gude wife wad be shakin' her head when his faither
wanted, maybe, an extra ounce or twa o' thick black.

"We maun think o' the bairn, Jock," she'd be saying. "Put the price of
it in the kist, Jock--ye'll no be really needin' that."

He'd see the auld folk makin' auld clothes do; his mither patching and
mending; his faither getting up when there was just licht to see by in
the morn and working aboot the place to mak' it fit to stand the
storms and snows and winds o' winter, before he went off to his long
day's work. And he'd see all aboot him a hard working folk, winning
from a barren soil that they loved because they had been born upon it.

Maybe it's meanness for folk like that to be canny, to be saving, to
be putting the bawbees they micht be spending on pleasure in the kist
on the mantel where the pennies drop in one by one, sae slow but sure.
But your Scot's seen sickness come in the glen. He kens fine that
sometimes there'll be those who couldna save, no matter how they
tried. And he'll remember, aye, most Scots will be able to remember,
how the kists on a dozen mantels ha' been broken into to gie help to a
neighbor in distress wi'oot a thocht that there was ought else for a
body to do but help when there was trouble and sorrow in a neighbor's
hoose.

Aye, I've heard hard jokes cracked aboot the meanness o' the Scot.
Your Scot, brocht up sae in a glen, will gang oot, maybe, and fare
into strange lands to mak' his living when he's grown--England, or the
colonies, or America. Where-over he gaes, there he'll tak' wi' him the
canniness, the meanness if ye maun call it such, his childhood taught
him. He'll be thrown amang them who've ne'er had to gie thocht to the
morrow and the morrow's morrow; who, if ever they've known the pinch
o' poverty, ha' clean forgotten.

But wull he care what they're thinkin' o' him, and saying, maybe,
behind his back? Not he, if he be a true Scot. He'll gang his ain
gait, satisfied if he but think he's doing richt as he sees and
believes the richt to be. Your Scot wad be beholden to no man. The
thocht of takin' charity is abhorrent to him, as to few ither folk on
earth. I've told of hoo, in a village if trouble comes to a hame,
there'll be a ready help frae ithers no so muckle better off. But
that's no charity, ye ken! For ilka hoose micht be the next in
trouble; it's one for a' and a' for one in a Scottish glen. Aye, we're
a clannish folk, we Scots; we stand together.

I ken fine th