with, inasmuch as the Irishman and Effie dared not go out. We found Tom
sitting on the horse-block, the blood running down his face, and much
bruised and swollen. He was very fierce and angry, saying that if he
lived a month, he would make him a tobacco-pouch of the Deacon's scalp.
Rebecca ventured to chide him for his threats, but offered to bind up
his head for him, which she did with her own kerchief. Uncle Rawson
then bade him go home and get to bed, and in future let alone strong
drink, which had been the cause of his beating. This he would not do,
but went off into the woods, muttering as far as one could hear him.

This morning Deacon Dole came in, and said his servant Tom had behaved
badly, for which he did moderately correct him, and that he did
thereupon run away, and he feared he should lose him. He bought him,
he said, of Captain Davenport, who brought him from the Narragansett
country, paying ten pounds and six shillings for him, and he could ill
bear so great a loss. I ventured to tell him that it was wrong to hold
any man, even an Indian or Guinea black, as a slave. My uncle, who saw
that my plainness was not well taken, bade me not meddle with matters
beyond my depth; and Deacon Dole, looking very surly at me, said I was a
forward one; that he had noted that I did wear a light and idle look in
the meeting-house; and, pointing with his cane to my hair, he said I did
render myself liable to presentment by the Grand Jury for a breach of
the statute of the General Court, made the year before, against "the
immodest laying out of the hair," &c. He then went on to say that he
had lived to see strange times, when such as I did venture to oppose
themselves to sober and grave people, and to despise authority, and
encourage rebellion and disorder; and bade me take heed lest all such
be numbered with the cursed children which the Apostle did rebuke: "Who,
as natural brute beasts, speak evil of things they understand not, and
shall utterly perish in their corruption." My dear Cousin Rebecca here