And he’d think, too, sometimes, of Jennie wi’ a bairn of theirs in her arms, looking like her, but wi’ Andy’s nose maybe, or his chin.  They’d be happy thoughts—­they’d be the sort of thoughts that sustained Andy and millions like him, frae Britain, and America, and Canada, and Australia, and everywhere whence men went forth to fight the Hun.

Weel, here’d be Andy, coming hame.  And they’re telling me Jennie wad be meeting him, and giving him a big, grimy hand to shake.

“Kiss me, lass,” Andy wad say, reaching to tak’ her in his arms.

And she’d gie a toss of her pretty head.  “Oh, I’ve no time for foolishness like that the noo!” she’d tell him, for answer.

“No time?  What d’ye mean, lass?”

“I’ll be late at the works if ye dinna let me go—­that’s what I mean.”

“But—­dinna ye love me any more’?”

“Oh, aye—­I love ye weel enough, Andy.  But I canna be late at the works, for a’ that!”

“To the de’il wi’ the works!  Ye’ll be marrying be as soon as may be, and then there’ll be no more works for ye, lass—­”

“That’s only a rumor!  I’m sticking to my job.  Get one for yourself, and then maybe I’ll talk o’ marrying you—­and may be no!”

“Get me a job?  I’ve got one—­the one you’ve been having!”

“Aye—­but it’s my job the noo, and I’ll be keeping it.  I like earning my siller, and I’m minded to keep on doing it, Andy.”

And off she goes, and Andy after her, to find she’s told the truth, and that they’ll not turn her off to make way for him.

“We’d like to have you back, Andy,” they’ll tell him.  “But if the women want to stay, stay they can.”

Well, I’ll be asking you if it’s likely Jenny will act so to her boy, that’s hame frae the wars?  Ye’ll never mak’ me think so till you’ve proved it.  Here’s the picture I see.

I see Jenny getting more and more tired, and waiting more and more eagerly for Andy to come hame.  She’s a woman, after a’, d’ye ken, and a young one.  And there are some sorts of work women were not meant or made to do, save when the direst need compels.  So, wi’ the ending of the war, and its strain, here’s puir Jennie, wondering how long she must keep on before her Andy comes to tak’ care of her and let her rest.

And—­let me whisper something else.  We think it shame whiles, to talk o’ some things.  But here’s Nature, the auld mither of all of us.  She’s a purpose in the world, has that auld mither—­and it’s that the race shall gae on.  And it’s in the heart and the soul, the body and the brain, of Jennie that she’s planted the desire that her purpose shall be fulfilled.

It’s bairns Jenny wants, whether or no she kens that.  It’s that helps to mak’ her so eager for Andy to be coming back to her.  And when she sees him, at long last, I see her flinging herself in his arms, and thanking God wi’ her tears that he’s back safe and sound—­her man, the man she’s been praying for and working for.