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would understand me. She used to visit me every noon hour, on
the pretence of bringing my dinner. We had a secret compact that,
whether there was any dinner to bring or not, she should come with a
bowl wrapped in a piece of cloth, as was the custom with other men's
sisters and wives.
There was a straight stretch of road a mile long, and, as I sat on the
roadside watching for her, I could tell a mile off whether she had any
dinner or not. When there was anything in the bowl, she carried it

steadily; when empty, she would swing it like a censer.
When I told my sister about these strange happenings of the heart, she
looked very anxiously into my eyes, and said:
"'Deed, I just think ye're goin' mad."
Before leaving the farm, I experienced an incident which, although of a
different character, equalled in its intensity and beauty my awakening
to what, for lack of a better term, I called a religious life.
A young lady from the city was visiting at the home of the land steward,
and, as I knew more about the woods and the inhabitants thereof than
anybody else on the farm, I was often ordered to take visitors around.
The land steward's daughter accompanied the young lady on her first
visit to the roads; but afterward she came alone, and we traversed the
ravine from one end to the other. We collected flowers and specimens,
and watched the wild animals.
I had never seen such a beautiful human being. Her voice was soft and
musical. She wore her hair loosely down her back, and was a perfect
picture of health and beauty.
One day I lay at full length on my back, asleep by the edge of the wood.
When I awoke, this city girl was standing at my side. I jumped to my
feet and stood erect, and I remember distinctly the emotions that swept
through me. I was startled at first, startled as I had been on a previous
occasion when, at a sharp turn in the footpath in the ravine, I met a
fawn. I remembered my first impulse then was for a word, a word of
conciliation, for I was fascinated by the beauty of the graceful beast.
Graceful as a nymph it stood there, nerves strained like a bow bent for
the discharge of an arrow, its head poised in air, fire shooting from its
eyes. It remained only for an instant, and then with a frightened plunge
it cleared the clump of laurel bushes and disappeared.
When I stood before this beautiful city girl, I remembered the fawn,
and expected the girl instantly to vanish out of my sight. There was
something of the fawn in her graceful form, some of the fire in her blue

eyes, and in her girlish laugh a suggestion of the freedom of the
mountain and glen. I think it was in that moment of intensity that I
crossed the bridge which separates the boy from the man. An
impassable gulf was fixed between this girl's station in life and mine.
She was the daughter of a florist, and I was the son of a cobbler.
She returned home shortly after this, and I was promoted from the
potato field to be a groom's helper in the stables of "the master." We
called his residence the "big house." It was like a castle on the Rhine. A
very wonderful man was this Member of Parliament to the labourers
around on his demesne. Not the least part of this wonder consisted in
the tradition that he had a different suit of clothes for every day in the
year. He was very fond of fine horses, and gloried in the fact that he
owned a winner of the Derby. He kept a large stable of racing, hunting,
and carriage horses.
This was the advent of a new life to me. I was taken in hand by the
head groom and fitted out with two suits of clothes, and in this change
the first great ambition of my life was satisfied. I became the possessor
of a hard hat. For two years, I had instinctively longed for something
on my head that I could politely remove to a lady. The first night I
marched down that village street, shoes well polished, starched linen,
and hard hat, I expected the whole town to be there to see me. I had
made several attempts at this hat business before. They organized a
flute band in the town and I joined it for the sake of the hat. But it was
too nice a thing to be lying around when people were hungry, and, as it
was in pawn most of the time, I