AFOOT AND AFLOAT 



A SUMMER BOATING TRIP 



When 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 wav, 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 for- 

 tune, like earning the right to your tools. In most 

 enterprises the temptation is always to begin too far 

 alons ; we want to start where somebodv 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 the trout ; and 

 those hunters who run their own bullets or make their 

 own cartridges, — the game is already mortgaged to 

 them. 



When my boat was finished — and it was a very 

 simple affair — I was eager as a boy to be off ; I feared 

 the river would all run bv before I could wet her bot- 

 torn in it. This enthusiasm begat great expectations 

 of the trip. I should surely surprise Nature and win 

 some new secrets from her. I should glide down noise- 

 lessly upon her and see what all those willow screens 



