I know coming tae me.

"Harry," he'll say, "you're rich--it won't matter to you. Lend me the
loan of a ten-pound note for a few weeks. I'd like to be putting oot
some siller for new claes."

And when I refuse he'll call me mean. He'll say the ten pounds
wouldn't matter to me--that I'd never miss them if he never did return
the siller. Aye, and that's true enough. But if I did it for him why
would I not be doing it for Tom and Dick and Harry, too? No! I'll let
them call me mean and close fisted and every other dour thing it
pleases them to fancy me. But I'll gae my ain gait wi' my ain siller.

I see too much real suffering to care about helping those that can
help themselves--or maun do without things that aren't vital. In
Scotland, during the war, there was the maist terrible distress. It's
a puir country, is Scotland. Folk there work hard for their living.
And the war made it maist impossible for some, who'd sent their men to
fight. Bairns needed shoes and warm stockings in the cold winters,
that they micht be warm as they went to school. And they needed
parritch in their wee stomachs against the morning's chill.

Noo, I'll not be saying what Mrs. Lauder and I did. We did what we
could. It may have been a little--it may have been mair. She and I are
the only ones who ken the truth, and the only ones who wull ever ken
it--that much I'll say. But whenever we gave help she knew where the
siller was going, and how it was to be spent. She knew that it would
do real good, and not be wasted, as it would have been had I written a
check for maist of those who came to me for aid.

When you talk o' charity, Mrs. Lauder and I think we know it when we
see it. We've handled a goodly share of siller, of our own, and of
gude friends, since the war began, that's gone to mak' life a bit
easier for the unfortunate and the distressed.

I've talked a deal of the Fund for Scottish Wounded that I raised--
raised with Mrs. Lauder's help. We've collected money for that
wherever we've gone, and the money has been spent, every penny of it,
to make life brighter and more worth living for the laddies who fought
and suffered that we micht all live in a world fit for us and our
bairns.

It wasna charity those laddies sought or needed. It was help--aye. And
it took charity, in the hearts of those who helped, to do anything for
them. But there is an ugly ring to that word charity as too many use
it the noo. I've no word to say against the char