Oh, the dreadful hand! Always hanging there ready to
catch up a little boy, who would come home to supper no more, nor yet to
bed,--whose porringer would be laid away empty thenceforth, and his half-
worn shoes wait until his small brother grew to fit them.
As for all manner of superstitious observances, I used once to think I
must have been peculiar in having such a list of them, but I now believe
that half the children of the same age go through the same experiences. No
Roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue of _omens_ as I found in the
Sibylline leaves of my childhood. That trick of throwing a stone at a tree
and attaching some mighty issue to hitting or missing, which you will find
mentioned in one or more biographies, I well remember. Stepping on or over
certain particular things or spots--Dr. Johnson's especial weakness--I got
the habit of at a very early age.--I won't swear that I have not some
tendency to these not wise practices even at this present date. [How many
of you that read these notes can say the same thing!]
With these follies mingled sweet delusions, which I loved so well I would
not outgrow them, even when it required a voluntary effort to put a
momentary trust in them. Here is one which I cannot help telling you.
The firing of the great guns at the Navy-yard is easily heard at the place
where I was born and lived.
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