The Story of John Henry - VOA Stories in Special English

People still talk about the night John Henry was born. It was dark and cloudy. Then, lightning lit up the night sky. John Henry's birth was a big event. His parents showed him to everyone they met. John Henry was the most powerful-looking baby people had ever seen. He had thick arms, wide shoulders and strong muscles. John Henry started growing when he was one day old. He continued growing until he was the strongest man who ever lived. John Henry grew up in a world that did not let children stay children for long. One day, he was sitting on his father's knee. The boy picked up a small piece of steel and a workman's tool, a hammer. He looked at the two objects, then said, "A hammer will be the death of me." Before John Henry was six years old, he was carrying stones for workers building a nearby railroad. By the age of ten, he worked from early in the morning until night. Often, he would stop and listen to the sound of a train far away. He told his family, "I am going to be a steel-driver some day." Steel-drivers helped create pathways for the railroad lines. These laborers had the job of cutting holes in rock. They did this by hitting thick steel drills, or spikes. By the time John Henry was a young man, he was one of the best steel-drivers in the country. He could work for hours without missing a beat. People said he worked so fast that his hammer moved like lightning. John Henry was almost two meters tall. He weighed more than ninety kilograms. He had a beautiful deep voice, and played an instrument called a banjo. John Henry married another steel-driver, a woman named Polly Ann. They had a son. John Henry went to work as a steel-driver for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, or C-and-O. The company asked him to lead workers on a project to extend the railroad into the Allegheny Mountains. The workers made good progress on the project until they started working near Big Bend Mountain in West Virginia. The company's owners said the mountain was too big to build a railroad around it. So the workers were told they had to force their drills through it. This meant creating a tunnel more than one-and-one-half kilometers long.