Between You and Me

. I went around the world in yon days when there was war. I saw all manner of men. I saw them live, and fight, and dee. And now I'm back from the other side of the world again. And I'm tell

is no better than Trotzky or a Hun. There'll be those who'll be wantin' me to let a Soviet tell me what songs to sing to ye, and what the pattern of my kilts should be. But what have such folk to say to you an

i and everywhere where men went about the business of the war. And it's plain men who have come home to Britain, and America, to Australia and Canada and all the other

d tak' care of those that are near and dear to them. Some of us plain folk have more than others of us, maybe, but there'll be no envy among us for a' th

ter all, it's himself a man knows better than anyone else, and if I've ideas about life and the world it's from the way life's dealt with me that I've learned them. I've n

ing my songs, and to play the piano? Man, ye'd be wrong, an' ye thought so! My faither deed, puir man, when I was but a bairn of ele

ire town of Arboath. Do ye ken what I was paid? Twa shillin' the week. That's less than fifty cents in American money. And that was in 1881, thirty eight years ago. I've my bit siller the noo. I've my wee hoose amang the

think too much of things. For a lang time now things have been riding over men, and mankind has ceased riding over things. But now we plain folk are going again to make things subservi

lf alone. I had to learn that I must think all the time of others. A great grief came to me when my son was killed. But I was not able to think and

ay." She reminded me of those words. And I was

Was it for me, his father, to be selfish when he had been unselfish? Had I done as I planned, had I said I could not carry on because of my ain grief, I should have brought sorrow and trouble to others, and

ho is talking with ye. I've as little patience as any man with those fat, sleek folk who fold their hands and roll their een and speak without knowledge of grief and pain when those who have known

han I did, and earn more, and ever and again I'd tell them at some new mill I was past fourteen, and they'd put me to work at full ti

here was a song competition for amateurs, with a watch for a prize. I won the prize, and I was as conceited as you please, with all the other mill boys envying me, and seein', at last, some use in the way I was always singing. A bit later there was another contest, and I won that, too, with a six-bladed

to be found there at the coal mines. I went on at the pitheads, and, after a week or so, a miner gave me a chance to go below with him. He was

r lungs with them. I carried a gauze lamp, but the bit flicker of it was worse than useless-it made it harder for me to see, instead of easier. The pressure's what ye feel; it's like to be chokin' ye until you're us

ey find copper, and good copper, at that depth. But they took me doon there in an express elevator. I had no time to be afeared before we were doon, walkin' along a broad, dry galler

the great copper mines there, of the thing

eak the British line. Ye mind yon days in the spring of 1918? Anxious days, sad days. And in the war we all were fighting, copper coun

every performance. The folk sat on the stage, so deep packed, so close together, there was scarce room for my walk around. Ye mind how I fool ye, w

itators were at work among them, stirring up trouble, seeking to take their minds off their work and hurt the production of the copper that was needed to save

en were sound, and they did grand work. And they found their reward, too

rs, whiles before I was there. They had not thought, any more than had the foolish men among the workers, h

wife, maybe, when ye slipped oot, that ye'd come richt back, so soon as ye had finished wi' Sandy. And then, after ye'd sat ye doon together in a corner of the bar, why one bit word would lead to another, and ye'd be wande

s of America! And yet, for what I'm thinkin' it's no so far a cry. There were men I knew in Hamilton who'd have