PEPACTON 



Captain would perhaps first strike the water as 

 he came out in the morning to take a turn up and 

 down his long piazza, the Club had formerly had a 

 " blind," but the ice of a few weeks before our visit 

 had carried it away. A little lower down, and in full 

 view from his bedroom window, was the place where 

 the shooting from the boxes was usually done. 



The duck is an early bird, and not much given 

 to wandering about in the afternoon; hence it was 

 thought not worth while to put out the decoys till 

 the next morning. We would spend the afternoon 

 roaming inland in quest of quail, or rabbits, or 

 turkeys (for a brood of the last were known to lurk 

 about the woods back there). It was a delightful 

 afternoon's tramp through oak woods, pine barrens, 

 and half -wild fields. We flushed several quail that 

 the dog should have pointed, and put a rabbit 

 to rout by a well-directed broadside, but brought 

 no game to camp. We kicked about an old bushy 

 clearing, where my friends had shot a wild turkey 

 Thanksgiving Day, but the turkey could not be 

 ctarted again. One shooting had sufficed for it. 

 We crossed or penetrated extensive pine woods that 

 had once (perhaps in Washington's time) been cul- 

 tivated fields; the mark of the plow was still clearly 

 visible. The land had been thrown into ridges, 

 after the manner of English fields, eight or ten feet 

 wide, with a deep dead furrow between them for 

 purposes of drainage. The pines were scrubby, 

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