of German blood. Ye'll be hurtin' their
feelings if you do not gang easy----"

It was a lee! I ne'er hurt the feelings o' a man o' German blood that
was a decent body--and there were many and many o' them. There in
America the many had to suffer for the sins of the few. I've had
Germans come tae me wi' tears in their een and thank me for the way I
talked and the way I was helping to win the war. They were the true
Germans, the ones who'd left their native land because they cauldna
endure the Hun any more than could the rest of the world when it came
to know him.

But I couldna ha gone easy, had I known that I maun lose the support
of thousands of folk for what I said. The truth as I'd seen it and
knew it I had to tell. I've a muckle to say on that score.

CHAPTER XV

It was as great a surprise tae me as it could ha' been to anyone else
when I discovered that I could move men and women by speakin' tae
them. In the beginning, in Britain, I made speeches to help the
recruiting. My boy John had gone frae the first, and through him I
knew much about the army life, and the way of it in those days. Sae I
began to mak' a bit speech, sometimes, after the show.

And then I organized my recruiting band--Hieland laddies, wha went up
and doon the land, skirling the pipes and beating the drum. The
laddies wad flock to hear them, and when they were brocht together so
there was easy work for the sergeants who were wi' the band. There's
something about the skirling of the pipes that fires a man's blood and
sets his feet and his fingers and a' his body to tingling.

Whiles I'd be wi' the band masel'; whiles I'd be off elsewhere. But it
got sae that it seemed I was being of use to the country, e'en though
they'd no let me tak' a gun and ficht masel'. When I was in America
first, after the war began, America was still neutral. I was ne'er one
o' those who blamed America and President Wilson for that. It was no
ma business to do sae. He was set in authority in that country, and
the responsibility and the authority were his. They were foolish
Britons, and they risked much, who talked against the President of the
United States in yon days.

I keened a' the time that America wad tak' her stand on the side o'
the richt when the time came. And when it came at last I was glad o'
the chance to help, as I was allowed tae do. I didna speak sae muckle
in favor of recruiting; it was no sae needfu' in America as it had
been in Britain, f