A SUMMER BOATING TRIP 29 



snug, well-ordered houses; but there is often a real 

 satisfaction when things come to their worst, — a sat- 

 isfaction in seeing what a small matter it is, after all; 

 that one is really neither sugar nor salt, to be afraid 

 of the wet; and that life is just as well worth living 

 beneath a scow or a dug-out as beneath the highest 

 and broadest roof in Christendom. 



By ten o'clock it became necessary to move, on 

 account of the rise of the water, and as the rain had 

 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 farm- 

 house looked very inviting, just across the road from 

 the barn; but as no one was about, and no faces ap- 

 peared 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 up 

 stream. 



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 



