'Do you know who is the light of the world, Willie?'

'Yes, well enough. I saw him get out of bed this morning.'

My uncle led me home without a word more. But next night he began to
teach me about the light of the world, and about walking in the light.
I do not care to repeat much of what he taught me in this kind, for
like my glow-worms it does not like to be talked about. Somehow it
loses colour and shine when one talks.

I have now shown sufficiently how my uncle would seize opportunities
for beginning things. He thought more of the beginning than of any
other part of a process.

'All's well that begins well,' he would say. I did not know what his
smile meant as he said so.

I sometimes wonder how I managed to get through the days without being
weary. No one ever thought of giving me toys. I had a turn for using my
hands; but I was too young to be trusted with a knife. I had never seen
a kite, except far away in the sky: I took it for a bird. There were no
rushes to make water-wheels of, and no brooks to set them turning in. I
had neither top nor marbles. I had no dog to play with. And yet I do
not remember once feeling weary. I knew all the creatures that went
creeping about in the grass, and although I did not know the proper
name for one of them, I had names of my own for them all, and was so
familiar with their looks and their habits, that I am confident I could
in some degree interpret some of the people I met afterwards by their
resemblances to these insects. I have a man in my mind now who has
exactly the head and face, if face it can be called, of an ant. It is