urself seriously when they that work sae
hard to earn it spend their siller to hear you.

I think it was in America, oot west, where the stock of the pioneers
survives to this day, that I began to realize hoo much humanity
counted for i' this world. Yon's the land of the plain man and woman,
you'll see. Folk live well there, but they live simply, and I think
they're closer, there, to living as God meant man tae do, than they
are in the cities. It's easier to live richtly in the country. There's
fewer ways to hand to waste time and siller and good intentions.

It was in America I first came sae close to an audience as to hae it
up on the stage wi' me. When a hoose is sair crowded there they'll put
chairs aroond upon the stage--mair sae as not to disappoint them as
may ha' made a lang journey tae get in than for the siller that wad be
lost were they turned awa'. And it's a rare thing for an artist to be
able tae see sae close the impression that he's making. I'll pick some
old fellow, sometimes, that looks as if nothing could mak' him laugh.
And I'll mak' him the test. If I canna make him crack a smile before
I'm done my heart will be heavy within me, and I'll think the
performance has been a failure. But it's seldom indeed that I fail.

There's a thing happened tae me once in America touched me mair than
a'most anything I can ca' to mind. It was just two years after my boy
John had been killed in France. It had been a hard thing for me to gae
back upon the stage. I'd been minded to retire then and rest and nurse
my grief. But they'd persuaded me to gae back and finish my engagement
wi' a revue in London. And then they'd come tae me and talked o' the
value I'd be to the cause o' the allies in America.

When I began my tour it was in the early winter of 1917. America had
not come into the war yet, wi' her full strength, but in London they
had reason to think she'd be in before long--and gude reason, tae, as
it turned oot. There was little that we didna ken, I've been told,
aboot the German plans; we'd an intelligence system that was better by
far than the sneaking work o' the German spies that helped to mak' the
Hun sae hated. And, whiles I canna say this for certain, I'm thinking
they were able to send word to Washington frae Downing street that
kept President Wilson and his cabinet frae being sair surprised when
the Germans instituted the great drive in the spring of 1918 that came
sae near to bringing disaster to the