Part 26 (1/2)

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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls. 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 la.s.sie'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 smas.h.i.+ng 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 la.s.sie that's earned her siller in the works won't feel like going back to was.h.i.+ng dishes and taking orders about the sweeping and the polis.h.i.+ng 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 la.s.sie 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 ingrat.i.tude 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, la.s.s,” 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, la.s.s?”

”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, la.s.s--”