l
childhood, and he was put in bed immediately. The world never looked so
pleasant to John, but to bed he was forced to go. He was excused from
all chores; he was not even to go after the cows. John said he thought
he ought to go after the cows,--much as he hated the business usually,
he would now willingly have wandered over the world after cows,--and for
this heroic offer, in the condition he was, he got credit for a desire
to do his duty; and this unjust confidence in him added to his torture.
And he had intended to set his hooks that night for eels. His cousin
came home, and sat by his bedside and condoled with him; his schoolma'am
had sent word how sorry she was for him, John was Such a good boy. All
this was dreadful.

He groaned in agony. Besides, he was not to have any supper; it would
be very dangerous to eat a morsel. The prospect was appalling. Never
was there such a long twilight; never before did he hear so many sounds
outdoors that he wanted to investigate. Being ill without any illness
was a horrible condition. And he began to have real stomach-ache now;
and it ached because it was empty. John was hungry enough to have eaten
the New England Primer. But by and by sleep came, and John forgot his
woes in dreaming that he knew where Madagascar was just as easy as
anything.

It was this lie that came back to John the night he was trying to
be affected by the revival. And he was very much ashamed of it, and
believed he would never tell another. But then he fell thinking whether,
with the "picra," and the going to bed in the afternoon, and the loss
of his supper, he had not been sufficiently paid for it. And in this
unhopeful frame of mind he dropped off in sleep.

And the truth must be told, that in the morning John was no nearer to
realizing the terrors he desired to feel. But he was a conscientious
boy, and would do nothing to interfere with the influences of the
season. He not only put himself away from them all, but he refrained
from doing almost everything that he wanted to do. There came at that
time a newspaper, a secular newspaper, which had in it a long account
of the Long Island races, in which the famous horse "Lexington" was a
runner. John was fond of horses, he knew about Lexington, and he had
looked forward to the result of this race with keen interest. But to
read the account of it how he felt might destroy his seriousness of
mind, and in all reverence and simplicity he felt it--be a means of