Any person who has any natural gift, and everybody has some natural
gift, is sure of finding encouragement in this noble country of
ours, provided he will but exhibit it. I had not walked more than
three miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple,
which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and going
to a heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took up
some, and then went into the churchyard, and placing myself just
below the tower, my right foot resting on a ledge, about two foot
from the ground, I, with my left hand--being a left-handed person,
do you see--flung or chucked up a stone, which, lighting on the top
of the steeple, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet high,
did there remain. After repeating this feat two or three times, I
'hulled' up a stone, which went clean over the tower, and then one,
my right foot still on the ledge, which rising at least five yards
above the steeple, did fall down just at my feet. Without knowing
it, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself, doing what,
perhaps, not five men in England could do. Two men, who were
passing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I had
done flinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me a
compliment on what they had seen me do, proposed that I should join
company with them; I asked them who they were, and they told me.
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