a lecture about
a "rail-splitter." It took me many years to find out what a
rail-splitter was; but the rail-splitter's name was Lincoln, and he
became my first hero.

From the selling of papers on the streets of Antrim, I went to work on
a farm, the owner of which was a Member of Parliament for our county,
one James Chaine by name. My first work on the farm was the keeping of
crows off the potato crop. Technically speaking, I was a scarecrow. It
was in the autumn, and the potatoes were ripe. I was permitted to help
myself to them, so three times a day I made a fire at the edge of the
wood and roasted as many potatoes as I could eat, and for the first
time in my life I enjoyed the pleasure of a full meal.

In the solitude of the potato field came my first vision. I was a firm
believer in the "wee people," but my visions were not entirely peopled
with fairies. The life of the woods was very fascinating to me. I
enjoyed the birds and the wild flowers, and the sportive rabbits, of
which the woods were full. The bell which closed the labourer's day
was always an unwelcome sound to me.

After the ingathering of the potato crop, I was given work in the
farmyard, attending to horses and cattle, as jack of all jobs. In the
spring of the following year, I went again to work in the potato
field, and later to care for the crop as before. It was during my
second autumn as a scarecrow that I had an experience which changed
the current of my life. It was on a Monday, and during the entire day
I kept humming over and over two lines of a hymn I had heard in the
Sunday School. Nothing ever happened to me that remains quite so
vividly in my mind as that experience.

I was sitting on the fence at the close of the day, a very happy day.
I must have been moved by the colour of the sky, or by the emotion
produced by the lines of the hymn. It may have been both. But, as I
sat on the fence and watched the sun set over the trees, an emotion
swept over me, and the tears began to flow. My body seemed to change
as by the pouring into it of some strange, life-giving fluid. I wanted
to shout, to scream aloud; but instead, I went rapidly over the hill
into the woods, dropped on my knees, and began to pray.

It was getting dark, but the woods were filled with light. Perhaps it
was the light of my vision or the light of my mind--I know not. But
when I came back into the open, I felt as though I were walking on
air. As I passed through the farmyard