[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

“Isaac,” said Mrs. Partington, as that interesting
juvenile was playing a game of “knuckle up” against
the kitchen wall, to the imminent danger of the old
clock which ticked near by, “this is a marvellous age,
as Deacon Babson says, and perhaps there 's no harm in
'em, but I 'm afeard no good 'll come out of it — no good
at all — for you to keep playing marvels all the time,
as you do. I am afeard you will learn how to gambol,
and become a bad boy, and forget all the good device I
have given you. Ah! it would break my soul, Isaac, to
have you given to naughty tricks, like some wicked boys
that I know, who will be rakeshames in the airth if they
don't die before their time comes. So, don't gambol,
dear, and always play as if you had just as lieves the
minister would see you as not.” She handed him a
little bag she had made for him to keep his marbles in,
and patted his head kindly as he went again to play.
Ike was fortified, for the next five minutes, against
temptation to do evil; but


“Chase span, in the ring,
Knuckle up, or anything,”
are potent when arrayed against out-of-sight solicitude,
and we fear that the boy forgot. There is much reason
in the old lady's fear.

p677-100

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