FOREST AND STREAM 
369 
The Brass Edged Canoe 
Log of a Canoe Cruise by Two Regular Canoemen 
By J. Lippincott Foster. 
The Fan —canvas canoe—was the product of 
careful designing and amateur building. She 
would have been designed and built to a greater 
length than the 12 feet overall that was her 
portion, but another near-builder had done the 
starting of the job, fixing the dimensions, then 
attempted to build by rule o>f mashed thumb 
and cross-eye; so never succeeded in,the fulfill¬ 
ment of his heart’s desire, for without a plan 
he spent as much time rectifying mistakes as in 
getting toward a finish. As he finally saw his 
hopes go glimmering of ever getting afloat on 
the pond that season, he set up a yowl of dis¬ 
gust. Being large and good-hearted, instead of 
smashing up the skeleton of his hopes with an 
axe, he presented the unfinished product and 
materials to young Billy, whose engineering-in- 
instructed heart aspired toward things pertain¬ 
ing to wet water, and anytime would rather see 
the glint of sunlight flashing from wave tips 
That canoe surely was better for one man than 
for two—and many a good cruise have I made 
in her; but now we were bound to accompany 
each other, and, as neither would 'allow the 
other to go alone, she had to carry double. Yet 
we enjoyed ourselves. 
Under the fullest power the Fan streamed out 
of the mouth of Cooper’s Creek, bound for a 
Fourth of July cruise. We had been determined 
to accompany each other, and were also bound 
up river. About every inch of stowing space 
was fully utilized, not to say overworked; we 
had come down the 75 miles from Haddonfield 
(6 by railroad) rounding curves till our heads 
swam, until clearing the mouth we had slipped 
out on the wide bosom of the great river. Night 
had fallen by now, and some of i't must have 
“fell” on our pesky motor, for it stopped its 
barks, and we were left adrift on the tide in the 
from the feel of things to westward if it isn’t 
done darn quick we won’t need it again.” 
Then a fierce scramble we made of it with 
the paddles to reach shore, for “after us the 
deluge” surely was coming. I knew the spot to 
head for; it is to smile to myself when thoughts 
arise, that I used to know about every one of 
the good landing places—go ashore for a camp 
on beaches—from just below Trenton, to ’way 
down toward the Capes of Delaware. 
The lantern was lighted; then the little canoe 
tent was set up in the regulation one turn and 
two motions after we had carried the canoe 
above high water mark. We made camp in a 
grove of large willows that grew on the beach 
as fine and unspoiled as if they were rooted 
thirty miles above Camden instead of but two. 
Always there comes to me lots and plenty 
of all kinds, blackness, swiftness, wetness and 
razzle-dazzle boorny fierceness of squalls and 
than—than any old thing. So he came to me to 
go snooks. 
Being a designer, things were soon fixed. We 
shortly had built a symmetrically decked canoe, 
her blue-black hull being edged on stem and 
stern, and polished oak rudder, with 1-4 in. 
half round brass, she floated forth, a beautiful 
highly finished—if small—specimen of marine 
architecture, and was powered with a light 1 1-2 
h. p. motor. 
The two of us did cruises in that canoe, al¬ 
though the quarters were cramped more than 
somewhat with the little food-chopper motor as 
one of us, and Billy was bigger every next cruise 
as he never stopped growing. The smallness of 
our cabin accommodations no doubt appealed to 
a yachtsman sailing past, and prompted his well- 
I’ll-be-darned query: “Say! how do you do, put 
your feet around each other’s necks?” He never 
learned anything from us. 
middle of the river with ne'er a chug to comfort 
us. 
Around the horizon were strung far away arc 
lights, but where we floated half-way from any¬ 
where in the world the still blackness of that 
night was something to wonder at. You could 
have punched holes in it, only you would never 
have been able to see them; it was like the kind 
that you may perchance have read of where it 
could be cut with a knife. 
Billy remarked kind of slow arid awed like: 
“It’s black as the hinges of Hell.” But I reproved 
him, saying: “That bunch of words is copy¬ 
righted; you are a rank infringer. Say simply it 
is a very dark night, and”—trying all the time 
to get a boost from the engine—“let’s make her 
move with the paddles before an outfly may 
come that will save us all trouble on the score 
of the measly motor or any other, as judging 
thunder-storms whenever I trust myself from 
the shelter of my cottage; but the one that was 
breaking now came close up to the acme, in the 
matter of rain anyhow. I built a dam across 
the upper end of the tenit which was just large 
enough for two to lie in, though, judging by 
some of the stories that used to be told beneath 
its sheltering slope on fairer, happier nights, 
you might be tempted to say that one was 
enough. 
Yes! and the dam was a poor one, for when 
the reservoir above it had accumulated water 
to the engineering level, we found we had 
foolishly put ourselves in the line of the spillway. 
To the rescue with the lid of an oval kettle 
(growler) to bail out! If we are in some scrape 
the lid can get out and scrape too, which it 
jee-umped in and did so, making wild efforts to 
lower the wet. 
