* C jj 



PEPACTON 



PEPACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE 



~TT7~HEISr 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-building 

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

 my appetite for the voyage. There is nothing 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 tin- 

 trout; and those hunters who run their own bullets 

 or make their own cartridges, — the game is already 

 mortgaged to them. 



