I did that myself

"Because from the earliest days of his youth, Manfred had already shown samples of unusual energy. As an eight-year-old boy, my parents were expecting him one day from the railway in Wroclaw. He was to return from a long stay in the country with two large suitcases. The boy was sent to the railway station to be picked up and returned alone. Manfred was nowhere to be found. What had happened? There was no telephone back then. The excitement grew. While my parents were still discussing it, the doorbell rang and Manfred was standing safely at the door with both suitcases. ‘You must have taken a taxi?’. ‘No, I didn't have any money.’ ‘Who carried the suitcases for you?’ ‘I did that myself.’ My parents were speechless and incredulous, because the suitcases were so heavy that Manfred would have had trouble lifting just one. But then they got the answer. ‘I was already able to lift one, I always carried it a bit and looked after the other one in the meantime, then I picked up the second one, and that's how I gradually got there, unfortunately it took a bit of time.’ And all this with such natural calm and confidence that even then my parents could confidently leave Manfred to look after himself on the whole."