A SUMMER BOATING TRIP 23 



dangerous passes that awaited me, and in good faith 

 began to warn and advise me. They had heard the 

 tales of raftsmen, and had conceived a vivid idea of the 

 perils of the river below, gauging their notions of it 

 from the spring and fall freshets tossing about the 

 heavy and cumbrous rafts. There was a whirlpool, a 

 rock eddy, and a binocle within a mile. I might be 

 caught in the binocle, or engulfed in the whirlpool, or 

 smashed up in the eddy. But I felt much reassured 

 when they told me I had already passed several whirl- 

 pools and rock eddies; but that terrible binocle, — 

 what was that ? I had never heard of such a monster. 

 Oh, it was a still, miry place at the head of a big eddy. 

 The current might carry me up there, but I could 

 easily get out again; the rafts did. But there was an- 

 other place I must beware of, where two eddies faced 

 each other; raftsmen were sometimes swept off there 

 by the oars and drowned. And when I came to rock 

 eddy, which I would know, because the river divided 

 there (a part of the water being afraid to risk the 

 eddy, I suppose), I must go ashore and survey the 

 pass; but in any case it would be prudent to keep to 

 the left. I might stick on the rift, but that was nothing 

 to being wrecked upon those rocks. The boys v/ere 

 quite in earnest, and I told them I would walk up to 

 the village and post some letters to my friends before 

 [ braved all these dangers. So they marched me up 

 the street, pointing out to their chums what they had 

 found. 



" Going way to Phil — What place is that near 

 where the river goes into the sea ? " 



" Philadelphia ? " 



" Yes ; thinks he may go way there. Won't he have 

 fun ? " 



