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 put in a word in my behalf, and told the Deacon that Tom's misbehavior did all grow out of the keeping of strong liquors for sale, and that he was wrong to beat him so cruelly, seeing that he did himself place the temptation before him.

Thereupon the Deacon rose up angrily, bidding uncle look well to his forward household.

"Nay, girls," quoth mine uncle, after his neighbor had left the house, "you have angered the good man sorely."-- "Never heed," said Rebecca, laughing and clapping her hands, "he hath got something to think of more profitable, I trow, than Cousin Margaret's hair or looks in meeting.

He has been tything of mint and anise and cummin long enough, and 't is high time for him to look after the weightier matters of the law." The selling of beer and strong liquors, Mr.Ewall says, hath much increased since the troubles of the Colony and the great Indian war.
The General Court do take some care to grant licenses only to discreet persons; but much liquor is sold without warrant.