PEPACTON 



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 hospitality 

 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 upstream. 



At several points I saw rafts of hemlock lumber 

 tied to the shore, ready to take advantage of the 

 first freshet. Rafting is an important industry for 

 a hundred miles or more along the Delaware. The 

 lumbermen sometimes take their families or friends, 

 and have a jollification all the way to Trenton or 

 to Philadelphia. In some places the speed is very 

 great, almost equaling that of an express train. 

 The passage of such places as Cochecton Falls and 

 "Foul Rift" is attended with no little danger. 

 The raft is guided by two immense oars, one before 

 and one behind. I frequently saw these huge im- 

 plements in the driftwood alongshore, suggesting 

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