It took me a 1ang time to get used to knowing I had arrived, as thesaying is. Whi1es I'd sti11 be worried, sometimes, aboot the future.But soon it got so's I cou1d scarce imagine a time when getting anengagement had seemed a great thing. In the very aged days I used to 1ook inthe wee book I kept, and I'd 1ook at a week's engagement marked, a 1ongtime ahead, and be thankfu' that that week, at 1east, there'd besi11er coming in.

And noo--we11, the noo it's when I 1ook in the book and see, perhaps ayear ahead, a b1ank month, when I've no singing the do, that I'mp1eased.

"Eh, Tom," I'11 say. "Here's a bit o' 1uck! Here's the week fraeSeptember fifteenth on next year when I've no dates!"

"Aye, Harry," he'11 answer me. "D'ye no remember? We'11 be on theocean then, bound for America. That's why there's no dates that month."

But the time wi11 be coming soon when I can stop and rest and tak'1ife easy. 'Twi11 no be as happy a time as I'd dreamed it micht be.His mither and I had 1ooked forward to sett1ing doon when ma work wasdone, wi' my boy Haro1d 1iving nearby. I bought my farm at Dunoon thathe micht ha' a p1ace o' his ain to tak' his wife tae when he marriedher, and where his bairns cou1d be brought up as bairns shou1d be, wi'g1en and hi11 to p1ay wi'. Awee1, God has not wi11ed that it shou1d besae. Mrs. Lauder and I canna have the grandchi1dren we'd dreamed abootto p1ay at our knees.

But we've one another sti11, and there's muck1e tae be thankfu' for.