How John Became a Man | Page 4

thought that it was going to hurt him? Now,
John, look here; you said that you wanted to become a man. Here's
your chance. If you get to where you can smoke a pipe, chew tobacco,
and spit, in the way that your father and my dad do, you will be a man.
Just some folks' saying that it is a bad habit doesn't need to make any
difference with you."
As John thought over his cousin's words, they did seem reasonable, and
he remembered that all the men he had ever seen used tobacco. So he
decided that, if he expected to be a man himself, he must soon begin to
use it, too. He therefore accepted the pipe and began to puff vigorously
at the stem. But try as he would, he couldn't make the pretty little curls
of smoke mount up into the air as he had watched his father and other
men do. Very soon, however, a deathly sickness began to steal over
him. His head and stomach hurt, and he could scarcely help falling
down on the floor of the cellar.

"O Will," he said, as he gave the pipe to his cousin, "I am so sick! Let's
get out of here. I feel as though I was going to die!" And John started in
an attempt to find the opening through which he had entered the cellar,
but to his surprise and terror he could not find it.
"O Will," he said, "this is all your fault! You know I didn't want to
smoke. I wish now that I hadn't listened to you. Father said tobacco
would make me sick, but I didn't know it would be so bad as this. Tell
me, does it always make people sick? and do they ever die?"
"Yes, it usually makes them pretty sick," Will answered. "But they
always get over it; and each time they smoke, they get more used to it,
or something, and after a while they don't get sick at all. Look at me. It
never makes me sick, but it did at first. Surely you can stand a little
sickness when you know that it is going to make a man of you!"
John concluded that under those circumstances he could endure his
suffering. But he did not try to smoke any more that morning. With
Will's assistance he found the doorway of the cellar and went out where
the air was more pure. Gradually, he began to feel better. When dinner
time came, however, he did not care to eat; but he kept repeating to
himself, "It won't be this way long, and I can afford to suffer if it will
make a man of me." How sad to think that one so young should be so
deceived!
Could someone have taught him then that the sick feeling that had so
distressed him was caused by the strong poison contained in the
tobacco, it might have encouraged him never to touch it again. Had his
father explained that every pound of tobacco contains three hundred
and twenty grains of this poison, one grain of which will kill a large
dog in about three minutes; or told him the story of how a man once ran
a needle and thread that had been dipped in the poison through the skin
of a frog and of how the frog in a few moments began to act like a
drunken person, vomited, and hopped about as fast as possible, and
then laid down, twitched for a moment in agony, and died; or informed
him that many people become insane just through the use of tobacco,
John might have yet been influenced to leave the poisonous stuff
alone--but perhaps his father did not know. Anyway, John was left

without this much-needed information.
Boys who are not properly warned of the danger of tobacco-using are
to be pitied more than blamed if they indulge; but their ignorance does
not lessen the harm and the evils wrought. When the poison gets into
the system, it affects the most vital organs; it undermines that strength
and destroys that beauty which ornament true manhood and which
assure an individual of success. Besides, the continued using causes the
indulger to form a habit that cannot be easily overcome.
John, being not fully warned of the dreadful consequences of using
tobacco, and yet determined to become a man, kept on smoking until he
so accustomed his system to the shock that he felt satisfied he was
becoming a conqueror and would soon be able to show his father that
he was now a man.
During the time that John was undergoing such severe temptation, his
father was very busy. He realized that his child needed more instruction
than he was receiving and that