From the Bottom Up: The Life Story of Alexander Irvine

by Alexander Irvine

The lack of class-conscious envy did not prevent an occasional questioning of God's arrangement of the universe; occasionally, in the winter time, when my feet were bleeding, cut by the frozen pavements, I wondered why God somehow or other could not help me to a pair of shoes. Nevertheless, I reverently worshipped the God who had consigned me to such pitiless and poorly paid labour, and believed that, being the will of God, it was surely for my best good.

My first hero worship came to me while a newsboy. A former resident of the town had returned from America with a modicum of fame. He had left a labourer, and returned a "Mr." He delivered a lecture in the town hall, and, out of curiosity, the town turned out to hear him. I was at the door with my papers. It was a very cold night, and I was shivering as I stood on one foot leaning against the door post, the sole of the other foot resting upon my bare leg. But nobody wanted papers at a lecture. The doorkeeper took pity upon me, and, to my astonishment, invited me inside. There on a bench, with my back to the wall and my feet dangling six inches from the floor, I listened to 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, I came in contact with some of the men; and their questions led me to believe that some of the experience remained on my face; but I naïvely set aside their questions and passed on down the country road to the town.

That night as I climbed to the little loft, I realized for the first time in my life that I had never slept in a bed, but on a pallet of straw. My bed covering was composed of old gunny sacks sewed together; and automatically, when I took my clothes off, I made a pillow of them. Many a night I had been kept awake by the gnawing pangs of hunger; but this night I was kept awake for a different reason. It was an indescribable ecstasy, a new-born joy. As I lay there with my head about a foot from the thatched roof, I hummed over and over again the two lines of the hymn, sometimes breaking the continuity in giving way to tears.

The second revelation came to me the following morning. I realized the condition of my body. I was in rags and dirty. I shook my mother out of her slumber and begged her to help me sew up the rents in my clothes. I had no shoes, but I carefully washed my feet, combed my tousled, unkempt hair, and took great pains in the washing of my face. All of this was a mystery to my mother. She wanted to know what had happened to me, and a very unusual thing ended the preparations for the day. My mother said I looked "purty," and kissed me as I went out of the door.