Joseph Smith Working After Playing Ball

The summer of 1841 I played my first game of ball with the Prophet.  We took turns knocking and chasing the ball, and when the game was over the Prophet said, "Brethren, hitch up your teams."'

           

We did, and we all drove to the woods.  I drove our one-horse wagon, standing on the front bolster, and Brother Joseph and Father rode on the hounds behind.  There were thirty-nine teams in the group and we gathered wood until our wagons were loaded.  When our wagon was loaded, Brother Joseph offered to pull sticks with anyone who wanted to compete with him--and he pulled them all up one at a time.  Afterwards the Prophet sent the wagons out to different places where people needed help; and he told them to cut the wood for the Saints who needed it.  Everybody loved to do as the Prophet said, and even though we were sickly, and death was all around us, folks smiled and tried to cheer everyone up.

(Mosiah Hancock, Autobiography of Mosiah L. Hancock, BYU Library, cited in Hyrum and Helen Mae Andrus, They Knew The Prophet, p. 103)