fact Brown’s crossing, and that my canoe 
was undoubtedly in the present North 
"W ilmington and therefore on the Ipswich 
River. ^ But the only train from Boston 
that started early enough in the morn¬ 
ing to suit a canoeist, stopped neither at 
the present nor at the former North 
Wilmington, 'but at Wilmington Junc¬ 
tion, two miles from each of them, 
and then only if some one desired 
to 'board it; whether any one wanted to 
get off made no difference. Nobody lives 
in Wilmington Junction; it is merely a 
point where three railroads cross. As 
we approached the station, we were re¬ 
lieved to feel the pressure of the brakes, 
and a moment later, we had stepped out i 
of the train into a region of white cedar j 
swamps, purple rhodora and Maryland 
yellow-throats. Long, straight stretches 
of track led off in five different direc¬ 
tions. Our train disappeared along the 
northward stretch; the two tracks from 
the west crossed the swamps in which 
the Ipswich River had its source; on one 
of the other two our canoe, freighted 
with all the possibilities of a day’s 
Journey in an unknown land, awaited 
us. 
Renewed inquiries of the station agent 
confirmed us in our belief that North | 
Wilmington was not North Wilmington 
and that something else was. The agent, 
however did his best to inject new uncer¬ 
tainties into our prospects by announc¬ 
ing that, as far as he knew, the Ipswich 
River was about two miles from the real 
North Wilmington, and therefore two 
miles from our canoe. A two miles 
carry of a hundred pound canoe! But in 
less than three-quarters of an hour after 
this dismal prophecy, we were pushing 
off in the Ipswich itself, where, hardly 
more than a brook, it wanders through 
its first meadow, white with houstonia, 
and ruddy with young clumps of royal j 
fern. 
In hilly country the brooks brawl along 
over stony beds, and 'the roads which i 
follow them give continual glimpses of 
the foaming water, leaping Into a quiet 
pool, sliding along a long shelving rock, 
or dancing above a shingly 'bed. Here j 
a canoe could not go its own length with- j 
out striking some great stone which the' 
brook in its spring floods had rolled 
down from the hillg. 
In Eastern Massachusetts the water¬ 
sheds are often only a few feet above 
the valley on either side, so that the 
streams are navigable for a canoe as 
soon as they pass from the swamps in 
which they have their birth. The only 
obstructions are the alders and os'ers, 
which grow out into the stream itself, 
instead of on its 'banks. There is hardly 
a stone; the brook is always deep, though 
so narrow that with the paddle one can 
tough the turf on either hand. The val¬ 
ley through which such a stream mean¬ 
ders Is often perfectly level for half a 
mile on each side. There are no banks, j 
properly speaking, no slopes down which 
tributary streams hurry from the enclos¬ 
ing hills. The bank is the "river-lip, 
fledged with tender green,” and in the 
early course of the stream, we pass so 
close to it that we can note every detail j 
of the herbage which clothes it. 
A man in a canoe sees the country from 
a new point of view. A traveller on the 
high road passes the front yards, so to 
speak, of everything. He sees the better 
drained portions of the fields, the bobolink 
and not the red-winged blackbird side of 
country life. Even when the road crosses 
a swamp, and he sees the slow stream pass 
silently under the bridge, he gets only a 
hint of scenes with which the canoeist is 
brought face to face for miles. Only a 
fisherman, wading the grassy lagoons where 
the pickerel hide, or casting for a possible 
trout in the boggy meadows, sees the coun¬ 
try, like the canoeist, from the muskrat 
point of view. 
A canoeist becomes, like a phoebe, an au¬ 
thority on bridges. He passes under a 
dozen during a morning, no two of which 
are alike. Now it is a modern structure 
of cement under a piece of State road, again 
the old fashioned wooden bridge of our 
forefathers with high sides painted red like 
a farmer's barn. One bridge under which 
we just managed to pass was built in the 
style of Stonehenge; enormous stone blocks 
rough hewn, were laid across stone piers so 
near the water that we had to crouch in the 
bottom of the canoe to get under. Even 
then the bow of the canoe struck against a 
ridge in the stone, and only after pushing 
the canoe with our hands from side to side, 
we found at last a portion of the block 
where the ridge was a little lower, and let 
the bow pass by what seemed a hair’s 
breadth. 
In the heart of a little grove that sepa¬ 
rated two farms on opposite banks - of 
the stream, we passed a. bridge formed of a 
single tree trunk, along the sides of which 
a hand rail had been fastened. The tree lay 
between high banks over a quiet pool; a 
little path led from each end of the bridge 
through the silent grove to the distant 
farms. If the old trunk could have told 
what feet had passed over it, what a com¬ 
mentary we might have had on life on a 
New England farm. Of all the figures with 
which the imagination peopled the now 
silent spot, one group. 1 am sure, would be 
called forth by the very romance of the 
woodland scene; the two farms may very 
likely have held Capulets and Montagues; 
but at some period of their mutual history, 
a path must have led over this bridge 
straight from’ one heart to another. 
From time to time there was a marked 
change in the character of the vegetation 
through which the brook, like Camus, foot¬ 
ed slow, due either to some change in the 
nature of the soil, or to the difference in 
the drainage. Once we wound for pearly 
half an hour through an immense area of 
reed-like grass; the new growth of broad, 
green blades and stout canes was pushing 
slowly up. and above it tall clusters of last 
year’s stalks rattled in the wind. Short- 
billed marsh wrens inhabited this reedy 
growth; we heard their shrill notes here 
and there in the distance. At last we caught 
sight of one, perched on a stout stalk, his 
little tail bent over his back till it nearly | 
touched his head, and his whole body quiv- 
