"At Langley Mills, nine miles from here," was the reply.
"You can't go home in this shower; you had better walk home with me," said the pugilist, and his invitation was accepted.
The shower didn't pass as soon as expected; but rather increased in severity as night approached, and it became apparent that the guest must be provided with lodgings, as the family hadn't the heart to turn him out in such a storm. Then, too, there was another reason for it—they had become somewhat interested in listening to his explanations of his belief, the doctrines being all new to them.
The eldest son, a boy about ten years old, solved the question of lodging by offering to give up his bed, and the mother helped out the matter by arranging for the boy to occupy an improvised bed in the room in which his parents slept.
When the time for retiring arrived the stranger asked, as a special favor, the privilege of praying with the family, and the father replied to this by the declaration that he was not a religious man, that he was a pugilist, a cock-fighter, a man who didn't believe in prayer and had no regard for things which others considered sacred; but if it would afford him any gratification, they would be willing to listen to him pray.
The prayer was offered, and in it the guest thanked the Lord that he had found one man who would accept the truth.
The eldest son, the boy who gave up his bed for the stranger to sleep in, recalls hearing his father ask his wife some time after retiring for the night, what the man could have meant by alluding, in his prayer, to one man whom he had found in that town who would accept the truth. She said she had no idea what man he had in mind, and the husband told her he would find out by asking him the next morning. And ask him he did, the next morning, and was not a little surprised when the Elder turned and, pointing to him, said, "You are the man, for I am sure you will yet embrace the Gospel!"
That local Elder (whose name was Aaron Nelson, and who afterwards migrated to Utah, and died only a few years since in St. George) continued to come every Wednesday and hold meetings in Loscoe, and Mr. Parkin generally attended his meetings and stood by him, to see that he got fair play.
Finally, at the close of one of the meetings Mr. Parkin asked the privilege of making an announcement. Consent being granted, he said: "I want to give out notice (Elder Nelson being willing) that on Wednesday night next I will be baptised by him, at Loscoe Dam, for I have become convinced that 'Mormonism' is true."
He was deliberate about embracing it, but he was as true to it thereafter as ever needle was to the pole.