty housewife 

 skimmed, for its blueness infected my spirits, and 

 I went into camp that night more than half per- 

 suaded to abandon the enterprise in the morning. 

 The loneliness of the river, too, unlike that of the 

 fields and woods, to which I was more accustomed, 

 oppressed me. In the woods, things are close to 

 you, and you touch them and seem to interchange 

 something with them ; but upon the river, even 

 though it be a narrow and shallow one like this, 

 you are more isolated, farther removed from the 

 soil and its attractions, and an easier prey to the 

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