They’ll call me an optimist, maybe.  I’ll no be ashamed of that title.  There was a saying I’ve heard in America that taught me a lot.  They’ve a wee cake there they call a doughnut—­awfu’ gude eating, though no quite sae gude as Mrs. Lauder’s scones.  There’s round hole in the middle of a doughnut, always.  And the Americans have a way of saying:  “The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole.”  It’s a wise crack, you, and it tells you a good deal, if you’ll apply it.

There’s another way we maun be thinking.  We’ve spent a deal of blood and siller in these last years.  We maun e’en have something to show for all we’ve spent.  For a muckle o’ the siller we’ve spent we’ve just borrowed and left for our bairns and their bairns to pay when the time comes.  And we maun leave the world better for those that are coming, or they’ll be saying it’s but a puir bargain we’ve made for them, and what we bought wasna worth the price.

CHAPTER XX

There’s no sadder sicht my een have ever seen than that of the maimed and wounded laddies that ha’ come hame frae this war that is just over.  I ken that there’s been a deal of talk aboot what we maun do for them that ha’ done sae much for us.  But I’m thinking we can never think too often of those laddies, nor mak’ too many plans to mak’ life easier for them.  They didna think before they went and suffered.  They couldna calculate.  Jock could not stand, before the zero hour came in the trenches, and talk’ wi’ his mate.

He’d not be saying:  “Sandy, man, we’re going to attack in twa-three meenits.  Maybe I’ll lose a hand, Sandy, or a leg.  Maybe it’ll be you’ll be hit.  What’ll we be doing then?  Let’s mak’ our plans the noo.  How’ll we be getting on without our legs or our arms or if we should be blind?”

No, it was not in such fashion that the laddies who did the fichting thought or talked wi’ one another.  They’d no time, for the one thing.  And for another, I think they trusted us.

Weel, each government has worked out its own way of taking care of the men who suffered.  They’re gude plans, the maist of them.  Governments have shown more intelligence, more sympathy, more good judgment, than ever before in handling such matters.  That’s true in America as well as in Britain.  It’s so devised that a helpless man will be taken care of a’ his life lang, and not feel that he’s receiving any charity.  It’s nae more than richt that it should be so; it would be a black shame, indeed, if it were otherwise.  But still there’s more tae be done, and it’s for you and me and all the rest of us that didna suffer sae to do it.

There’s many things a laddie that’s been sair wounded needs and wants when he comes hame.  Until he’s sure of his food and his roof, and of the care of those dependent on him, if such there be, he canna think of anything else.  And those things, as is richt and proper, his country will take in its charge.