Part 27 (1/2)

And it was the same way in America. There I helped, as much as I could, in selling Liberty Bonds. And I saw there the way the Boy Scouts worked. They sold more bonds than you would have thought possible. They helped me greatly, I know. I'd be speaking at some great meeting. I'd urge the people to buy--and before they could grow cold and forget the mood my words had aroused in them, there'd be a boy in uniform at their elbows, holding a blank for them to sign.

And the little girls worked at sewing and making bandages. I dinna ken just what these folk that are so disturbed aboot our boys and girls wad be wanting. Maybe they're o' the sort who think bairns should be seen and not heard. I'm not one of those, maself--I like to meet a bairn that's able and willing to stand up and talk wi' me. And all I can say is that those who are discouraged about the future of the race because of the degeneration of childhood during the war do not know what they're talking about.

Women and children! Aye, it's well that we've talked of them and thought of them, and fought for them. For the war was fought for them--fought to make it a better world for them. Men did not go out and suffer and die for the sake of any gain that they could make. They fought that the world might be a better one for children yet unborn to live in, and for the bairns they'd left behind to grow up in.

Was there, I wonder, any single thing that told more of the difference between the Germans and the allies than the way both treated women and children? The Germans looked on their women as inferior beings. That was why they could be guilty of such atrocities as disgraced their armies wherever they fought. They were well suited with the Turks for their own allies. The place that women hold in a country tells you much about it; a land in which women are not rated high is not one in which I'd want to live.

And if women wull be better off in Britain and America than they were, even before the war, that's one of the ways in which the war has redeemed itself and helped to pay for itself. I think they wull--but I've no patience wi' those who talk as if men and women had different interests, and maun fight it out to see which shall dominate.

They're equal partners, men and women. The war has shown us that; has proved to us men how we can depend upon our women to tak' over as much of our work as maun be when the need comes. And that's a great thing to have learned. We all pray there need be no more wars; we none of us expect a war again in our time. But if it comes one of the first things we wull do wull be to tak' advantage of what we've learned of late about the value and the splendor of our women.

CHAPTER XXVII

I've been pessimistic, you'll think, maybe, in what I've just been saying to you. And you'll be wondering if I think I kept my promise-- to prove that this can be a better, a bonnier world than it was before yon peacefu' days of 1914 were blotted out. I have'na done sae yet, but I'm in the way of doing it. I've tried to mak' you see that yon days were no sae bonny as we a' thocht them.

But noo! Noo we've come tae a new day. This auld world has seen a great sacrifice--a greater sacrifice than any it has known since Calvary. The brawest, the n.o.blest, the best of our men, have offered themselves, a' they had and were, upon the altar of liberty and of conscience.

And I'll ask you some questions. Gie'n you're asked, the noo, tae do something that's no just for your ain benefit. Whiles you would ha'

thought, maybe, and hesitated, and wondered. But the noo? Wull ye no be thinking of some laddie who gave up a' the world held that was dear to him, when his country called? Wull ye no be thinking that, after a', ought that can be asked of you in the way of sacrifice and effort is but a sma' trifle compared to what he had tae do?

I'm thinking that'll be sae. I'm thinking it'll be sae of all of us.

I'm thinking that, sae lang as we live, we folk that ken what the war was, what it involved for the laddies who fought it, we'll be comparing any hards.h.i.+p or privation that comes tae us wi' what it was that they went through. And it's no likely, is it, that we'll ha' the heart and the conscience tae be saying 'No!' sae often and sae resolutely as used tae be our wont?

They've put shame into us, those laddies who went awa'. They ha'

taught us the real values o' things again. They ha' shown us that i'

this world, after a', it's men, not things, that count. They helped to prove that the human spirit was a greater, grander thing than any o'

the works o' man. The Germans had all that a body could ask. They had numbers, they had guns, they had their devilish inventions. What beat them, then? What held them back till we could match them in numbers and in a' the other things?

Why, something Krupp could not manufacture at Essen nor the drillmasters of the Kaiser create! The human will--the spirit that is G.o.d's creature, and His alone.

I was in France, you'll mind. I remember weel hoo I went ower the ground where the Canadians stood the day the first clouds of poison gas were loosed. There were sae few o' them--sae pitifully few! As it was they were ootmatched; they were hanging on because they were the sort o' men wha wouldna gie in. French Colonials were supporting them on one side.

And across the No Man's Land there came a sort o' greenish yellow cloud. No man there knew what it meant. There was a hissing and a writhing, as of snakes, and like a snake the gas came toward them. It reached them, and men began to cough and choke. And other men fell doon, and their faces grew black, and they deed, in an agony such as the man wha hasna seen it canna imagine--and weel it is, if he would sleep o' nichts, that he canna.

The French Colonials broke and ran. The line was open. The Canadians were dying fast, but not a man gave way. And the Hun came on. His gas had broken the line. It was open. The way was clear to Ypres. That auld, ruined toon, that had gi'en a new glory to British history in November o' the year before, micht ha' been ta'en that day. And, aye, the way was open further than that. The Germans micht ha' gone on.

Calais would ha' fallen tae them, and Dunkirk. They micht ha' cut the British army awa' frae it's bases, and crumpled up the whole line along the North Sea.

But they stopped, wi' the greatest victory o' the war within their grasp. They stopped. They waited. And the line was formed again.

Somehow, new men were found tae tak' the places of those who had deed.

Masks against the gas were invented ower nicht. And the great chance o' the Germans tae win the war was gone.

Why? It was G.o.d's will? Aye, it was His will that the Hun should be beaten. But G.o.d works wi' human instruments. And His help is aye for they that help themselves--that's an auld saying, but as true a one as ever it was.

I will tell you why the Germans stopped. It was for the same reason that they stopped at Verdun, later in the war. It was for the same reason that they stopped again near Chateau Thierry and gave the Americans time to come up. They stopped because they couldna imagine that men would stand by when they were beaten.

The Canadians were beaten that day at Ypres when the gas came upon them. Any troops i' the world would ha' been beaten. The Germans knew that. They knew just hoo things were. And they knew that, if things had been sae wi' them, they would ha' run or surrendered. And they couldna imagine a race of men that would do otherwise--that would dee rather than admit themselves beaten.