"Eh? What's that, Gladys?"
"I was speerin' if you and Maggie are to hae a bairn?"
Janet gasped and cried: "Oh, Gladys!" and Jean cried: "Look at Maggie
blushin'!"
"Certainly!" I said with a laugh, "a dozen of them, won't we, Margaret?"
"Bairns is just a scunner," said Sarah. "Ye'll hae to stop yer
typewriter or ye'll waken them."
"That's awkward, Sarah," I said, "for if I stop my typewriter I'll
starve them."
"The Mester'll hae a big hoose," said Jean, "and he'll type his letters
in the parlour and Maggie'll rock the cradle in the kitchen, winna ye,
Maggie?"
"Perhaps," I suggested, "Jim Jackson will be able to invent a patent
that will enable me to rock the cradle as I strike the keys."
"Aye," said Janet with scorn, "and kill the bairn! Aw wudna trust Jim
Jackson wi' ony bairn o' mine ... him and his inventions!"
"Ye'll mak a nice father," said Gladys, and she put her arm round my
neck.
"Ye'll spoil yer bairns," said Ellen. She turned to Margaret. "Maggie,
dinna let him tak chairge o' them, or he'll mak them catch minnows a'
day instead o' learnin' their lessons."
"G'wa, Ellen," cried Sarah, "they're no married yet! And ye dinna get
bairns till ye're married a gey lang time."
"Some fowk has them afore they get married," said Barbara thoughtfully,
and I chuckled when I saw how the others looked at her. Disapproval was
writ large on their faces.
"Ye shudna mention sic things afore Maggie!" said Janet in a stage
whisper, and I had to hold my sides. Margaret could not keep her gravity
either, and she laughed immoderately.
Later they pleaded with me to tell them when the wedding was to take
place. I told them that I did not know, but that it would be soon, and
I promised to invite them all.
"But no Mester Macdonald!" said Jean. "Aw wudna feel so free wi' him
there."
I told them of the widower whose friends tried to persuade him to take
his mother-in-law with him in the front funeral coach. After some
persuasion he said resignedly: "Verra weel, then; but it'll spoil my
day." Then I sent them home.
* * *
The story I told the girls set me thinking of funeral stories. I have
heard dozens of them, but the only other one I can remember is the one
about the farmer whose wife was to be buried. As the men carried the
coffin along the passage they stumbled, and the coffin came into violent
contact with the corner. The lid flew off, and the wife sat up and
rubbed her eyes. She had been in a trance.
Twenty years later the wife died again. The men were carrying the coffin
through the passage when the farmer rushed forward.
"Canny, lads!" he cried, "canny wi' that corner!"
* * *
"Look here," said Macdonald to me to-night, "the School Board election
is coming off soon; why don't you stand?"
"I thought that I would be the last man on earth you would want on the
School Board," I replied.
"Not at all," he said with a smile. "You and I differ about education,
but our difference isn't so great as the difference between me and men
like Peter Mitchell."
I thought to myself that the difference between his idea and mine was
infinitely greater than the difference between his idea and Peter
Mitchell's, but I said: "It's very decent of you to suggest it, old
chap, but I'm not standing."
"But why not?"
"Possibly for the same reason that H. G. Wells and A. R. Orage and
Bernard Shaw and G. K. Chesterton don't stand for Parliament."
"You place yourself in good company!" he laughed.
"I'm not claiming kindred, Macdonald; what I mean to suggest is that I
stand to Peter Mitchell and Co. very much in the same relationship as
Shaw and Orage stand to Lloyd George and Co. Roughly there are two types
of mind, the thinkers and the doers. Orage has better ideas than Lloyd
George, but I fancy that Lloyd George is the better man to run a
Ministry of Munitions. I've got better ideas than Peter Mitchell (I
think you'll grant that), yet Peter is probably the better man to
arrange for the gravelling of the playground."