Boy Soldier

There lived a boy once, a very long time ago, whose name was Joshua. He grew up in the country, on a small farm far from the noise and close air of the city, and though he was a boy, he worked a man's day, so he was quite strong…

Part I
In which Joshua comes to a very big, very important understanding.

One day, this Joshua was at work in the fields loading bundles of grain onto a wagon when a peddler, leading a mule that pulled a wagon piled high with all manner of things, stopped at the fence by the road and shouted for the boy to come.

"I'm afraid I have no money to buy what you're selling," said Joshua when he was close enough to speak politely.

"Don't mind about that," replied the peddler. "Besides, what I want you to have you cannot buy, for in addition to being a peddler extraordinaire, I am also a servant of the King, and the King has called all who would to come at once to the city. Here." And the peddler held out a handbill—that's an old fashioned kind of flyer—that read:

Come!
Any who calls himself
my soldier, Come!
And be prepared
for war!

So begins the story of Joshua's preparation for warfare. Though as it turns out, his ideas and King's are as far apart as strange things can be...