The school is closed for the Autumn Holiday ... commonly called the Tattie Holiday here. Macdonald has gone off to Glasgow. The bigger boys and girls are gathering potatoes in the fields here, and I am driving the tattie digger. At dinnertime they come to the bothy and eat their bread; Mrs. Thomson gives them soup and coffee in the kitchen, but they bring their bowls over to my bothy. Much of the fun has gone out of them; the constant bending makes them very tired, and they drop off to sleep very easily. Janet and Ellen lay in my bed all dinnertime yesterday and slept. Occasionally a boy will sing a song that always crops up at tattie time:—
O! I\'m blyde I\'m at the tatties,
I\'m blyde I\'m at the tatties,
I\'m blyde I\'m at the tatties,
Wi\' auchteenpence a day!

Blyde means glad, but there is but little gladness in the band that trudges up the rigs in the morning twilight.

Jim Jackson is sometimes in good form. He has taken on the swaying gait of the young ploughman; he hasn\'t got the pockets that are situated in the front of the trousers, but he shoves his hands down the inside instead, and he says: "Ma Goad, you lads, hurry up[Pg 109] afore the Boss comes roond wi\' the digger again!" They call me the Boss now; Macdonald is the Mester. They seldom mention the school at all; if they do it is to recall some incident that happened in my time. But already the memory of our happy days is becoming hazy; life is too interesting for children to recall memories.

To-day Jim sat and gazed absently at my bothy fire.

"Now, bairns," I said, "Jim\'s got an idea. Cough it up, Jim."

"Aw was thinkin\' o\' the tattie-digger," he said slowly; "it seems an awfu\' roondaboot wye o\' liftin\' tatties. Could we no invent a digger that wud hoal the tatties and gaither them at the same time?"

"Laziness is the mother of invention," I remarked.

"But ... cud a machine no be invented?" he asked.

"You could have a sort o\' basket," he went on, "that ceppit a\' the tatties as they were thrown oot."

"Dinna haver!" interjected Janet, "it wud cep a\' the stanes at the same time."

"If spuds were made o\' steel," said Jim, "ye cud draw them oot wi\' a magnet."

"And if the sky fell you would catch larks," said I.

"If the sea dried up!" said Ellen, and Jim instantly forgot his patent tattie-digger.

"Crivens! What a fine essay that wud[Pg 110] mak! Why did ye no gie us that for an essay?"

"Take it on now," I suggested, but he ignored the suggestion.

"The Mester gae me a book to read in the holidays," he said irrelevantly, "and it\'s called Self Help; it\'s a\' aboot laddies that got on weel."

I ceased to listen to their talk. I thought of Samuel Smiles and his Victorian ideals. The book is iniquitous nowadays; it is the Bible of the individualist. Get on! I\'m afraid that Smiles\' idea of getting on is still popular in Scotland; the country might well adapt the popular song "Get Out and Get Under," changing it to "Get On or Get Under" and making it the national anthem of Scotland.

I once compared Self Help with Lorimer\'s Letters of a Self-made Merchant to his Son, and was struck by the similarity of the ideals. Lorimer\'s book is an Americanised Self-help. Smiles is slightly better. With him getting on means more than the amassing of wealth; it means gaining position, which being interpreted means returning to your native village with prosperous rotundity and a gold chain.

Lorimer has no special interest in gold chains and symbols of wealth; he doesn\'t care a button for position. He preaches efficiency and power; to him the greatest achievement in life appears to be the packing of the maximum of pig into the minimum of tin in the minimum of time. A business friend of mine[Pg 111] tells me that it is the greatest book America has produced. Evidently it didn\'t require the Lusitania incident to prove that America is a long-suffering nation.

Jim was back to the subject of inventions again.

"Aw read in a paper that there\'s a fortune waitin\' for the man that can invent something to haud breeks up instead o\' gallis\'s."

"Ye cud hae buttons on the foot o\' yer sark," suggested Janet.

"Aye," said Jim scornfully, "and if a button cam off what wud haud up yer breeks?"

"Public opinion ... in this righteous village," I murmured; "it\'s almost strong enough to hold up any pair of breeks, Jim," but no one understood me.

"Ye cud hae sticks up the side," said Ellen, "and yer breeks wud stand up like fisherman\'s boots."

"And if ye wanted to bend?" demanded Jim.

Ellen shoved out her tongue at him.

"Ye never said onything aboot bendin\', and ye dinna need to bend onywye."

"What aboot when ye\'re gaitherin\' tatties?" crowed Jim.

Ellen tossed her head.

"Aw wasna thinkin\' o\' the sort o\' man that gaithers tatties; Aw was thinkin\' o\' gentlemen\'s breeks ... the kind o\' breeks ye\'ll never hae, Jim Jackson."

Jim sighed and gave me a look which I took to mean: "Women are impossible when it[Pg 112] comes to arguing." He thought for a time; then he looked up with twinkling eyes.

"Aw\'ve got it!"

"Well?"

"Do away wi\' breeks a\'-the-gether, and wear kilts."

"And what will ye do wi\' yer hands?" put in Fred Findlay; "there\'s nae pooches in a kilt."

"Goad, Fred," said Jim, "Aw never thocht o\' that; we\'ll just hae to wrastle on wi\' oor breeks and oor gallis\'s."

"Ye cud wear a belt," suggested Janet.

"And gie mysel\' pewmonia! No likely!"

"It\'s no pewmonia that ye get wearin\' a belt," said Janet, "it\'s a pendicitis."

"G\'wa, lassie, what do you ken aboot breeks onywye?"

"Aw ken mair than you do, Jim Jackson. For wan thing Aw ken that it\'s no a subject ye shud speak aboot afore lassies. Come on, Ellen, we\'ll go ootside; the conversation\'s no proper."

Jim glanced at me doubtfully.

"It was her that said that breeks cud be buttoned to yer sark!" he exclaimed. He jumped up and hastened to the door.

"Janet Broon," I heard him cry, "dinna you speak aboot sarks to me again; sarks is no a proper subject o\' conversation for young laddies."

I think it was Fletcher of Saltoun who said that he didn\'t care who made a nation\'s laws[Pg 113] if he made its ballads. To-night I feel that I don\'t care if Macdonald hears the bairns\' opinion of Charles I. so long as I hear their opinion of sarks and breeks.

*         *         *

A Trade union official delivered a lecture on Labour Aspirations in the village hall to-night. I was sadly disappointed. The man tried to make out that the interests of Capital and Labour are similar.

"We are not out to abolish the capitalist," he said; "all we want is a say in the workshop management. We have nothing to do with the way the employer conducts his business; we want to mind our own business. We want to see men paid a living wage; we want to see...." I ceased to be interested in what the man wanted to see. I fancy that he requires to see a devil of a lot before he is capable of guiding the Trade unions.

Why are these so-called leaders so poor in intellect? Why are they so fearful of alienating the good opinion of the capitalist? If the Trade union has any goal at all it surely is the abolition of the capitalist. The leaders crawl to the feet of capital and cry: "For the Lord\'s sake listen to us! We won\'t ask much; we won\'t offend you in the least. We merely want to ask very deferentially that you will see that there is no unemployment after the war. We beseech you to let our stewards have a little say ... a very little say ... in the management of the shops. Take your[Pg 114] Rent and Interest and Profit as usual; as usual we\'ll be quite content with what is left over."

If a bull had intelligence he would not allow himself to be led to the shambles. If the Trade unions had intelligence they would not allow their paid leaders to lead them to the altar.

The lecturer had evidently been told that I was the only Socialist in the village, and he called upon me to say a few words. I have no doubt that later he regretted calling upon me.

"The speaker is modest in his demands," I said. "He has told you what Labour is asking for, and now I\'ll tell you what I think Labour should ask for. Labour\'s chief aim should be to make the Trade unions blackleg proof. When they have roped in all the workers they will be able to command anything they like. They should then go to the State and say: \'We want to join forces with the State. Capitalism is un-Christlike, and wasteful, and we must destroy it. We propose to take over the whole concern ourselves; we propose to abolish Rent, Interest, and Profit ... and Wagery. At present we are selling our labour to the highest bidder, and in the process we are selling our souls along with our bodies. Each industry will conduct its own business, not for profit but for social service; no shareholders will live on our labour; we shall give our members pay instead of wages.\'

[Pg 115]

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