I know what I'm talking aboot when I speak of this. Mind ye, I've passed much time of late years in hospitals. I've talked to these laddies when they'd be lying there, thinking—thinking. They'd a' the time in the world to think after they began to get better. And they'd be knowing, then, that they would live—that the bullet or the shell or whatever it micht be that had dropped them had not finished them. And they'd know, too, by then, that the limb was lost for aye, or the een or whatever it micht be.

Noo, think of a laddie coming hame. He's discharged frae the hospital and frae the army. He's a civilian again. Say he's blind. He's got his pension, his allowance, whatever it may be. There's his living. But is he to be just a hulk, needing some one always to care for him? That's a' very fine at first. Everyone's glad tae do it. He's a hero, and a romantic figure. But let's look a wee bit ahead.

Let's get beyond Jock just at first, when all the folks are eager to see him and have him talk to them. They're glad to sit wi' him, or tae tak' him for a bit walk. He'll no bore them. But let's be thinking of Jock as he'll be ten years frae noo. Who'll be remembering then hoo they felt when he first came home? They'll be thinking of the nuisance it is tae be caring for him a' the time, and of the way he's always aboot the hoose, needing care and attention.

What I'm afraid of is that tae many of the laddies wull be tae tired to fit themselves tae be other than helpless creatures, despite their wounds or their blindness. They can do wonders, if we'll help them. We maun not encourage those laddies tae tak' it tae easy the noo. It's a cruel hard thing to tell a boy like yon that he should be fitting himself for life. It seems that he ought to rest a bit, and tak' things easy, and that it's a sma' thing, after all he's done, to promise him good and loving care all his days.

Aye, and that's a sma' thing enough—if we're sure we can keep our promise. But after every war—and any old timer can tell ye I'm tellin' ye the truth the noo—there have been crippled and blinded men who have relied upon such promises—and seen them forgotten, seen themselves become a burden. No man likes to think he's a burden. It irks him sair. And it will be irksome specially tae laddies like those who have focht in France.

It's no necessary that any man should do that. The miracles of to-day are all at the service of the wounded laddies. And I've seen things I'd no ha' believed were possible, had I had to depend on the testimony o' other eyes than my own. I've seen men sae hurt that it didna seem possible they could ever do a'thing for themselves again. And I've seen those same men fend for themselves in a way that was as astonishing as it was heart rending.

The great thing we maun all do wi' the laddies that are sae maimed and crippled is never tae let them ken we're thinking of their misfortunes. That's a hard thing, but we maun do it. I've seen sic a laddie get into a 'bus or a railway carriage. And I've seen him wince when een were turned upon him. Dinna mistake me. They were kind een that gazed on him. The folk were gude folk; they were fu' of sympathy. They'd ha' done anything in the world for the laddie. But—they were doing the one thing they shouldna ha' done.

Gi'en you're an employer, and a laddie wi' a missing leg comes tae ye seeking a job. You've sent for him, it may be; ye ken work ye can gie him that he'll be able tae do. A' richt—that's splendid, and it's what maun be done. But never let him know you're thinking at a' that his leg's gone. Mak' him feel like ithers. We maun no' be reminding the laddies a' the time that they're different noo frae ither folk. That's the hard thing.

Gi'en a man's had sic a misfortune. We know—it's been proved a thousand times ower—that a man can rise above sic trouble. But he canno do it if he's thinking of it a' the time. The men that have overcome the handicaps of blindness and deformity are those who gie no thought at all to what ails them—who go aboot as if they were as well and as strong as ever they've been.

It's a hard thing not to be heeding such things.

But it's easier than what these laddies have had to do, and what they must go on doing a' the rest of their lives. They'll not be able to forget their troubles very long; there'll be plenty to remind them. But let's not gae aboot the streets wi' our een like a pair of looking glasses in which every puir laddie sees himsel' reflected.

It's like the case of the lad that's been sair wounded aboot the head; that's had his face sae mangled and torn that he'd be a repulsive sicht were it not for the way that he became sae. If he'd been courting a lassie before he was hurt wadna the thought of how she'd be feeling aboot him be amang his wairst troubles while he lay in hospital? I've talked wi' such, and I know.

Noo, it's a hard thing to see the face one loves changed and altered and made hideous. But it's no sae hard as to have tha face! Who wull say it is? And we maun be carefu' wi' such boys as that, tae. They're verra sensitive; all those that have been hurt are sensitive. It's easy to wound their feelings. And it should be easy for all of us to enter into a conspiracy amang ourselves to hide the shock of surprise we canna help feeling, whiles, and do nothing that can make a lad-die wha's fresh frae the hospital grow bitter over the thocht that he's nae like ither men the noo.

Yon's a bit o' a sermon I've been preaching, I'm afraid. But, oh, could ye ha' seen the laddies as I ha' seen them, in the hospitals, and afterward, when they were waiting tae gae hame! They wad ask me sae often did I think their ain folk could stand seeing them sae changed.

"Wull it be sae hard for them, Harry?" they've said the me, over and over again. "Whiles I've thocht it would ha' been better had I stayed oot there——"

Weel, I ken that that's nae sae. I'd gie a' the world tae ha' my ain laddie back, no matter hoo sair he'd been hurt. And there's never a faither nor a mither but wad feel the same way—aye, I'm sure o' that. Sae let us a' get together and make sure that there's never a look in our een or a shrinking that can gie' any o' these laddies, whether they're our kin or no, whether we saw them before, the feeling that there's any difference in our eyes between them and ourselves.

The greatest suffering any man's done that's been hurt is in his spirit, in his mind—not in his body. Bodily pain passes and is forgotten. But the wounds of the human spirit lie deep, and it takes them a lang time tae heal. They're easily reopened, tae; a careless word, a glance, and a' a man has gone through is brought back to his memory, when, maybe, he'd been forgetting. I've seen it happen too oft.



CHAPTER XXI

I've said sae muckle aboot myself in this book that I'm a wee bit reluctant tae say mair. But still, there's a thing I've thought about a good deal of late, what wi' all this talk of hoo easy some folk have it, and how hard others must work. I think there's no one makes a success of any sort wi'oot hard work—and wi'oot keeping up hard work, what's mair. I ken that's so of all the successful men I've ever known, all over the world. They work harder than maist folk will ever realize, and it's just why they're where they are.

Noawadays it's almost fashionable to think that any man that's got mair than others has something wrong about him. I know folks are always saying to me that I'm sae lucky; that all I have tae do is to sing twa-three songs in an evening and gae my ain gait the rest of my time. If they but knew the way I'm working!

Noo, I'd no be having anyone think I'm complaining. I love my work. It's what I'd rather do, till I retire and tak' the rest I feel I've earned, than any work i' a' the world. It's brought me happiness, my work has, and friends, and my share o' siller. But—it's work.

It's always been work. It's work to-day. It'll be work till I'm ready to stop doing it altogether. And, because, after all, a man knows more of his own work than of any other man's, I think I'll tell you just hoo I do work, and hoo much of my time it takes beside the hour or two I'll be in the theatre during a performance.

Weel, to begin with, there's the travelling. I travel in great comfort. But I dinna care how comfortable ye are, travel o' the sort I do is bound tae be a tiring thing. It's no sae hard in England or in Scotland. Distances are short. There's seldom need of spending a nicht on a train. So there it's easy. But when it comes to the United States and Canada it's a different matter.

There it's almost always a case of starting during the nicht, after a performance. That means switching the car, coupling it to a train. I'm a gude sleeper, but I'll defy any man tae sleep while his car is being hitched to a train, or whiles it's being shunted around in a railroad yard. And then, as like as not, ye'll come tae the next place in the middle of the nicht, or early in the morning, whiles you're taking your beauty sleep. The beauty sleeps I've had interrupted in America by having a switching engine come and push and haul me aboot! 'Is it any wonder I've sae little o' my manly beauty left?

There's a great strain aboot constant travelling, too. There will aye be accidents. No serious ones, maist of them, but trying tae the nerves and disturbing tae the rest. And there's aye some worry aboot being late. Unless you've done such work as mine, you canna know how I dread missing a performance. I've the thought of all the folk turning oot, and having them disappointed. There's a sense of responsibility one feels toward those who come oot sae to hear one sing. One owes them every care and thought.

Sae it's the nervous strain as much as the actual weariness of travel that I'm thinking of. It's a relief, on a long tour, tae come to a city where one's booked for a week. I'm no ower fond of hotels, but there's comfort in them at such times. But still, that's another thing. I miss my hame as every man should when he's awa frae it. It's hard work to keep comfortable and happy when I'm on tour so much.

Oh, aye, I can hear what you're saying to yourself! You're saying I've talked sae much about hoo fond I am of travelling. You'll be thinking, maybe, you'd be glad of the chance to gae all around the world, travelling in comfort and luxury. Aye, and so am I. It's just that I want you to understand that it's all wear and tear. It all takes it out of me.

But that's no what I'm meaning when I talk of the work I do. I'm thinking of the wee songs themselves, and the singing of them. Hoo do you think I get the songs I sing? Do you think they're just written richt off? Weel, it's not so.

A song, for me, you'll ken, is muckle mair than just a few words and a melody. It must ha' business. The way I'll dress, the things I do, the way I'll talk between verses—it's all one. A song, if folks are going to like it, has to be thought out wi' the greatest care.

I keep a great scrapbook, and it gaes wi' me everywhere I go. In it I put doon everything that occurs tae me that may help to make a new song, or that will make an old one go better. I'll see a queer yin in the street, maybe. He'll do something wi' his hands, or he'll stand in a peculiar fashion that makes me laugh. Or it'll be something funny aboot his claes.

It'll be in Scotland, maist often, of course, that I'll come upon something of the sort, but it's no always there. I've picked up business for my songs everywhere I've ever been. My scrap book is almost full now—my second one, I mean. And I suppose that there must be ideas buried in it that are better by far than any I've used, for I must confess that I can't always read the notes I've jotted down. I dash down a line or two, often, and they must seem to me to be important at the time, or I'd no be doing it. But later, when I'm browsing wi' the old scrapbook, blessed if I can make head or tail of them! And when I can't no one else can; Mrs. Lauder has tried, often enough, and laughed at me for a salt yin while she did it.

But often and often I've found a treasure that I'd forgotten a' aboot in the old book. I mind once I saw this entry——

"Think about a song called the 'Last of the Sandies'."

I had to stop and think a minute, and then I remembered that I'd seen the bill of a play, while I was walking aboot in London, that was called "The Last of the Dandies." That suggested the title for a song, and while I sat and remembered I began to think of a few words that would fit the idea.

When I came to put them together to mak' a song I had the help of my old Glasga friend, Rob Beaton, who's helped me wi' several o' my songs. I often write a whole song myself; sometimes, though, I can't seem to mak' it come richt, and then I'm glad of help frae Beaton or some other clever body like him. I find I'm an uncertain quantity when it comes to such work; whiles I'll be able to dash off the verses of a song as fast as I can slip the words doon upon the paper. Whiles, again, I'll seem able never to think of a rhyme at a', and I just have to wait till the muse will visit me again.

There's no telling how the idea for a song will come. But I ken fine how a song's made when once you have the idea! It's by hard work, and in no other way. There's nae sic a thing as writing a song easily—not a song folk will like. Don't let anyone tell you any different—or else you may be joining those who are sae sure I've refused the best song ever written—theirs!

The ideas come easily—aye! Do you mind a song I used to sing called "I Love a Lassie?" I'm asked ower and again to sing it the noo, so I'm thinking perhaps ye'll ken the yin I mean. It's aye been one of the songs folk in my audiences have liked best. Weel, ane day I was just leaving a theatre when the man at the stage door handed me a letter—a letter frae Mrs. Lauder, I'll be saying.

"A lady's handwriting, Harry," he said, jesting. "I suppose you love the lassies,"

"Oh, aye—ye micht say so," I answered. "At least—I'm fond o' all the lassies, but I only love yin."

And I went off thinking of the bonnie lassie I'd loved sae well sae lang.

"I love ma lassie," I hummed to myself. And then I stopped in my tracks. If anyone was watching me they'd ha' thought I was daft, no doot!!

"I love a lassie!" I hummed. And then I thocht: "Noo—there's a bonny idea for a bit sang!"

That time the melody came to me frae the first. It was wi' the words I had the trouble. I couldna do anything wi' them at a' at first. So I put the bit I'd written awa'. But whiles later I remembered it again, and I took the idea to my gude friend Gerald Grafton. We worked a long time before we hit upon just the verses that seemed richt. But when we'd done we had a song that I sang for many years, and that my audiences still demand from me.

That's aye been one great test of a song for me. Whiles I'll be a wee bit dootful aboot a song-in my repertory for a season. Then I'll stop singing it for a few nichts. If the audiences ask for it after that I know that I should restore it to its place, and I do.

I do not write all my own songs, but I have a great deal to do with the making of all of them. It's not once in a blue moon that I get a song that I can sing exactly as it was first written. That doesna mean it's no a good song it may mean that I'm no just the man tae sing it the way the author intended. I've my ain ways of acting and singing, and unless I feel richt and hamely wi' a song I canna do it justice. Sae it's no reflection on an author if I want to change his song about.

I keep in touch with several song writers—Grafton, J. D. Harper and several others. So well do they understand the way I like to do that they usually send me their first rough sketch of a song—the song the way it's born in their minds, before they put it into shape at all. They just give an outline of the words, and that gives me a notion of the story I'll have to be acting out to sing the song.

If I just sang songs, you see, it would be easy enough. But the song's only a part of it. There must aye be a story to be told, and a character to be portrayed, and studied, and interpreted. I always accept a song that appeals to me, even though I may not think I can use it for a long time to come. Good ideas for songs are the scarcest things in the world, I've found, and I never let one that may possibly suit me get away from me.

Often and often there'll be nae mair than just the bare idea left after we get through rebuilding and writing a new song. It may be just a title-a title counts for a great deal in a song with me.

I get a tremendous lot of songs frae ane year's end tae the other. All sorts of folk that ha' heard me send me their compositions, and though not one in fifty could possibly suit me I go through them a'. It doesna tak' much time; I can tell by a single glance at the verses, as a rule, if it's worth my while tae go on and finish reading. At the same time it has happened just often enough that a good song has come to me so, frae an author that's never been heard of before, that I wullna tak' the chance of missing one.

It may be, you'll understand, that some of the songs I canna use are very good. Other singers have taken a song I have rejected and made a great success wi' it. But that means just nothing at a' tae me. I'm glad the song found it's place—that's all. I canna put a song on unless it suits me—unless I feel, when I'm reading it, that here's something I can do so my audience will like to hear me do it. I flatter myself that I ken weel enough what the folk like that come to hear me—and, in any case, I maun be the judge.

But, every sae oft, there'll be a batch of songs I've put aside to think aboot a wee bit more before I decide. And then I'll tell my wife, of a morning, that I'd like tae have her listen tae a few songs that seemed to me micht do.

"All richt," she'll say. "But hurry up I'm making scones the day."

She's a great yin aboot the hoose, is Mrs. Lauder. We've to be awa' travelling sae much that she says it rests her to work harder than a scullery maid whiles she's at hame. And it's certain I'd rather eat scones of her baking than any I've ever tasted.

I always sit sae that I can watch her whiles I'm reading. She never lets me get very far wi'oot some comment.

"No bad," she'll murmur, whiles, and I'll gae on, for that means a muckle frae her. Then, maybe, instead o' that, she'll just listen, and I'll see she's no sure. If she mutters a little I'll gae on, too, for that still means she's making up her mind. But when she says, "Stop yer ticklin'!" I always stop. For that means the same thing they meant in Rome when they turned their thumbs doon toward a gladiator. And her judgments aye been gude enow for me.

Sometimes I'll get long letters frae authors wha send me their songs— but nearly always they're frae those that wad be flattered tae be called authors, puir bodies who've no proper notion of how to write or how to go aboot getting what they've written accepted when they've done it. I mind a man in Lancashire who sent me songs for years. The first was an awfu' thing—it had nae meaning at a' that I could see. But his letter was a delight.

"Dear Harry," he wrote. "I've been sorry for a long time that so clever a man as you had such bad songs to sing. And so, though I'm busy most of the time, I've written one for you. I like you, so I'll only charge you a guinea for every time you sing it, and let you set your own music to it, too!"

It was a generous offer, surely, but I did not see my way clear to accept it, and the song went back immediately. A little later I got another. He wrote a very dignified letter this time; he'd evidently made up his mind to forgie me for the way I'd insulted him and his song before, but he wanted me to understand he'd have nae nonsense frae me. But this time he wanted only fifteen shilling a performance.

Weel, he kept on sending me songs, and each one was worse than the one before, though you'd never have thought it possible for anything to be worse than any one of them if you'd seen them! And each time his price went doon! The last one was what he called a "grand new song."

"I'm hard up just now, Harry," he said, "and you know how fond I've always been of you. So you can have this one outright for five shillings, cash down."

D'ye ken, I thought his persistence deserved a reward of some sort, sae I sent him the five shillings, and put his song in the fire. I rather thought I was a fool tae do sae, because I expected he'd be bombarding me wi' songs after that bit of encouragement. But it was not so; I'm thankfu' to say I've never heard of him or his songs frae that day tae this.

I've had many a kind word said tae me aboot my songs and the way I sing them. But the kindest words have aye been for the music. And it's true that it's the lilt of a melody that makes folk remember a song. That's what catches the ear and stays wi' those who have heard a song sung.

It would be wrong for me to say I'm no proud of the melodies that I have introduced with the songs I've sung. I have never had a music lesson in my life. I can sit doon, the noo, at a piano, and pick out a harmony, but that's the very limit of my powers wi' any instrument. But ever since I can remember anything I have aye been humming at some lilt or another, and it's been, for the maist part, airs o' my ain that I've hummed. So I think I've a richt to be proud of having invented melodies that have been sung all over the world, considering how I had no musical education at a'.

Certainly it's the melody that has muckle tae do wi' the success of any song. Words that just aren't quite richt will be soon overlooked if the melody is one o' the sort the boys in the gallery pick up and whustle as they gae oot.

I'm never happy, when a gude verse comes tae me, till I've wedded a melody tae the words. When the idea's come tae me I'll sit doon at the piano and strum it ower and ower again, till I maun mak' everyone else i' the hoose tired. 'Deed, and I've been asked, mair than once, tae gie the hoose a little peace.

I dinna arrange my songs, I needn't say, having no knowledge of the principles. But always, after a song's accompaniment has been arranged for the orchestra, I'll listen carefully at a rehearsal, and often I can pick out weak spots and mak' suggestions that seem to work an improvement. I've a lot of trouble, sometimes, wi' the players, till they get sae that they ken the way I like my accompaniment tae be. But after that we aye get alang fine together, the orchestra and me.



CHAPTER XXII

I've talked a muckle i' this book aboot what I think. Do you know why? It's because I'm a plain man, and I think the way plain men think all ower this world. It was the war taught me that I could talk to folk as well as sing tae them. If I've talked tae much in this book you maun forgie me—and you maun think that it's e'en yor ain fault, in a way.

During the war, whiles I'd speak aboot this or that after my show, people paid an attention tae me that wad have been flattering if I hadn't known sae well that it was no to me they were listening. It wasna old Harry Lauder who interested them—it was what he had to tell them. It was a great thing to think that folk would tak' me seriously. I've been amusing people for these many years. It seemed presumptuous, at first, when I set out to talk to them of other and more serious things.

"Hoots!" I said, at first, when they wanted me tae speak for the war and the recruiting or a loan. "They'll no be wanting to listen tae me. I'm just a comedian."

"You'll be a relief to them, Harry," I was told. "There's been too much serious speaking already."

Weel, I ken what they meant. It's serious speaking I've done, and serious thinking. But there's nae harm if I crack a bit joke noo and again; it makes the medicine gae doon the easier. And noo the medicine's swallowed. There's nae mair fichting tae be done, thank God! We've saved the hoose our ancestors built.

But its walls are crackit here and there. The roof's leaking. There's paint needed on all sides. There's muckle for us tae do before the' hoose we've saved is set in order. It's like a hoose that's been afire. The firemen come and play their hose upon it. They'll put oot the fire, a' richt. But is it no a sair sicht, the hoose they leave behind them when they gae awa'?

Ye'll see a wee bit o' smoke, an hour later, maybe, coming frae some place where they thocht it was a' oot. And ye'll have tae be taking a bucket of water and putting oot the bit o' fire that they left smouldering there, lest the whole thing break oot again. And here and there the water will ha' done a deal of damage. Things are better than if the fire had just burnt itself oot, but you've no got the hoose you had before the fire! 'Deed, and ye have not!

Nor have we. We had our fire—the fire the Kaiser lighted. It was arson caused our fire—it was a firebug started it, no spontaneous combustion, as some wad ha' us think. And we called the firemen—the braw laddies frae all the world, who set to work and never stopped till the fire was oot. Noo they've gaed hame aboot their other business. We'll no be wanting to call them oot again. It was a cruel, hard task they had; it was a terrible ficht they had tae make.

It's sma' wonder, after such a conflagration, that there's spots i' the world where there's a bit of flame still smouldering. It's for us tae see that they're a' stamped oot, those bits of fire that are still burning. We can do that ourselves—no need to ca' the tired firemen oot again. And then there's the hoose itself!

Puir hoose! But how should it have remained the same? Man, you'd no expect to sleep in your ain hoose the same nicht there'd been a fire to put out? You'd be waiting for the insurance folks. And you'd know that the furniture was a' spoiled wi' water, and smoke. And there'll be places where the firemen had to chop wi' their axes. They couldna be carfu' wi' what was i' the hoose—had they been sae there'd be no a hoose left at a' the noo.

Sae are they no foolish folk that were thinking that sae soon as peace came a' would be as it was before yon days in August, 1914? Is it but five years agane? It is—but it'll tak' us a lang time tae bring the world back to where it was then. And it can't be the same again. It can't. Things change.

Here's what there is for us tae do. It's tae see that the change is in the richt direction. We canna stand still the noo. We'll move. We'll move one way or the other—forward or back.

And I say we dare not move back. We dare not, because of the graves that have been filled in France and Gallipoli and dear knows where beside in these last five years. We maun move forward. They've left sons behind them, many of the laddies that died to save us. Aye, there's weans in Britain and America, and in many another land, that will ne'er know a faither.

We owe something to those weans whose faithers deed for this world's salvation. We owe it to them and to their faithers tae see that they have a better world to grow up in than we and their faithers knew. It can be a better world. It can be a bonnier world than any of us have ever dreamed of. Dare I say that, ye'll be asking me, wi' the tears of the widow and the orphan still flowing fresh, wi' the groans of those that ha' suffered still i' our ears?

Aye, I dare say it. And I'll be proving it, tae, if ye'll ha' patience wi' me. For it's in your heart and mine that we'll find the makings of the bonnier world I can see, for a' the pain.

Let's stop together and think a bit. We were happy, many of us, in yon days before the war. Our loved yins were wi' us. There was peace i' a' the world. We had no thought that any wind could come blowing frae ootside ourselves that would cast down the hoose of our happiness. Wasna that sae? Weel, what was the result?

I think we were selfish folk, many, too many, of us. We had no thought, or too little, for others. We were so used to a' we had and were in the habit of enjoying that we forgot that we owed much of what we had to others. We were becoming a very fierce sort of individualists. Our life was to ourselves. We were self-sufficient. One of the prime articles of our creed was Cain's auld question:

"Am I my brother's keeper?"

We answered that question wi' a ringing "No!" The day was enow for the day. We'd but to gae aboot our business, and eat and drink, and maybe be merry. Oh, aye—I ken fine it was sae wi' me. Did I have charity, Weel, it may be that the wife and I did our wee bit tae be helping some that was less fortunate than ourselves. But here I'll be admitting why I did that. It was for my ain selfish satisfaction and pleasure. It was for the sake of the glow of gude feeling, the warmth o' heart, that came wi' the deed.

And in a' the affairs of life, it seems to me, we human folk were the same. We took too little thought of God. Religion was a failing force in the world. Hame ties were loosening; we'd no the appreciation of what hame meant that our faithers had had. Not all of us, maybe, but too many. And a' the time, God help us, we were like those folk that dwell in their wee hooses on the slopes of Vesuvius—puir folk and wee hooses that may be swept awa' any day by an eruption of the volcano.

All wasna sae richt and weel wi' the world as we thought it in you days. We'd closed our een to much of bitterness and hatred and malice that was loose and seeking victims in the hearts of men. Aye, it was the Hun loosed the war upon us. It was he who was responsible for the calamity that overtook the world—and that will mak' him suffer maist of all in the end, as is but just and richt. But we'd ha' had trouble, e'en gi'en there'd been no war.

It wouldna ha' been sae great, perhaps. There'd not be sae much grief and sae much unhappiness i' the world today, save for him. But there was something wrang wi' the world, and there had tae be a visitation of some sort before the world could be made better.

There's few things that come to a man or a nation in the way of grief and sorrow and trouble that are no punishments for some wickedness and sin o' his ain. We dinna always ken what it is we ha' done. And whiles the innocent maun suffer wi' the guilty—aye, that's a part of the punishment of the guilty, when they come to realize hoo it is they've carried others, maybe others they love, doon wi' them into the valley of despair.

I love Britain. I think you'll all be knowing that I love my native land better than anything i' the world. I'd ha' deed for her gladly— aye, gladly. It was a sair grief tae me that they wadna tak' me. I tried, ye ken? I tried even before the Huns killed my boy, John. And I tried again after he'd been ta'en. Sae I had tae live for my country, and tae do what I could to help her.

But that doesna mean that I think my country's always richt. Far frae it. I ken only tae well that she's done wrang things. I'm minded of one of them the noo.

I've talked before of history. There was 1870, when Prussia crushed France. We micht ha' seen the Hun then, rearing himself up in Europe, showing what was in his heart. But we raised no hand. We let France fall and suffer. We saw her humbled. We saw her cast down. We'd fought against France—aye. But we'd fought a nation that was generous and fair; a nation that made an honorable foe, and that played its part honorably and well afterward when we sent our soldiers to fight beside hers in the Crimea.

France had clear een even then. She saw, when the Hun was in Paris, wi' his hand at her throat and his heel pressed doon upon her, that he meant to dominate all Europe, and, if he could, all the world. She begged for help—not for her sake alone, but for humanity. Humanity refused. And humanity paid for its refusal.

And there were other things that were wrang wi' Britain. Our cause was holy, once we began to ficht. Oh, aye—never did a nation take up the sword wi' a holier reason. We fought for humanity, for democracy, for the triumph of the plain man, frae the first. There are those will tell ye that Britain made war for selfish reasons. But it's no worth my while tae answer them. The facts speak for themselves.

But here's what I'm meaning. We saw Belgium attacked. We saw France threatened wi' a new disaster that would finish the murder her ain courage and splendor had foiled in 1871. We sprang to the rescue this time—oh, aye! The nation's leaders knew the path of honor—knew, too, that it was Britain's only path of safety, as it chanced. They declared war sae soon as it was plain how Germany meant to treat the world.

Sae Britain was at war, and she called oot her young men. Auld Britain—wi' sons and daughters roond a' the Seven Seas. I saw them answering the call, mind you. I saw them in Australia and New Zealand. I kissed my ain laddie gude bye doon there in Australia when he went back—to dee.

Never was there a grander outpouring of heroic youth. We'd no conscription in those first days. That didna come until much later. Sae, at the very start, a' our best went forth to ficht and dee. Thousands—hundreds of thousands—millions of them. And sae I come to those wha were left.

It's sair I am to say it. But it was in the hearts of sae many of those who stayed behind that we began tae be able tae see what had been wrang wi' Britain—and what was, and remains, wrang wi' a' the world to-day.

There were our boys, in France. We'd no been ready. We'd no spent forty years preparing ourselves for murder. Sae our boys lacked guns and shells, and aircraft, and a' the countless other things they maun have in modern war. And at hame the men in the shops and factories haggled and bargained, and thought, and talked. Not all o' them—oh, understand that in a' this I say that is harsh and bears doon hard upon this man and that, I'm only meaning a few each time! Maist of the plain folk i' the world are honest and straight and upright in their dealings.

But do you ken hoo, in a basket of apples, ane rotten one wi' corrupt the rest? Weel, it's sae wi' men. Put ane who's disaffected, and discontented, and nitter, in a shop and he'll mak' trouble wi' all the rest that are but seeking the do their best.

"Ca' Canny!" Ha' ye no heard that phrase?

It's gude Scots. It's a gude Scots motto. It means to go slow—to be sure before you leap. It sums up a' the caution and the findness for feeling his way that's made the Scot what he is in the wide world over. But it's a saying that's spread to England, and that's come to have a special meaning of its own. As a certain sort of workingman uses it it means this:

"I maun be carfu' lest I do too much. If I do as much as I can I'll always have to do it, and I'll get no mair pay for doing better—the maister'll mak' all the profit. I maun always do less than I could easily manage—sae I'll no be asked to do mair than is easy and comfortable in a day's work."

Restriction of output! Aye, you've heard those words. But do you ken what they were meaning early i' the war in Britain? They were meaning that we made fewer shells than we could ha' made. Men deed in France and Flanders for lack of the shells that would ha' put our artillery on even terms with that of the Germans.

It didna last, you'll be saying. Aye, I ken that. All the rules union labor had made were lifted i' the end. Labor in Britain took its place on the firing line, like the laddies that went oot there to ficht. Mind you, I'm saying no word against a man because he stayed at hame and didna ficht. There were reasons to mak' it richt for many a man tae do that. I've no sympathy wi' those who went aboot giving a white feather to every young man they saw who was no in uniform. There was much cruel unfairness in a' that.

But I'm saying it was a dreadfu' thing that men didna see for themselves, frae the very first, where their duty lay. I'm saying it was a dreadfu' thing for a man to be thinking just of the profit he could be making for himself oot of the war. And we had too many of that ilk in Britain—in labor and in capital as well. Mind you there were men i' London and elsewhere, rich men, who grew richer because of their work as profiteers.

And do you see what I mean now? The war was a great calamity. It cost us a great toll of grief and agony and suffering. But it showed us, a' too plainly, where the bad, rotten spots had been. It showed us that things hadna been sae richt as we'd supposed before. And are we no going to mak' use of the lesson it has taught us?



CHAPTER XXIII

I've had a muckle to say in this book aboot hoo other folk should be acting. That's what my wife tells me, noo that she's read sae far. "Eh, man Harry," she says, "they'll be calling you a preacher next. Dinna forget you're no but a wee comic, after a'!"

Aye, and she's richt! It's a good thing for me to remember that. I'm but old Harry Lauder, after a'. I've sung my songs, and I've told my stories, all over the world to please folk. And if I've done a bit more talking, lately, than some think I should, it's no been all my ain fault. Folk have seemed to want to listen to me. They've asked me questions. And there's this much more to be said aboot it a'.

When you've given maist of the best years of your life to the public you come to ken it well. And—you respect it. I've known of actors and other artists on the stage who thought they were better than their public—aye. And what's come tae them? We serve a great master, we folk of the stage. He has many minds and many tongues, and he tells us quickly when we please him—and when we do not. And always, since the nicht when I first sang in public, so many yearst agane that it hurts a little to count the tale o' them, I've been like a doctor who keeps his finger on the pulse of his patient.

I've tried to ken, always, day in, day oot, how I was pleasing you— the public. You make up my audiences. And—it is you who send the other audiences, that hae no heard me yet, to come to the theatre. To- morrow nicht's audience is in the making to-nicht. If you folk who are out in front the noo, beyond the glare of the footlights, dinna care for me, dinna like the way I'm trying to please you, and amuse you, there'll be empty seats in the hoose to-morrow and the next day.

Sae that's my answer, I'm thinking, to my wife when she tells me to beware of turning into a preacher. I mind, do you ken, the way I've talked to audiences at hame, and in America and Australia, these last twa or three years. It was the war led me to do it first. I was surprised, in the beginning. I had just the idea of saying a few words. But you who were listening to me would not let me stop. You asked for more and more—you made me think you wanted to know what old Harry Lauder was thinking.

There was a day in Kansas City that I remember well. Kansas City is a great place. And it has a wonderful hall—a place where national conventions are held. I was there in 1918 just before the Germans delivered their great assault in March, when they came so near to breaking our line and reaching the Channel ports we'd held them from through all the long years of the war. I was nervous, I'll no be denying that. What Briton was not, that had a way of knowing how terrible a time was upon us? And I knew—aye, it was known, in London and in Washington, that the Hun was making ready for his last effort.

Those were dark and troubled days. The great American army that General Pershing has led hame victorious the noo was still in the making. The Americans were there in France, but they had not finished their training. And it was in the time when they were just aboot ready to begin to stream into France in really great numbers. But at hame, in America, and especially out West, it was hard to realize how great an effort was still needed.

America had raised her great armies. She had done wonders—and it was natural for those folk, safe at hame, and far, far away frae all the turmoil and the stress of the fighting, to think that they had done enough.

The Americans knew, you'll ken, that they were resistless. They knew that the gigantic power of America could crush half a dozen Germanys— in time. But what we were all fearing, we who knew how grave the situation was, how tremendous the Hun's last effort would be, was that the line in France would be broken. The French had fought almost to the last gasp. Their young men were gone. And if the Hun broke through and swept his way to Paris, it was hard to believe that we could have gathered our forces and begun all over again, as we would have had to do.

In Kansas City there was a great chance for me, I was told. The people wanted to hear me talk. They wanted to hear me—not just at the theatre, but in the great hall where the conventions met. There was only the one time when I could speak, and I said so—that was at noon. It was the worst time of all the day to gather an audience of great size. I knew that, and I was sorry. But I had been booked for two performances a day while I was in Kansas City, and there was no choice.

Well, I agreed to appear. Some of my friends were afraid it would be what they called a frost. But when the time came for me to make my way to the platform the hall was filled. Aye—that mighty hall! I dinna ken how many thousand were there, but there were more than any theatre in the world could hold—more than any two theatres, I'm thinking. And they didna come to hear me sing or crack a joke. They came to hear me talk—to hear me preach, if you'll be using that same word that my wife is sae fond of teasing me with.

I'm thinking I did preach to them, maybe. I told them things aboot the war they'd no heard before, nor thought of, maybe, as seriously as they micht. I made them see the part they, each one of them, man, and woman, and child, had to play. I talked of their president, and of the way he needed them to be upholding him, as their fathers and mothers had upheld President Lincoln.

And they rose to me—aye, they cheered me until the tears stood in my een, and my voice was so choked that I could no go on for a space. So that's what I'm meaning when I say it's no all my fault if I preach, sometimes, on the stage, or when I'm writing in a book. It's true, too, I'm thinking, that I'm no a real author. For when I sit me doon to write a book I just feel that I maun talk wi' some who canna be wi' me to hear my voice, and I write as I talk. They'll be telling me, perhaps, that that's no the way to write a book, but it's the only way I ken.

Oh, I've had arguments aboot a' this! Arguments, and to spare! They'll come tae me, good friends, good advisers. They'll be worried when I'm in some place where there's strong feeling aboot some topic I'm thinking of discussing wi' my friends in the audience.

"Now, Harry, go easy here," I mind a Scots friend told me, once during the war. I was in a town I'll no be naming. "This is a queer place. There are a lot of good Germans here. They're unhappy about the war, but they're loyal enough. They don't want to take any great part in fighting their fatherland, but they won't help against their new country, either. They just want to go about their business and forget that there's a war."

Do you ken what I did in that town I talked harder and straighter about the war than I had in any place I'd talked in up to then! And I talked specially to the Germans, and told them what their duty was, and how they could no be neutral.

I've small use for them that would be using the soft pedal always, and seeking to offend no one. If you're in the richt the man who takes offence at what you say need not concern you. Gi'en you hold a different opinion frae mine. Suppose I say what's in my mind, and that I think that I am richt and you are wrong. Wull ye be angry wi' me because of that? Not if you know you're richt! It's only the man who is'na sure of his cause who loses his temper and flies into a rage when he heard any one disagree wi' him.

There's a word they use in America aboot the man who tries to be all things to a' men—who tries to please both sides when he maun talk aboot some question that's in dispute. They call him a "pussyfooter." Can you no see sicca man? He'll no put doon his feet firmly—he'll walk on the balls of them. His een will no look straight ahead, and meet those of other men squarely. He'll be darting his glances aboot frae side to side, looking always for disapproval, seeking to avoid it. But wall he? Can he? No—and weel ye ken that—as weel as I! Show me sicca man and I'll show you one who ends by having no friends at all—one who gets all sides down upon him, because he was so afraid of making enemies that he did nothing to make himself freinds.

Think straight—talk straight. Don't be afraid of what others will say or think aboot ye. Examine your own heart and your own mind. If what you say and what you do suits your ain conscience you need ha' no concern for the opinions of others. If you're wrong—weel, it's as weel for you to ken that. And if you're richt you'll find supporters enough to back you.

I said, whiles back, that I'd in my mind cases of artists who thocht themselves sae great they need no think o' their public. Weel, I'll be naming no names—'twould but mak' hard feeling, you'll ken, and to no good end. But it's sae, richt enough. And it's especially sae in Britain, I think, when some great favorite of the stage goes into the halls to do a turn.

They're grand places to teach a sense of real value, the halls! In the theatre so muckle counts—the play, the rest of the actors, reputation, aye, a score of things. But in a music hall it's between you and the audience. And each audience must be won just as if you'd never faced one before. And you canna be familiar wi' your audience. Friendly—oh, aye! I've been friendly wi' my audiences ever since I've had them. But never familiar.

And there's a vast difference between friendliness and what I mean when I say familiarity. When you are familiar I think you act as though you were superior—that's what I mean by the word, at least, whether I'm richt or no. And it's astonishing how quickly an audience detects that—and, of course, resents it. Your audience will have no swank frae ye—no side. Ye maun treat it wi' respect and wi' consideration.

Often, of late, I've thocht that times were changing. Folk, too many of them, seem to have a feeling that ye can get something for nothing. Man, it's no so—it never will be so. We maun work, one way or another, for all we get. It's those lads and lassies who come tae the halls, whiles, frae the legitimate stage, that put me in mind o' that.

Be sure, if they've any real reputation upon the stage, they have earned it. Oh, I ken fine that there'll be times when a lassie 'll mak' her way tae a sort of success if she's a pretty face, or if she's gained a sort of fame, I'm sorry to say, frae being mixed up in some scandal or another. But—unless she works hard, unless she has talent, she'll no keep her success. After the first excitement aboot her is worn off, she's judged by what she can do—not by what the papers once said aboot her. Can ye no think of a hundred cases like that? I can, without half trying.

Weel, then, what I'm meaning is that those great actors and actresses, before they come to the halls to show us old timers what's what, and how to get applause, have a solid record of hard work behind them. And still some of them think the halls are different, and that there they'll be clapped and cheered just because of their reputations. They'd be astonished tae hear the sort of talk goes on in the gallery of the Pav., in London—just for a sample. I've heard!

"Gaw bli'me, Alf—'oo's this toff? Comes on next. 'Mr. Arthur Andrews, the Celebrated Shakespearian Actor.'"

"Never heard on him," says Alf, indifferently.

And so it goes. Mr. Andrews appears, smiling, self-possessed, waiting gracefully for the accustomed thunders of applause to subside. Sometimes he gets a round or two—from the stalls. More often he doesn't. Music hall audiences give their applause after the turn, not before, as a rule, save when some special favorite like Miss Vesta Tilley or Mr. Albert Chevalier or—oh, I micht as weel say it like old Harry Lauder!—comes on!

And then Mr. Andrews, too often, goes stiffly through a scene from a play, or gives a dramatic recitation. In its place what he does would be splendid, and would be splendidly received. The trouble, too often, is that he does not realize that he must work to please this new audience. If he does, his regard will be rich in the event of success. I dinna mean just the siller he will earn, either.

It's true, I think, that there's a better living, for the really successful artist, in varieties than there is on the stage. There's more certainty—less of a speculative, dubious element, such as ye canna escape when there's a play involved. The best and most famous actors in the world canna keep a play frae being a failure if the public does not tak' to it. But in the halls a good turn's a good turn, and it can be used longer than even the most successful plays can run.

But still, it's no just the siller I was thinking of when I spoke of the rich rewards of a real success in the halls. An artist makes real friends there—warm-hearted, personal friends, who become interested in him and his career; who think of him, and as like as not, call him by his first name. Oh—aye, I've known artists who were offended by that! I mind a famous actor who was with me once when I was taking a walk in London, and a dozen costers, recognizing me, wished me good luck—it was just before I was tae mak' my first visit to America.

It was "Good luck, Harry," and "God bless you, Harry!" frae them. 'Deed, and it warmed the cockles of my heart to hear them! But my friend was quite shocked.

"I say, Harry—do you know those persons?" he said.

"Never saw them before," I told him, cheerfully.

"But they addressed you in the most familiar fashion," he persisted.

"And why not?" I asked. "I never saw them before—but they've seen me, thanks be! And as for familiarity—they helped to buy the shoon and the claes I'm wearing! They paid for the parritch I had for breakfast, and the bit o' beef I'll be eating for my dinner. If it wasna for them and the likes of them I'd still be digging coal i' the pit in Scotland! It'll be the sair day for me when they call me Mr. Lauder!"

I meant that then, and I mean it now. And if ever I hear a coster call out, "There goes Sir Harry Lauder," I'll ken it's time for me to be really doing what I'm really going tae do before sae long—retire frae the stage and gae hame to my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon tae live!

I'd no be having you think I'm meaning to criticize all the actors and actresses of the legitimate stage who have done a turn in the halls. Many of them are among our prime favorites, and our most successful artists. Some have given up appearing in plays to stick to the halls; some gae tae the halls only when they can find no fitting play to occupy their time and their talent. Some of the finest and most talented folk in the world are, actors and artists; whiles I think all the most generous and kindly folk are! And I can count my friends, warm, dear, intimate friends amang them by the score—I micht almost say by the hundred.

No, it's just the flighty ones that gie the rest a bad name I'm addressing my criticisms to. There'll be those that accept an opportunity to appear in the halls scornfully. They'll be lacking an engagement, maybe. And so they'll turn to the halls tae earn some siller easily, with their lips curling the while and their noses turned up. They see no need tae give of their best.

"Why should I really act for these people?" I heard one famous actor say once. "The subtleties of my art would be wasted upon them. I shall try to bring myself down to their level!"

Now, heard you ever sae hopeless a saying as that? It puts me in mind of a friend of mine—a novelist. He's a grand writer, and his readers, by the million, are his friends. It's hard for his publishers to print enough of his books to supply the demand. And he's a kindly, simple wee man; he ust does his best, all the time, and never worries aboot the results. But there are those that are envious of him. I mind the only time I ever knew him to be angry was when one of these, a man who could just get his books published, and no mair, was talking.

"Oh, I suppose I'll have to do it!" he said. "Jimmy"—Jimmy was the famous novelist my friend—"tell me how you write one of your best sellers? I think I'll turn out one or two under a pen name. I need some money."

Man, you can no even mak' money in that fashion! I ken fine there's men succeed, on the stage, and in literature, and in every other walk of life, who do not do the very best of work. But, mind you, they've this in common—they do the best they can! You may not have to be the best to win the public—but you maun be sincere, or it will punish you.



CHAPTER XXIV

When every one's talking sae much of Bolsheviki and Soviets it's hard to follow what it's just all about. It's a serious subject—aye, I'd be the last to say it wasna that! But, man—there's sae little in this world that's no got its lighter side, if we'll but see it!

I'm a great yin for consistency. Men are consistent—mair than women, I think. My wife will no agree with that, but it shall stand in spite of her. I'll be maister in my ain book, even if I canna be such in my ain hoose! And when it comes to all this talk of Bolshevism, I'm wondering how the ones that are for it would like it if their principles were really applied consistently to everything?

Tak' the theatre, just for an example. I mind a time when there was nearly a strike. It was in America, once, and I was on tour in the far West. Wall Morris, he that takes care of all such affairs for me, had given me a grand company. On those tours, ye ken, I travel with my ain company. That time there were my pipers, of coorse—it wouldna be my performance without those braw laddies. And there was a bonnie lassie to sing Scots songs in her lovely voice—a wee bit of a lassie she was, that surprised you with the strength of her voice when she sang.

There was a dancer, and some Japanese acrobats, and a couple more turns—another singer, a man, and two who whistled like birds. And then there was just me, tae come on last.

Weel, there'd be trouble, once in sae often, aboot how they should gae on. None of them liked tae open the show; they thocht they were too good for that. And so they were, all of them, bless their hearts. There was no a bad act amang the lot. But still—some one had to appear first! And some one had to give orders. I forget, the noo, just how it was settled, but settled it was, at any rate, and all was peaceful and happy.

And then, whoever it was that did open got ill one nicht, and there was a terrible disturbance. No one was willing to take the first turn. And for a while it looked as if we could no get it settled any way at all. So I said that I would open the show, and they could follow, afterward, any way they pleased—or else that so and so must open, and no more argument. They did as I said.

But now, suppose there'd been a Bolshevik organization of the company? Suppose each act had had a vote in a council. Each one would have voted for a different one to open, and the fight could never have been settled. It took some one to decide it—and a way of enforcing the decision—to mak' that simple matter richt.

I'm afraid of these Bolsheviki because I don't think they know just what they are doing. I can deal with a man, whether I agree with him or no, if he just knows what it is he wants to do, and how. I'll find some common ground that we can both stand on while we have out our differences. But these folk aren't like that. They say what they don't mean. And they tell you, if you complain of that, they are interested only in the end they want to attain, and that the means they use don't matter.

Folk like that make an agreement never meaning to stick to it, ust to get the better of you for a little while. They mak' any promise you demand of them to get you quieted and willing to leave them alone, and then when the time comes and it suits them they'll break it, and laugh in your face. I'm not guessing or joking. And it's not the Bolshevists in Russia I'm thinking of—it's the followers of them in Britain and America, no matter what they choose to call themselves.

I've nothing to say about an out-and-out union labor fight. I've been oot on strike maself and I ken there's times when men have to strike to get their rights. They've reason for it then, and it's another matter. But some of the new sort of leaders of the men think anything is fair when they're dealing with an employer. They'll mak' agreements they've no sort of thought of keeping. I'll admit it's to their credit that they're frank.

They say, practically: "We'll make promises, but we won't keep them. We'll make a truce, but no peace. And we'll choose the time when the truce is to be broken."

And what I'm wanting to know is how are we going to do business that way, and live together, and keep cities and countries going? And suppose, just suppose, noo, doctrine like that was consistently applied?

Here's Mr. Radical. He's courtin' a lassie—supposing he's no one of those that believe in free love—and maybe if he is! I've found that the way to cure those that have such notions as that is to let the right lassie lay her een upon them. She'll like him fine as a suitor, maybe. She'll like the way he'll be taking her to dances, and spending his siller on presents for her, and on taking her oot to dinner, and the theatre. But, ye'll ken, she's no thocht of marrying him.

Still, just to keep him dangling, she promises she wull, and she'll let him slip his arm aboot her, and kiss her noo and again. But whiles she finds the lad she really loves, and she's off wi' him. Mr. Radical comes and reminds her of her promise.

"Oh, aye," she'll say, wi' a flirt of her head. "But that was like the promise you made at the works that you'd keep the men at work for a year on the new scale—when you called them oot on strike again within a month! Good day to you!"

Wull Mr. Radical say that's all richt, and that what's all sound and proper when he does it is the same when it's she does it tae him? Wull he? Not he! He'll call her false, and tell the tale of her perfidy tae all that wull listen to him!

But there's a thing we folk that want to keep things straight must aye remember. And that's that if everything was as it should be, Mr. Radical and his kind could get no following. It's because there's oppression and injustice in this bonny world of ours that an opening is made for those who think as do Trotzky and Lenine and the other Russians whose names are too hard for a simple plain man to remember.

We maun e'en get ahead of the agitators and the trouble makers by mending what's wrong. It's the way they use truth that makes them dangerous. Their lies wull never hurt the world except for a little while. It's because there's some truth in what they say that they make so great an impression as they do. Folk do starve that ask nothing better than a chance to earn money for themselves and their families by hard work. There is poverty and misfortune in the world that micht be prevented—that wull be prevented, if only we work as hard for humanity now that we have peace as we did when we were at war.

Noo, here's an example of what I'm thinking of. I said, a while back, that the folk that don't have bairns and raise them to make good citizens were traitors. Well, so they are. But, after a', it's no always their fault. When landlords wull not let their property to the families that have weans, it's a hard thing to think about. And it's that sort of thing makes folk turn into hating the way the world is organized and conducted. No man ought to have the richt to deny a hame to a man and his wife because they've a bairn to care for.

And then, too, there's many an employer bears doon upon those who work for him, because he's strong and they're weak. He'll say his business is his ain, to conduct as he sees fit. So it is—up to a certain point. But he canna conduct it by his lane, can he? He maun have help, or he would not hire men and women and pay them wages. And when he maun have their help he makes them his partners, in a way.

Jock'll be working for such an employer. He'll be needing more money, because the rent's been raised, and the wife's ailing. And his employer wull say he's sorry, maybe, but he canna afford to pay Jock more wages, because the cost of, diamonds such as his wife would be wearing has gone up, and gasolene for his motor car is more expensive, and silk shirts cost more. Oh, aye—I ken he'll no be telling Jock that, but those wull be his real reasons, for a' that!

Noo, what's Jock to do? He can quit—oh, aye! But Jock hasna the time, whiles he's at work, to hunt him anither job. He maun just tak' his chances, if he quits, and be out of work for a week or twa, maybe. And Jock canna afford that; he makes sae little that he hasna any siller worth speaking of saved up. So when his employer says, short like: "I cannot pay you more, Jock—tak' it or leave it!" there's nothing for Jock to do. And he grows bitter and discontented, and when some Bolshevik agitator comes along and tells Jock he's being ill used and that the way to make himself better off is to follow the revolutionary way, Jock's likely to believe him.

There's a bit o' truth, d'you see, in what the agitator tells Jock. Jock is ill used. He knows his employer has all and more than he needs or can use—he knows he has to pinch and worry and do without, and see his wife and his bairns miserable, so that the employer can live on the fat of the land. And he's likely, is he no, to listen to the first man who comes along and tells him he has a way to cure a' that? Can ye blame a man for that?

The plain truth is that richt noo, when there's more prosperity than we've ever seen before, there are decent, hard workingmen who canna afford to have as many bairns as they would wish, for lack of the siller to care for them properly after they come. There are men who mak' no more in wages than they did five years ago, when everything cost half what it does the noo. And they're listening to those who preach of general strikes, and overthrowing the state, and all the other wild remedies the agitators recommend.

Now, we know, you and I, that these remedies wouldn't cure the faults that we can see. We know that in Russia they're worse off for the way they've heeded Lenine and Trotzky and their crew. We know that you can't alter human nature that way, and that when customs and institutions have grown up for thousands of years it's because most people have found them good and useful. But here's puir Jock! What interests him is how he's to buy shoes for Jean and Andy, and a new dress for the wife, and milk for the wean that's been ailing ever since she was born. He hears the bairns crying, after they're put to bed, because they're hungry. And he counts his siller wi' the gude wife, every pay day, and they try to see what can they do without themselves that the bairns may be better off.

"Eh, man Jock, listen to me," says the sleek, well fed agitator. "Join us, and you'll be able to live as well as the King himself. Your employer's robbing you. He's buying diamonds for his wife with the siller should be feeding your bairns."

Foolishness? Oh, aye—but it's easier for you and me to see than for Jock, is it no?

And just suppose, noo, that a union comes and Jock gets a chance to join it—a real, old fashioned union, not one of the new sort that's for upsetting everything. It brings Jock and Sandy and Tom and all the rest of the men in the works together. And there's one man, speaking for a' of them, to talk to the employer.

"The men maun have more money, sir," he'll say, respectfully.

"I cannot pay it," says the employer.

"Then they'll go out on strike," says the union leader.

And the employer will whine and complain! But, do you mind, the shoe's on the other foot the noo! For now, if they all quit, it hurts him. He wouldna mind Jock quitting, sae lang as the rest stayed. But when they all go out together it shuts doon his works, and he begins to lose siller. And so he's likely to find that he can squeeze out a few shillings extra for each man's pay envelope, though that had seemed so impossible before. Jock, by himself, is weak, and at his employer's mercy. But Jock, leagued with all the other men in the works, has power.

Now, I hear a lot of talk from employers that sounds fine but is no better, when you come to pick it to pieces, than the talk of the agitators. Oh, I'll believe you if you tell me they're sincere, and believe what they say! But that does not mak' it richt for me to believe them, too!

Here's your employer who won't deal with a union.

"Every man in my shop can come to my office at any time and talk to me," he'll say. "He needs no union delegate to speak for him. I'll talk to the men any time, and do everything I can to adjust any legitimate grievance they may have. But I won't deal with men who presume to speak for them—with union delegates and leaders."

But can he no see, or wull he no see, that it's only when all the men in his shop bind themselves together that they can talk to him as man to man, as equal to equal? He's stronger than any one or twa of them, but when the lot of them are leagued together they are his match. That's what's meant by collective bargaining, and the employer who won't recognize that right is behind the times, and is just inviting trouble for himself and all the rest of us.

Let me tell you a story I heard in America on my last tour. I was away oot on the Pacific coast. It was when America was beginning her great effort in the war, and she was trying to build airplanes fast enough to win the mastery of the air frae the Hun. She needed spruce for them—and to supply us and France and Italy, as well. That spruce grew in great, damp forests in the States of Oregon and Washington—one great tree, that was suitable for making aircraft, to an acre, maybe. It was a great task to select those trees and hew them doon, and split and cut them up.

And in those forests lumbermen had been working for years. It was hard, punishing work; work for strong, rough men. And those who owned the forests and employed the men were strong, hard men themselves, as they had need to be. But they could not see that the men they employed had any richt to organize themselves. So always they fought, when a union appeared in the forests, and they had beaten them all.

The men were weak, dealing, each by himself, with his employer. The employers were strong. But presently a new sort of union came—the I. W. W. It did as it pleased. It cheated and lied. It made promises and didn't keep them. It didn't fight fair, the way the old unions did. And the men flocked to it—not because they liked to fight that way, but because that was the first time they had had a chance to deal with their employers on even terms.

So, very quickly, the I. W. W. had organized most of the men who worked in the forests. There had been a strike, the summer before I was there, and, after the men went back to work, they still soldiered on their jobs and did as little as they could—that was the way the I. W. W. taught them to do.

"Don't stay out on strike and lose your pay," the I. W. W. leaders said. "That's foolish. Go back—but do as little as you can and still not be dismissed. Poll a log whenever you can without being caught. Make all the trouble and expense you can for the bosses."

And here was the world, all humanity, needing the spruce, and these men acting so! The American army was ordered to step in. And a wise American officer, seeing what was wrong, soon mended matters. He was stronger than employers and men put together. He put all that was wrong richt. He saw to it that the men got good hours, good pay, good working conditions. He organized a new union among them that had nothing to do with the I. W. W. but that was strong enough to make the employers deal fairly with it.

And sae it was that the I. W. W. began to lose its members. For it turned out that the men wanted to be fair and honorable, if the employers would but meet them half way, and so, in no time at all, work was going on better than ever, and the I. W. W. leaders could make no headway at all among the workers. It is only men who are discontented because they are unfairly treated who listen to such folk as those agitators. And is there no a lesson for all of us in that?



CHAPTER XXV

I've heard much talk, and I've done much talking myself, of charity. It's a beautiful word, yon. You mind St. Paul—when be spoke of Faith, Hope, Charity, and said that the greatest of these was Charity? Aye— as he meant the word! Not as we've too often come to think of it.

What's charity, after a'? It's no the act of handing a saxpence to a beggar in the street. It's a state of mind. We should all be charitable—surely all men are agreed on that! We should think weel of others, and believe, sae lang as they wull let us, that they mean to do what's right and kind. We should not be bitter and suspicious and cynical. God hates a cynic.

But charity is a word that's as little understood as virtue. You'll hear folk speak of a woman as virtuous when she may be as evil and as wretched a creature as walks this earth. They mean that she's never sinned the one sin men mean when they say a lassie's not virtuous! As if just abstaining frae that ane sin could mak' her virtuous!

Sae it's come to be the belief of too many folk that a man can be called charitable if he just gives awa' sae muckle siller in a year. That's not enough to mak' him charitable. He maun give thought and help as well as siller. It's the easiest thing in the world to gie siller; easier far than to refuse it, at times, when the refusal is the more charitable thing for one to be doing.

I ken fine that folk think I'm close fisted and canny wi' my siller. Aye, and I am—and glad I am that's so. I've worked hard for what I have, and I ken the value of it. That's mair than some do that talk against me, and crack jokes about Harry Lauder and his meanness. Are they so free wi' their siller? I'll imagine myself talking wi' ane of them the noo.

"You call me mean," I'll be saying to him. "How much did you give away yesterday, just to be talking? There was that friend came to you for the loan of a five-pound note because his bairn was sick? Of coorse ye let him have it—and told him not to think of it as a loan, syne he was in such trouble?"

"Well—I would have, of course, if I'd had it," he'll say, changing color a wee bit. "But the fact is, Harry, I didn't have the money—"

"Oh, aye, I see," I'll answer him. "I suppose you've let sae many of your friends have money lately that you're a bit pinched for cash? That'll be the way of it, nae doot?"

"Well—I've a pound or two outstanding," he'll say. "But—I suppose I owe more than there is owing to me."

There's one, ye'll see, who's not mean, not close fisted. He's easy wi' his money; he'd as soon spend his siller as no. And where is he when the pinch comes—to himself or to a friend? He can do nothing, d'ye ken, to help, because he's not saved his siller and been carefu' with it.

I've helped friends and strangers, when I could. But I've always tried to do it in such a way that they would help themselves the while. When there's real distress it's time to stint yourself, if need be, to help another. That's charity—real charity. But is it charity to do as some would do in sich a case as this?

Here'll be a man I know coming tae me.

"Harry," he'll say, "you're rich—it won't matter to you. Lend me the loan of a ten-pound note for a few weeks. I'd like to be putting oot some siller for new claes."

And when I refuse he'll call me mean. He'll say the ten pounds wouldn't matter to me—that I'd never miss them if he never did return the siller. Aye, and that's true enough. But if I did it for him why would I not be doing it for Tom and Dick and Harry, too? No! I'll let them call me mean and close fisted and every other dour thing it pleases them to fancy me. But I'll gae my ain gait wi' my ain siller.

I see too much real suffering to care about helping those that can help themselves—or maun do without things that aren't vital. In Scotland, during the war, there was the maist terrible distress. It's a puir country, is Scotland. Folk there work hard for their living. And the war made it maist impossible for some, who'd sent their men to fight. Bairns needed shoes and warm stockings in the cold winters, that they micht be warm as they went to school. And they needed parritch in their wee stomachs against the morning's chill.

Noo, I'll not be saying what Mrs. Lauder and I did. We did what we could. It may have been a little—it may have been mair. She and I are the only ones who ken the truth, and the only ones who wull ever ken it—that much I'll say. But whenever we gave help she knew where the siller was going, and how it was to be spent. She knew that it would do real good, and not be wasted, as it would have been had I written a check for maist of those who came to me for aid.

When you talk o' charity, Mrs. Lauder and I think we know it when we see it. We've handled a goodly share of siller, of our own, and of gude friends, since the war began, that's gone to mak' life a bit easier for the unfortunate and the distressed.

I've talked a deal of the Fund for Scottish Wounded that I raised— raised with Mrs. Lauder's help. We've collected money for that wherever we've gone, and the money has been spent, every penny of it, to make life brighter and more worth living for the laddies who fought and suffered that we micht all live in a world fit for us and our bairns.

It wasna charity those laddies sought or needed. It was help—aye. And it took charity, in the hearts of those who helped, to do anything for them. But there is an ugly ring to that word charity as too many use it the noo. I've no word to say against the charitable institutions. They do a grand work. But it is only a certain sort of case that they can reach. And they couldna help a boy who'd come home frae Flanders with both legs gone.

A boy like that didna want charity to care for him and tend him all his days, keeping him helpless and dependent. He wanted help—help to make his own way in the world and earn his own living. And that's what the Fund has given him. It's looked into his case, and found out what he could do.

Maybe he was a miner before the war. Almost surely, he was doing some sort of work that he could do no longer, with both legs left behind him in France. But there was some sort of work he could do. Maybe the Fund would set him up in a wee shop of his ain, provide him with the capital to buy his first stock, and pay his first year's rent. There are men all over Scotland who are well able, the noo, to tak' care of themselves, thanks to the Fund—men who'd be beggars, practically, if nothing of the sort had existed to lend them a hand when their hour of need had come.

But it's the bairns that have aye been closest to our hearts—Mrs. Lauder's and mine. Charity can never hurt a child—can only help and improve it, when help is needed. And we've seen them, all about our hoose at Dunoon. We've known what their needs were, and the way to supply them. What we could do we've done.

Oh, it's not the siller that counts! If I could but mak' those who have it understand that! It's not charity to sit doon and write a check, no matter what the figures upon it may be. It's not charity, even when giving the siller is hard—even when it means doing without something yourself. That's fine—oh, aye! But it's the thought that goes wi' the giving that makes it worth while—that makes it do real good. Thoughtless giving is almost worse than not giving at all— indeed, I think it's always really worse, not just almost worse.

When you just yield to requests without looking into them, without seeing what your siller is going to do, you may be ruining the one you're trying to help. There are times when a man must meet adversity and overcome it by his lane, if he's ever to amount to anything in this world. It's hard to decide such things. It's easier just to give, and sit back in the glow of virtue that comes with doing that. But wall your conscience let you do sae? Mine wull not—nor Mrs. Lauder's.

We've tried aimless charity too lang in Britain, as a nation. We did in other times, after other wars than this one. We've let the men who fought for us, and were wounded, depend on charity. And then, we've forgotten the way they served us, and we've become impatient with them. We've seen them begging, almost, in the street. And we've seen that because sentimentalists, in the beginning, when there was still time and chance to give them real help, said it was a black shame to ask such men to do anything in return for what was given to them.

"A grateful country must care for our heroes," they'd say. "What— teach a man blinded in his country's service a trade that he can work at without his sight? Never! Give him money enough to keep him!"

And then, as time goes on, they forget his service—and he becomes just another blind beggar!

Is it no better to do as my Fund does? Through it the blind man learns to read. He learns to do something useful—something that will enable him to earn his living. He gets all the help he needs while he is learning, and, maybe, an allowance, for a while, after he has learnt his new trade. But he maun always be working to help himself.

I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of such laddies—blind and maimed. And they all feel the same way. They know they need help, and they feel they've earned it. But it's help they want not coddling and alms. They're ashamed of those that don't understand them better than the folk who talk of being ashamed to make them work.



CHAPTER XXVI

In all the talk and thought about what's to be, noo that the war's over with and done, I hear a muckle of different opinions aboot what the women wull be doing. They're telling me that women wull ne'er be the same again; that the war has changed them for good—or for bad!— and that they'll stay the way the war has made them.

Weel, noo, let's be talking that over, and thinking about it a wee bit. It's true that with the war taking the men richt and left, women were called on to do new things; things they'd ne'er thought about before 1914. In Britain it was when the shells ran short that we first saw women going to work in great numbers. It was only richt that they should. The munitions works were there; the laddies across the Channel had to have guns and shells. And there were not men enough left in Britain to mak' all that were needed.

I ken fine that all that has brocht aboot a great change. When a lassie's grown used to the feel of her ain siller, that's she's earned by the sweat of her brow, it's not in reason that she should be the same as one that has never been awa' frae hame. She'll be more independent. She'll ken mair of the value of siller, and the work that goes to earning it. And she'll know that she's got it in her to do real work, and be really paid for doing it.

In Britain our women have the vote noo' they got so soon as the war showed that it was impossible and unfair to keep it frae them longer. It wasna smashing windows and pouring treacle into letter boxes that won it for them, though. It wasna the militant suffragettes that persuaded Parliament to give women the vote. It was the proof the women gave that in time of war they could play their part, just as men do.

But now, why should we be thinking that, when the war's over, women will be wanting tae go on just as they did while it was on? Would it not be just as sensible to suppose that all the men who crossed the sea to fight for Britain would prefer to stay in uniform the rest of their lives?

Of coorse there'll be cases where women wall be thinking it a fine thing to stay at work and support themselves. A lassie that's earned her siller in the works won't feel like going back to washing dishes and taking orders about the sweeping and the polishing frae a cranky mistress. I grant you that.

Oh, aye—I ken there'll be fine ladies wall be pointing their fingers at me the noo and wondering does Mrs. Lauder no have trouble aboot the maids! Weel, maybe she does, and maybe she doesn't. I'll let her tell aboot a' that in a hook of her own if you'll but persuade her to write one. I wish you could! She'd have mair of interest to tell you than I can.

But I've thocht a little aboot all this complaining I hear about servants. Have we not had too many servants? Were we not, before the war, in the habit of having servants do many things for us we micht weel have done for ourselves? The plain man—and I still feel that it is a plain man's world that we maun live in the noo—needs few servants. His wife wull do much of the work aboot the hoose herself, and enjoy doing it, as her grandmither did in the days when housework was real work.

I've heard women talking amang themselves, when they didn't know a man was listening tae them, aboot their servants—at hame, and in America. They're aye complaining.

"My dear!" one will say. "Servants are impossible these days! It's perfectly absurd! Here's Maggie asking me for fifteen dollars a week! I've never paid anything like that, and I won't begin now! The idea!"

"I know—isn't it ridiculous? What do they do with their money? They get their board and a place to sleep. Their money is all clear profit —and yet they're never satisfied. During the war, of course, we were at their mercy—they could get work any time they wanted it in a munitions plant——."

And so on. These good ladies think that girls should work for whatever their mistresses are willing to pay. And yet I canna see why a girl should be a servant because some lady needs her. I canna see why a lassie hasna the richt to better herself if she can. And if the ladies cannot pay the wages the servants ask, let them do their own work! But do not let them complain of the ingratitude and the insolence of girls who only ask for wages such as they have learned they can command in other work.

But to gae back to this whole question of what women wull be doing, noo that the war's over. Some seem tae think that Jennie wall never be willing to marry Andy the noon, and live wi' him in the wee hoose he can get for their hame. She got Andy's job, maybe. And she's been making more money than ever Andy did before he went awa'. Here's what they're telling me wull happen.

Andy'll come hame, all eager to see his Jenny, and full of the idea of marrying her at once. He'll have been thinking, whiles he was out there at the front, and in hospital—aye, he'd do mair thinking than usual aboot it when he was in hospital—of the wee hoose he and Jennie wad be living in, when the war was over. He'd see himself kissing Jennie gude-bye in the morn, as he went off to work, and her waiting for him when he came hame at nicht, and waving to him as soon as she recognized him.

And he'd think, too, sometimes, of Jennie wi' a bairn of theirs in her arms, looking like her, but wi' Andy's nose maybe, or his chin. They'd be happy thoughts—they'd be the sort of thoughts that sustained Andy and millions like him, frae Britain, and America, and Canada, and Australia, and everywhere whence men went forth to fight the Hun.

Weel, here'd be Andy, coming hame. And they're telling me Jennie wad be meeting him, and giving him a big, grimy hand to shake.

"Kiss me, lass," Andy wad say, reaching to tak' her in his arms.

And she'd gie a toss of her pretty head. "Oh, I've no time for foolishness like that the noo!" she'd tell him, for answer.

"No time? What d'ye mean, lass?"

"I'll be late at the works if ye dinna let me go—that's what I mean."

"But—dinna ye love me any more'?"

"Oh, aye—I love ye weel enough, Andy. But I canna be late at the works, for a' that!"

"To the de'il wi' the works! Ye'll be marrying be as soon as may be, and then there'll be no more works for ye, lass—"

"That's only a rumor! I'm sticking to my job. Get one for yourself, and then maybe I'll talk o' marrying you—and may be no!"

"Get me a job? I've got one—the one you've been having!"

"Aye—but it's my job the noo, and I'll be keeping it. I like earning my siller, and I'm minded to keep on doing it, Andy."

And off she goes, and Andy after her, to find she's told the truth, and that they'll not turn her off to make way for him.

"We'd like to have you back, Andy," they'll tell him. "But if the women want to stay, stay they can."

Well, I'll be asking you if it's likely Jenny will act so to her boy, that's hame frae the wars? Ye'll never mak' me think so till you've proved it. Here's the picture I see.

I see Jenny getting more and more tired, and waiting more and more eagerly for Andy to come hame. She's a woman, after a', d'ye ken, and a young one. And there are some sorts of work women were not meant or made to do, save when the direst need compels. So, wi' the ending of the war, and its strain, here's puir Jennie, wondering how long she must keep on before her Andy comes to tak' care of her and let her rest.

And—let me whisper something else. We think it shame whiles, to talk o' some things. But here's Nature, the auld mither of all of us. She's a purpose in the world, has that auld mither—and it's that the race shall gae on. And it's in the heart and the soul, the body and the brain, of Jennie that she's planted the desire that her purpose shall be fulfilled.

It's bairns Jenny wants, whether or no she kens that. It's that helps to mak' her so eager for Andy to be coming back to her. And when she sees him, at long last, I see her flinging herself in his arms, and thanking God wi' her tears that he's back safe and sound—her man, the man she's been praying for and working for.

There'll be problems aboot women, dear knows. There are a' the lassies whose men wull no come back, like Andy—whose lads lie buried in a foreign grave. It's not for me to talk of the sad problem of the superfluous woman—the lassie whose life seems to be over when it's but begun. These are affairs the present cannot consider properly. It will tak' time to show what wall be happening and what maun be done.

But I'm sure that no woman wull give up the opportunity to mak' a hame, to bring bairns into the world, for the sake of continuing the sort of freedom she's had during the war. It wad be like cutting off her nose to do that.

Oh, I ken fine that men wull have to be more reasonable than they've been, sometimes, in the past. Women know more than they did before the war opened the gates of industry to them. They'll not be put upon, the way I'm ashamed to admit they sometimes were in the old days. But I think that wull be a fine thing for a' of us. Women and men wull be comrades more; there'll be fewer helpless lassies who canna find their way aboot without a man to guide them. But men wull like that—I can tell ye so, though they may grumble at the first.

The plain man wull have little use for the clinging vine as a wife. He'll want the sort of wife some of us have been lucky enough to have even before the war. I mean a woman who'll tak' a real note of his affairs, and be ready to help him wi' advice and counsel; who'll understand his problems, and demand a share in shaping their twa lives. And that's the effect I'm thinking the war is maist likely to have upon women. It wall have trained them to self-reliance and to the meeting of problems in a new way.

And here's anither thing we maun be remembering. In the auld days a lassie, if she but would, could check up the lad that was courtin' her. She could tell, if she'd tak' the trouble to find oot, what sort he was—how he stud wi' those who knew him. She could be knowing how he did at work, or in business, and what his standing was amang those who knew him in that way. It was different when a man was courtin' a lassie. He could tell little about her save what he could see.

Noo that's been changed. The war's been cruelly hard on women as weel as on men. It's weeded them oot. Only the finest could come through the ordeals untouched—that was true of the women at hame as of the men on the front line. And now, when a lad picks out a lassie he's no longer got the excuses he once had for making a mistake.

He can be finding oot how she did her work while he was awa' at the war. He can be telling what those who worked wi' her thought of her, and whether she was a good, steady worker or not. He can make as many inquiries aboot her as she can aboot him, and sae they'll be on even terms, if they're both sensible bodies, before they start.

And there's this for the lassies who are thinking sae muckle of their independence. They're thinking, perhaps, that they can pick and choose because they've proved they can earn their livings and keep themselves. Aye, that's true enough. But the men can do more picking and choosing than before, too!

But doesna it a' come to the same answer i' the end—that it wall tak' more than even this war to change human nature? I think that's so.

It's unfashionable, I suppose, to talk of love. They'll be saying I'm an auld sentimentalist if I remind you of an old saying—that it's love that makes the world go round. But it's true. And love wall be love until the last trumpet is sounded, and it wall make men and women, lads and lassies, act i' the same daft way it always has—thank God!

Love brings man and woman together—makes them attractive, one to the ither. Wull some matter of economics keep them apart? Has it no been proved, ever since the beginning of the world, that when love comes in nothing else matters? To be sure—to be sure.

It's a strange thing, but it's aye the matters that gie the maist concern to the prophets of evil that gie me the greatest comfort when I get into an argument or a discussion aboot the war and its effects upon humanity. They're much concerned about the bairns. They tell me they've got out of hand these last years, and that there's no doing anything wi' them any more. Did those folk see the way the Boy Scouts did, I wonder?

Everywhere those laddies were splendid. In Britain they were messengers; they helped to guard the coasts; they did all sorts of work frae start to finish. They released thousands of men who wad have been held at hame except for them.

And it was the same way in America. There I helped, as much as I could, in selling Liberty Bonds. And I saw there the way the Boy Scouts worked. They sold more bonds than you would have thought possible. They helped me greatly, I know. I'd be speaking at some great meeting. I'd urge the people to buy—and before they could grow cold and forget the mood my words had aroused in them, there'd be a boy in uniform at their elbows, holding a blank for them to sign.

And the little girls worked at sewing and making bandages. I dinna ken just what these folk that are so disturbed aboot our boys and girls wad be wanting. Maybe they're o' the sort who think bairns should be seen and not heard. I'm not one of those, maself—I like to meet a bairn that's able and willing to stand up and talk wi' me. And all I can say is that those who are discouraged about the future of the race because of the degeneration of childhood during the war do not know what they're talking about.

Women and children! Aye, it's well that we've talked of them and thought of them, and fought for them. For the war was fought for them—fought to make it a better world for them. Men did not go out and suffer and die for the sake of any gain that they could make. They fought that the world might be a better one for children yet unborn to live in, and for the bairns they'd left behind to grow up in.

Was there, I wonder, any single thing that told more of the difference between the Germans and the allies than the way both treated women and children? The Germans looked on their women as inferior beings. That was why they could be guilty of such atrocities as disgraced their armies wherever they fought. They were well suited with the Turks for their own allies. The place that women hold in a country tells you much about it; a land in which women are not rated high is not one in which I'd want to live.

And if women wull be better off in Britain and America than they were, even before the war, that's one of the ways in which the war has redeemed itself and helped to pay for itself. I think they wull—but I've no patience wi' those who talk as if men and women had different interests, and maun fight it out to see which shall dominate.

They're equal partners, men and women. The war has shown us that; has proved to us men how we can depend upon our women to tak' over as much of our work as maun be when the need comes. And that's a great thing to have learned. We all pray there need be no more wars; we none of us expect a war again in our time. But if it comes one of the first things we wull do wull be to tak' advantage of what we've learned of late about the value and the splendor of our women.



CHAPTER XXVII

I've been pessimistic, you'll think, maybe, in what I've just been saying to you. And you'll be wondering if I think I kept my promise— to prove that this can be a better, a bonnier world than it was before yon peacefu' days of 1914 were blotted out. I have'na done sae yet, but I'm in the way of doing it. I've tried to mak' you see that yon days were no sae bonny as we a' thocht them.