Among these men, as among his schoolmates, John became a favorite; and he was often praised and admired for his shrewd and manly ways.  And when the report concerning his intense desire to become a man was circulated among them, they urged him to drink beer, saying that it would make him more manly and that all men must learn how to drink and smoke if they would be thought of as being manly.  As a result John was soon able to drink his share of the beer, although he did not like the taste at first.  Besides this, John discovered that at these evening gatherings he could often replenish his supply of tobacco by slipping a little from someone’s pocket when the owner was not on his guard.

Poor little John!—­such a favorite! so gifted, and yet so neglected! in regard to high ideals and purposes in life, so ignorant! and so desirous of that motherly love and interest that were ever denied him!  He endeavored to fill his life with other things; but in his day-dreams he often pictured his mother, and wondered:  “Was she like my aunt?  Would she take me and hold me in her arms while she smoothed my hair with her hand?  Would she bind my bruises?  And would she sit by my bedside at night and hold my hand in hers while telling me stories that she had read?” “Oh, how would it all seem?” he would ask himself; and then, remembering that such could never be, he would try to forget and be happy.  His mother was gone, he reasoned, and he must be content.  It was to his two little feathered friends alone that he confided his sorrows.

Had John’s father remembered the determination that filled his soul on the dark day of his wife’s funeral, and had he continued to teach his little son to pray and to serve God, how much better it might have been!  How much better might John have understood the difference between right and wrong!  In such a case, John’s life’s record might have been filled with good and noble deeds, and his habits might have been clean and wholesome.

As it was, because of his ignorance of right, he was laying a crumbling foundation formed of evil motives and desires.  And should he continue to build, using similar material, his life’s structure would be unsafe; it would be momentarily in danger of falling.  As Satan is ever waiting with the needed supplies for a work of this kind, so he was ready to aid little John.  The card parties at which John and his father were often present furnished John with much of his material.

The younger men among those who attended these gatherings, recognizing in John material of the entertaining sort, began at once to educate him.  They taught him, not only to drink beer, but also to play cards and to swear.  To John beer did not at first have a pleasant taste; but as it was when he was trying to learn to use tobacco, so it was now—­the promise that it would help him in becoming manly encouraged him to take more; and as he drank, the appetite grew.  Finally, he would sometimes drink so much that he could not keep awake.