This etext was produced by Jack Eden wakerobinorgTHE WRITINGS OF JOHN BURROUGHSWITH PORTRAITS AND MANY ILLUSTRATIONSVOLUME VPEPACTONPREFACEI HAVE all the more pleasure in calling my book after the title of the first chapter Pepacton because this is the Indian name of my native stream In its watershed I was born and passed my youth and here on its banks my kindred sleep Here also I have gathered much of the harvest poor though it be that I have put in this and in previous volumes of my writingsThe term Pepacton is said to mean marriage of the waters and with this significance it suits my purpose well as this book is also a union of many currentsThe Pepacton rises in a deep cleft or gorge in the mountains the scenery of which is of the wildest and ruggedest character For a mile or more there is barely room for the road and the creek at the bottom of the chasm On either hand the mountains interrupted by shelving overhanging precipices rise abruptly to a great height About half a century ago a pious Scotch family just arrived in this country came through this gorge One of the little boys gazing upon the terrible desolation of the scene so unlike in its savage and inhuman aspects anything he had ever seen at home nestled close to his mother and asked with bated breath Mither is there a God hereYet the Pepacton is a placid current especially in its upper portions where my youth fell but all its tributaries are swift mountain brooks fed by springs the best in the world It drains a high pastoral country lifted into long roundbacked hills and rugged wooded ranges by the subsiding impulse of the Catskill range of mountains and famous for its superior dairy and other farm products It is many long years since with the restlessness of youth I broke away from the old ties amid those hills but my heart has always been there and why should I not come back and name one of my books for the old streamCONTENTS   I PEPACTON A SUMMER VOYAGE   II SPRINGS   III AN IDYL OF THE HONEYBEE   IV NATURE AND THE POETS   V NOTES BY THE WAY   VI FOOTPATHS   VII A BUNCH OF HERBS   VIII WINTER PICTURES   INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS   FRINGED GENTIAN         From a photograph by         Herbert W Gleason   THE ASA GRAY SPRING         From a photograph by         Herbert W Gleason   KINGBIRD          From a drawing by L A         Fuertes   REDWINGED BLACKBIRD         From a photograph by         Herbert W Gleason   IN THE ORCHARD         From a drawing by Charles         H Woodbury   A MUSKRATS NEST         From a photograph by         Herbert W Gleason   A FIELD PATH          From a photograph by         Clifton JohnsonPEPACTONIA SUMMER VOYAGEWHEN 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 sendoff 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 way how else should I have raised the breeze The boatbuilding warmed the blood it made the germ take it whetted my appetite for the voyage There is nothing like serving an apprenticeship to fortune like earning the right to your tools In most enterprises the temptation is always to begin too far along we want to start where somebody 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 afishinghow they bring in the trout and those hunters who run their own bullets or make their own cartridges the game is already mortgaged to themWhen my boat was finishedand it was a very simple affairI was as eager as a boy to be off I feared the river would all run by before I could wet her bottom 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 noiselessly upon her and see what all those willow screens and baffling curves concealed As a fisherman and pedestrian I had been able to come at the stream only at certain points now the most private and secluded retreats of the nymph would be opened to me every bend and eddy every cove hedged in by swamps or passage walled in by high alders would be at the beck of my paddleWhom shall one take with him when he goes acourting Nature This is always a vital question There are persons who will stand between you and that which you seek they obtrude themselves they monopolize your attention they blunt your sense of the shy halfrevealed intelligences about you I want for companion a dog or a boy or a person who has the virtues of dogs and boystransparency goodnature curiosity open sense and a nameless quality that is akin to trees and growths and the inarticulate forces of nature With him you are alone and yet have company you are free