Smoking was bad enough! Winona was even opposed to his becoming a printer.

Those advantages of the craft extolled by Dave Cowan were precisely what Winona deemed undesirable.

A boy should rather be studious and of good habits and learn to write a good hand so that he could become a bookkeeper, perhaps even in the First National Bank itself--and always stay in one place.
Winona disapproved of gypsies and all their ways.

Gypsies were rolling stones.

She strove to entice the better nature of Wilbur with moral placards bearing printed bits from the best authors.