How John Became a Man | Page 2

us, and she cannot teach you the things that she had planned that
you should know; so we will have to do the best that we can, but you
must help me. First of all, I want you to learn how to pray; for there is a
God in heaven, who made you, and of whom your mother expected to
tell you. Before Him we should bow down and pray every night before
we go to sleep."
"Does He hear all the words we say?" asked little John in an awed tone,
quite unable to comprehend his father's meaning, "and does He look at
us when we are asleep?"
"Yes," his father answered; "God sees and knows everything. Now, I
will tell you the short prayer that I used to say when I was a little boy
like you--the prayer that my mother taught me."
Thus it was that John, kneeling beside his little bed repeated the prayer
that has been lisped by thousands of other baby voices:
"Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I
should die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take."

As the days and weeks sped by, John thought often of his dear mama
and wished that he might see her; but he as often would recall his
father's words to be a little man, and with all his strength he endeavored
to be what he considered a man ought to be. But although he tried, in
his childish way, to be one, he was often very lonely; and had it not
been for frequent visits to his uncle's home, several miles distant, he
would have missed his precious mother even more than he did. While
at his uncle's, he could play with his two cousins, Will and Charley. At
last it was decided that it would be best for John and his father to go
and make their home with the uncle until John was older.
Now Charley was just about John's age; but as Charley was a cripple,
John had chosen Will, who was several years the oldest, to be his
closest friend and companion. Regardless of these facts, however, the
three boys generally played together. Their playground was the vast
dooryard extending far out over the prairie.
In time they were given the responsibility of herding the cows. To herd
the cows meant to see that the cattle did not wander about in the
neighborhood corn, wheat, and barley fields that were scattered about
here and there over the prairies and that were in but few instances
fenced, and to see that they were driven to some water-place at certain
intervals and were brought home at the milking hour.
The watering places were known as "buffalo-wallows," for they had
been made by the buffalos in wallowing. These basins were usually
kept filled with water by the rains. Some of the "wallows," or "ponds,"
were rather deep, and were treacherous because of sudden "drop-offs";
but they were usually shallow, and it was generally safe for the children
to play along the edge.
After the first sharp edge of his grief was dulled, John's father did not
feel it so keenly his duty to instruct his child and to teach him to
reverence his Creator; and when John was about six years of age, the
father was kept so busy with his work that he had but little time to
spend with the child. John's aunt, too, although a good woman, was too
much occupied with housekeeping to do her duty by her own two boys,
much less by a third. So John and his cousins had spent nearly all of the

three years that they had been together in doing as they pleased, and in
finding as much enjoyment in living as it was possible for them to find.
It was, therefore, not strange that they had learned and invented many
new ways to get amusement, and that some of these were evil; for
Satan, as he always does in such cases, had lent them a helping hand.
The work of attending to the cows did not, of course, occupy nearly all
their time, and the boys found it great sport to play around the wallows
and in them.
On one occasion Will said:
"Say, boys, did you ever hear the story about the man who walked upon
the water? I don't remember just how the story went; but I heard
somebody say that the man's name was Jesus, and that another man got
out of a boat to go and meet Him. The first fellow did all right, but the
second one came very near drowning because he looked down at the
water. Maybe he wanted to see how deep the