error of my way.

At that, old nurse must needs take fire.

"Lord save a lad from the likes o' sich compassions! Sure, sir, an the
good Lord makes pretty hair grow, 'twere casting pearls before swine to
shave his head like a cannon-ball"--this with a look at my uncle's
crown--"or to dress a proper little gentleman like a ragged
flibbergibbet."

"Tibbie, hold your tongue!" I order.

"Silence were fitter for fools and children," says Eli Kirke loftily.

There comes a time when every life must choose whether to laugh or weep
over trivial pains, and when a cut may be broken on the foil of that
glancing mirth which the good Creator gave mankind to keep our race
from going mad. It came to me on the night of my arrival on the
wharves of Boston Town.

We lumbered up through the straggling village in one of those clumsy
coaches that had late become the terror of foot-passengers in London
crowds. My aunt pointed with a pride that was colonial to the fine
light which the towns-people had erected on Beacon Hill; and told me
pretty legends of Rattlesnake Hill that fired the desire to explore
those inland dangers. I noticed that the rubble-faced houses showed
lanterns in iron clamps above most of the doorways. My kinsman's house
stood on the verge of the wilds-rough stone below, timbered plaster
above, with a circle of bay windows midway, like an umbrella. High
windows were safer in case of attack from savages, Aunt Ruth explained;