8 HISTORY OF THE MACOUN FAMILY 



attached. I have no remembrance of having had any special 

 companions in my early youth. 



My mother was very particular and tried to keep us from 

 the boys of the neighborhood and as we had a garden well fenced 

 in she, encouraged us to spend our idle time in it. She gave my 

 elder brother and sister parts of the flower beds that my father 

 had had to tend but I seemed to prefer taking an old knife and 

 going out to the fields and digging up flowers and bringing them 

 in and making a flower garden of my own. I only remember 

 primroses and the wild hyacinth. 



About this time a sect of Methodists came to our village, 

 called the Ranters, and preached in the village schoolhouse. 

 .They were troubled with idle men and boys. My mother was 

 asked to allow the Ranters to preach in our kitchen on Sunday 

 and she allowed them to do so. Later, a prayer meeting was 

 established there and it was one of the old time meetings and the 

 hearers would make responses when the speaker would bring out 

 anything of an unusual or startling nature. One evening the 

 speaker said, amongst other things, that if the people would not 

 repent they would all be cast into Hell and tormented forever. 

 One of the old men who frequently responded woke up as the 

 preacher reached his climax and yelled at the top of his voice: 

 "God grant it!" To crown it all I laughed so heartily that I fell 

 over and caused a great deal of disturbance, in the midst of which 

 a canary, we had, started to sing. This was only one of the many 

 occurrences that took place in the meetings held at our 

 house. 



I do not wish to say that I could not tell a lie, like George 

 Washington, but I remember well I had the moral courage, even 

 as a boy, to not lie if I were caught in doing something wrong. I 

 will cite one circumstance that gave me great credit with the good 

 people of our neighborhood. One Sunday I was given the task 

 by my mother of watching our garden, but as soon as the meeting 

 commenced in the house I started for a stream at some distance 

 and had a fine time wading and chasing fish. On my way home I 

 turned up a lane which was crossed by another and as I reached 

 the crossing I saw Mr. Montgomery, our Squire, and his wife 



