---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 6
number: 12
published: 1903-10
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Tell Him So. A Poem", *Improvement Era* 6, no. 12 (October 1903): 925.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0612unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0612unse
start_page: 925
end_page: 925
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-10)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0612unse
  publication_year: 1903
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Tell Him So. A Poem

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A LIFE SKETCH.                          919

indeed if my baby boy doesn't     know me," she said, as she reached
the loving arms for him in vain.
     After a time, the sorrowing husband and motherless children
continued on their way alone, and many of the people in the set-
tlements through which they passed came out to see the long
trains of "Mormons," as though they were a wild beast show.         A
little boy sitting   on a gate-post in one of the towns to watch them
pass by, turned to his father and was heard to remark, "Why,
papa, I don't see but what they look just like othe'r folks."
     While in camp, near a certain village, Brother Staker sent his
daughter Sarah to a tin shop to have the handle soldered to a
quart cup, cooking utensils being scarce and hard to procure.
When she stated her errand, the tinner thought he would have
some fun with this unfledged "Mormon," so he winked slyly to the
by-standers and said,
     "So you want the handle soldered to your cup, do you?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Why, you're a 'Mormon,' ain't ye?"
     "Yes,   sir."

      "Then why don't you have faith that the handle will solder
itself, and surely it would be so according. Haven't you faith to
heal your cup?"
     "No, sir, I haven't faith that I can mend   my cup; but if you
will put the handle on good, I have faith that it will stay on."
     The bystanders laughed and clapped their hands, and the tin-
ner was so amused with the answer that he mended the cup "good,"
according to her request, and refused any compensation for his
trouble.
     After a long and toilsome journey, they reached the "prom-
ised land," and here faced uncomplaingly new conditions and many
hardships.    And the children grew up and waxed strong, and took
the world    much as it came, as children will; and if their wants
occupied the father's hands, their little sayings and doings solaced
his heart, as God intended they should.      Yet there were times
when he felt keenly his inability to fill the double duty of father
and mother, and his heart bled within him for the loss of one at
once so dear and so necessary to the welfare of the children.      By
degrees they scattered out.       Some had married, and some went