With my powers and opportunities,
another person might doubtless have an explanation for much of what I
present simply as narrative.
My first knowledge that I possessed unusual powers came to me in my
fourteenth year, when at school. Happening one day to have forgotten
to bring my noon-day luncheon, I gazed longingly at that of a small
girl who was preparing to eat hers. Looking up, her eyes met mine and
she seemed unable to withdraw them. After a moment of hesitancy she
came forward in an absent kind of way and without a word surrendered
her little basket with its tempting contents and walked away.
Inexpressibly pleased, I relieved my hunger and destroyed the basket.
After that I had not the trouble to bring a luncheon for myself: that
little girl was my daily purveyor; and not infrequently in satisfying
my simple need from her frugal store I combined pleasure and profit by
constraining her attendance at the feast and making misleading proffer
of the viands, which eventually I consumed to the last fragment. The
girl was always persuaded that she had eaten all herself; and later in
the day her tearful complaints of hunger surprised the teacher,
entertained the pupils, earned for her the sobriquet of Greedy-Gut and
filled me with a peace past understanding.
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