Part 14 (2/2)

In the country hame has a different meaning. Country folk make a real hame o' a hoose. And they grow to know all the country round aboot.

It's an event when an auld tree is struck by lightning and withered.

When a hoose burns doon it's a sair calamity, and all the neighbors turn to to help. Ah, and there's anither thing! There's neighborliness in the country that's lacking in the city.

And 'tis not because country folk are a better, or a different breed.

We're all alike enow at bottom. It's just that there's more room, more time, more o' maist o' the good things that make life hamely and comfortable, i' the country than i' the city. Air, and suns.h.i.+ne, and s.p.a.ce to run and lepp and play for the children. Broad fields--not hot, paved streets, full o' rus.h.i.+n' motor cars wi' death under their wheels for the wee bairns.

But I come back, always, in ma thochts, to the way we should be looking to being able to support oorselves in the future. I tak' shame to it that my country should always be dependent upon colonies and foreign lands for food. It is no needfu', and it is no richt. Meat!

I'll no sing o' the roast beef o' old England when it comes frae Chicago and the Argentine. And ha' we no fields enow for our cattle to graze in, and canna we raise corn to feed them witha'?

I've a bit farm o' my ain. I didna buy it for masel. It was to hae been for ma son, John. But John lies sleepin' wi' many another braw laddie, oot there in France. And I've ma farm, wi' its thousands o'

acres o' fertile fields. I've no the time to be doing so much work upon it masel' as I'd like. But the wife and I ne'er let it wander far frae our thochts. It's a bonnie place. And I'm proving there that farmin' can be made to pay its way in Britain--aye, even in Scotland, the day.

I can wear homespun clothes, made frae wool ta'en frae sheep that ha'

grazed and been reared on ma ain land. All the food I ha' need to eat frae ane end o' the year to the other is raised on my farm. The leather for ma shoon can be tanned frae the skins o' the beasties that furnish us wi' beef. The wife and I could shut ourselves up together in our wee hoose and live, so long as micht be needfu', frae our farm --aye, and we could support many a family, beside ourselves.

Others are doing so, tae. I'm not the only farmer who's showing the way back to the land.

I'm telling ye there's anither thing we must aye be thinkin' of. It's in the country, it's on the farms, that men are bred. It's no in the city that braw, healthy lads and la.s.sies grow up wi' rosy cheeks and st.u.r.dy arms and legs. They go tae the city frae the land, but their sons and their sons' sons are no sae strong and hearty--when there are bairns. And ye ken, and I ken, that 'tis in the cities that ye'll see man and wife wi' e'er a bairn to bless many and many sicca couple, childless, lonely. Is it the hand o' G.o.d? Is it because o' Providence that they're left sae?

Ye know it is not--not often. Ye know they're traitors to the land that raised them, nourished them. They've taken life as a loan, and treated it as a gift they had the richt to throw awa' when they were done wi' the use of it. And it is no sae! The life G.o.d gives us he gibe's us to hand on to ithers--to our children, and through them to generations still to come. Oh, aye, I've heard folk like those I'm thinkin' of shout loudly o' their patriotism. But they're traitors to their country--they're traitors as surely as if they'd helped the Hun in the war we've won. If there's another war, as G.o.d forbid, they're helping now to lose it who do not do their part in giving Britain new sons and new dochters to carry on the race.

CHAPTER XIV

Tis strange thing enow to become used to it no to hea to count every bawbee before ye spend it. I ken it weel. It was after I made my hit in London that things changed sae greatly for me. I was richt glad. It was something to know, at last, for sure, that I'd been richt in thinking I had a way wi' me enow to expect folk to pay their siller in a theatre or a hall to hear me sing. And then, I began to be fair sure that the wife and the bairn I'd a son to be thinkin' for by then--wad ne'er be wanting.

It's time, I'm thinkin', for all the folk that's got a wife and a bairn or twa, and the means to care for them and a', to be looking wi'

open een and open minds at all the talk there is. Shall we be changing everything in this world? Shall a man no ha' the richt tae leave his siller to his bairn? Is it no to be o' use any mair to be lookin' to the future?

I wonder if the folk that feel so ha' taken count enow o' human nature. It's a grand thing, human nature, for a' the dreadfu' things it leads men tae do at times. And it's an awfu' persistent thing, too.

There was things Adam did that you'll be doing the day, and me, tae, and thousands like us. It's human tae want to be sure o' whaur the next meal's coming frae. And it's human to be wanting to mak' siccar that the wife and the bairns will be all richt if a man dees before his time.

And then, we're a' used to certain things. We tak' them for granted.

We're sae used to them, they're sae muckle a part o' oor lives, that we canna think o' them as lacking. And yet--wadna many o' them be lost if things were changed so greatly and sae suddenly as those who talk like the Bolsheviki wad be havin' them?

I'm a' for the plain man. It's him I can talk wi'; it's him I understand, and who understands me. It's him I see in the audience, wi' his wife, and his bairns, maybe. And it's him I saw when I was in France--Briton, Anzac, Frenchman, American, Canadian, South African, Belgian. Aye, and it was plain men the Hun commanders sent tae dee.

We've seen what comes to a land whaur the plain man has nae voice in the affairs o' the community, and no say as to hoo things shall be done.

In Russia--though G.o.d knows what it'll be like before ye read what I am writing the noo!--the plain man has nae mair to say than he had in Germany before the ending o' the war. The plain man wants nowt better than tae do his bit o' work, and earn his wages or his salary plainly --or, maybe, to follow his profession, and earn his income. It's no the money a man has in the bank that tells me whether he's a plain man or no. It's the way he talks and thinks and feels.

I've aye felt mysel' a plain man. Oh, I've made siller--I've done that for years. But havin' siller's no made me less a plain man. Nor have any honors that ha' come to me. They may call me Sir Harry Lauder the noo, but I'm aye Harry to my friends, and sae I'll be tae the end o'

the chapter. It wad hurt me sair tae think a bit t.i.tle wad mak' a difference to ma friends.

Aye, it was a strange thing in yon days to be knowing that the dreams the wife and I had had for the bairn could be coming true. It was the first thing we thocht, always, when some new stroke o' fortune came-- there'd be that much mair we could do for the bairn. It surprised me to find hoo much they were offering me tae sing. And then there was the time when they first talked tae me o' singin' for the phonograph!

I laughed fit to kill masel' that time. But it's no a laughin' matter, as they soon made me see.

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