with an armful of brilliant red poppies. To this day poppies continue
to be my greatest favourites.

When I was about four or five years old, I was observed to give a
decided preference to the use of my left hand. Everything was done to
prevent my using it in preference to the right. My mother thought that
it arose from my being carried on the wrong arm by my nurse while an
infant. The right hand was thus confined, and the left hand was used.
I was constantly corrected, but "on the sly" I always used it,
especially in drawing my first little sketches. At last my father,
after viewing with pleasure one of my artistic efforts, done with the
forbidden hand, granted it liberty and independence for all time
coming. "Well," he said, "you may go on in your own way in the use of
your left hand, but I fear you will be an awkward fellow in everything
that requires handiness in life. I used my right hand in all that was
necessary, and my left in all sorts of practical manipulative affairs.
My left hand has accordingly been my most willing and obedient servant
in transmitting my will through my fingers into material or visible
forms. In this way I became ambidexter.

When I was about four years old, I often followed my father into his
workshop when he had occasion to show to his visitors some of his
mechanical contrivances or artistic models. The persons present
usually expressed their admiration in warm terms of what was shown to
them. On one occasion I gently pulled the coat-tail of one of the
listeners and confidentially said to him, as if I knew all about it,
"My papa's a kevie Fellae!" My father was so greatly amused by this
remark that he often referred to it as "the last good thing" from that
old-fashioned creature little Jamie.