Part 13 (1/2)

”Yell ken fine it's frae me,” I tell my friends, ”because there'll be no stamp on the card when it comes tae ye!”

Always the audience roars wi' laughter when I come to that line. I ken fine they're no laughin' at the wee joke sae much as at what they're thinkin' o' me and a' they've heard o' my tightness and closeness. Do they think any Scot wad care for the cost of a stamp? Maybe it would anger an Englishman did a postcard come tae him wi'oot a stamp. It wad but amuse a Scot; he'd no be carin' one way or anither for the bawbee the stamp wad cost. And here's a funny thing tae me. Do they no see I'm crackin' a joke against masel'? And do they think I'd be doing that if I were close the way they're thinkin' I am?

Aye, but there's a serious side tae all this talk o' ma being sae close. D'ye ken hoo many pleas for siller I get each and every day o'

ma life? I could be handin' it out frae morn till nicht! The folk that come tae me that I've ne'er clapped een upon! The total strangers who think they've nowt to do but ask me for what they want! Men will ask me to lend them siller to set themselves up in business. La.s.sies tell me in a letter they can be gettin' married if I'll but gie them siller to buy a trousseau with. Parents ask me to lend them the money to educate their sons and send them to college.

And, noo, I'll be asking you--why should they come tae me? Because I'm before the public--because they think they know I ha' the siller? Do they nae think I've friends and relatives o' my ain that ha' the first call upon me? Wad they, had they the chance, help every stranger that came tae them and asked? Hoo comes it folk can lose their self-respect sae?

There's folk, I've seen them a' ma life, who put sae muckle effort into trying to get something for nowt that they ha' no time or leisure to work. They're aye sae busy writin' begging letters or working it aroond sae as to get to see a man or a woman they ken has mair siller than he or she needs that they ha' nae the time to mak' any effort by their ain selves. Wad they but put half the cleverness into honest toil that they do into writin' me a letter or speerin' a tale o' was to wring my heart, they could earn a' the siller they micht need for themselves.

In ma time I've helped many a yin. And whiles I've been sorry, I've been impressed by an honest tale o' sorrow and distress. I've gi'en its teller what he asked, or what I thocht he needed. And I've seen the effect upon him. I've seen hoo he's thocht, after that, that there was aye the sure way to fill his needs, wi'oot effort or labor.

'T'is a curious thing hoo such things hang aboot the stage. They're aye an open handed lot, the folks o' the stage. They help one another freely. They're always the first to gie their services for a benefit when there's a disaster or a visitation upon a community. They'll earn their money and gie it awa' to them that's in distress. Yet there's few to help them, save themselves, when trouble comes to them.

There's another curious thing I've foond. And that's the way that many a man wull go tae ony lengths to get a free pa.s.s for the show. He'll come tae me. He'll be wanting tae tak' me to dinner, he'll ask me and the wife to ride in a motor, he'll do ought that comes into his head-- and a' that he may be able to look to me for a free ticket for the playhoose! He'll be seekin' to spend ten times what the tickets wad cost him that he may get them for nothing. I canna understand that in a man wi' sense enough to mak' a success in business, yet every actor kens weel that it's sae.

What many a man calls meanness I call prudence. I think if we talked more o' that virtue, prudence, and less o' that vice, meanness--for I'm as sure as you can be that meanness is a vice--we'd come nearer to the truth o' this matter, mayhap.

Tak' a savage, noo. He'll no be mean or savin': He'll no be prudent, either. He lives frae hand tae mooth. When mankind became a bit more prudent, when man wanted to know, any day, where the next day's living was to come frae, then civilization began, and wi' it what many miscall meanness. Man wad be laying aside some o' the food frae a day o' plenty against the time o' famine. Why, all literature is fu' o'

tales o' such things. We all heard the yarn o' the gra.s.shopper and the ant at our mither's knee. Some o' us ha' ta'en profit from the same; some ha' nicht. That's the differ between the prudent man and the reckless yin. And the prudent man can afford to laugh when the ither calls him mean. Or sae I'll gae on thinkin' till I'm proved wrong, at any rate.

I've in mind a man I know weel. He's a sociable body. He likes fine to gang aboot wi' his friends. But he's no rich, and he maun be carefu'

wi' his siller, else the wife and the bairns wull be gae'in wi'oot things he wants them to have. Sae, when he'll foregather, of an evening, wi' his friends, in a pub., maybe, he'll be at the bar. He's no teetotaller, and when some one starts standing a roond o' drinks he'll tak' his wi' the rest. And he'll wait till it comes his turn to stand aroond, and he'll do it, too.

But after he's paid for the drinks, he'll aye turn toward the door, and nod to all o' them, and say:

”Weel, lads, gude nicht. I'll be gae'n hame the noo.”

They'll be thinking he's mean, most like. I've heard them, after he's oot the door, turn to ane anither, and say:

”Did ye ever see a man sae mean as Wully?”

And he kens fine the way they're talking, but never a bean does he care. He kens, d'ye see, hoo he maun be using his money. And the siller a second round o' drinks wad ha' cost him went to his family-- and, sometimes, if the truth be known, one o' them that was no sae ”mean” wad come aroond to see Wully at his shop.

”Man, Wull,” he'd say. ”I'm awfu' short. Can ye no lend me the loan o'

five bob till Setterday?”

And he'd get the siller--and not always be paying it back come Setterday, neither. But Wull wad no be caring, if he knew the man needed it. Wull, thanks to his ”meanness,” was always able to find the siller for sicca loan. And I mind they did no think he was so close then. And he's just one o' many I've known; one o' many who's heaped coals o' fire on the heads of them that's thocht to mak' him a laughing stock.

I'm a grand hand for saving. I believe in it. I'll preach thrift, and I'm no ashamed to say I've practiced it. I like to see it, for I ken, ye'll mind, what it means to be puir and no to ken where the next day's needs are to be met. And there's things worth saving beside siller. Ha' ye ne'er seen a lad who spent a' his time a coortin' the wee la.s.sies? He'd gang wi' this yin and that. Nicht after nicht ye'd see him oot--wi' a different la.s.sie each week, belike. They'd a' like him fine; they'd be glad tae see him comin' to their door. He'd ha' a reputation in the toon for being a great one wi' the la.s.sies, and ither men, maybe, wad envy him.

Oftimes there'll be a chiel o' anither stamp to compare wi' such a one as that. They'll ca' him a woman hater, when the puir laddie's nae sicca thing. But he's no the trick o' making himsel' liked by the bit la.s.sies. He'd no the arts and graces o' the other. But all the time, mind ye, he's saving something the other laddie's spending.

I mind twa such laddies I knew once, when I was younger. Andy could ha' his way wi' any la.s.sie, a'most, i' the toon. Just so far he'd gang. Ye'd see him, in the gloamin', roamin' wi' this yin and that one. They'd talk aboot him, and admire him. Jamie--he was reserved and bashfu', and the la.s.sies were wont to laugh at him. They thocht he was afraid of them; whiles they thocht he had nae use for them, whatever, and was a woman hater. It was nae so; it was just that Jamie was waiting. He knew that, soon or late, he'd find the yin who meant mair to him than a' the ither la.s.sies i' the world put together.

And it was sae. She came to toon, a stranger. She was a wee, bonnie creature, wi' bricht een and bright cheeks; she had a laugh that was like music in your ears. Half the young men in the toon went coortin'

her frae the moment they first clapped een upon her. Andy and Jamie was among them--aye, Jamie the woman hater, the bashfu' yin!

And, wad ye believe it, it was Jamie hung on and on when all the ithers had gie'n up the chase and left the field to Andy? She liked them both richt weel; that much we could all see. But noo it was that Andy found oot that he'd been spending what he had wi' tae free a hand. Noo that he loved a la.s.sie as he'd never dreamed he could love anyone, he found he could say nowt to her he had no said to a dozen or a score before her. The protestations that he made rang wi' a familiar sound in his ain ears--hoo could he mak' them convincing to her?

And it was sae different wi' Jamie; he'd ne'er wasted his treasure o'