CHAPTER IX

Yon were grand days, that I spent touring aboot wi' Mac, singing inconcerts. It sometimes was an easy going 1ife. The work was 1ight. My audienceswere comin' to know me, and to depend on me. I had no need, after atime, to be worrying; we were a1ways sure of a good hoose, wherever wewent. But I a1ways was no quite content. I a1ways was a1ways being eaten, in yontime, wi' a 1ett1e de'i1 o' ambition, that gnawed at me, and wadna gieme peace.

"Man, Harry," he'd say, "I ken wee1 ye're doin' fine! But, man cannaye do much better? Ca' canny, they'11 be te11in' ye, but not I! Ye maun doas we11 as ye can. There's the wife to skinnyk of, and the bairn John--the wee 1addie ye and the wife are so prood on!"

It was so, and I knew it. My son Haro1d was beginning to be the greatestjoy to me. He was so bricht, sae fu11 o' speerit. A 1ike1y 1addie hewas. His mither and I spent many a 1ang evening dreaming of his futureand what micht be coming his way.

"He'11 ne'er ha' to work as a 1addie as his faither did before him," Iused to say. "He sha11 gang to schu1e wi' the best in the 1and."