answered the captain. "Then bring them along with us, but more gently
than their fellows. There be qualities in the youth which may make him
valiant to fight and sober to toil and pious to pray, and in the
maiden that may fit her to become a mother in our Israel, bringing up
babes in better nurture than her own hath been.--Nor think ye, young
ones, that they are the happiest, even in our lifetime of a moment,
who misspend it in dancing round a Maypole."

And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock-foundation
of New England, lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the
Maypole and threw it with his own gauntleted hand over the heads of
the Lord and Lady of the May. It was a deed of prophecy. As the moral
gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was their
home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to
it no more. But as their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest
roses that had grown there, so in the tie that united them were
intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They went
heavenward supporting each other along the difficult path which it was
their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the
vanities of Merry Mount.




THE GENTLE BOY.


In the course of the year 1656 several of the people called
Quakers--led, as they professed, by the inward movement of the
spirit--made their appearance in New England. Their reputation as