PEPACTON 



rocks in the pasture; nor the solitary tree, nor the 

 old weather-worn stump ; no, nor the creek in 

 which I plunged one winter morning in attempting 

 to leap its swollen current. But the path served 

 only one generation of school-children ; it faded 

 out more than thirty years ago, and the feet that 

 made it are widely scattered, while some of them 

 have found the path that leads through the Valley 

 of the Shadow. Almost the last words of one of 

 these schoolboys, then a man grown, seemed as if 

 he might have had this very path in mind, and 

 thought himself again returning to his father's 

 house : " I must hurry," he said ; " I have a long 

 way to go up a hill and through a dark wood, and 

 it will soon be night." 



We are a famous people to go " 'cross lots," but 

 we do not make a path, or, if we do, it does not 

 last ; the scene changes, the currents set in other 

 directions, or cease entirely, and the path vanishes. 

 In the South one would find plenty of bridle-paths, 

 for there everybody goes horseback, and there 

 are few passable roads ; and the hunters and lum- 

 bermen of the North have their trails through 

 the forest following a line of blazed trees ; but in 

 all my acquaintance with the country, the rural 

 and agricultural sections, I do not know a plea- 

 sant, inviting path leading from house to house, 

 or from settlement to settlement, by which the 

 pedestrian could shorten or enliven a journey, or 

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