At any rate I used to hide my eyes from the sloops and schooners that were wont to lie at the end of the bridge, and I confess that traces of this undefined terror lasted very long .-- One other source of alarm had a still more fearful significance.

There was a great wooden HAND,--a glove-maker's sign, which used to swing and creak in the blast, as it hung from a pillar before a certain shop a mile or two outside of the city.
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.