At the week's end, in fact, on Sunday morning, as they were
walking to church, Donald said to her: "Mother, my new clothes
haven't been of the slightest good. I've been all over
Edinburgh, to every place I could think of--writers' offices,
merchants' offices, wharves, railway-stations--but it's no use.
Everybody wants to know where I've been before, and I've been
nowhere except to school. I said I was willing to learn, but
nobody will teach me; they say they can't afford it. It is like
keeping a dog, and barking yourself. Which is only too true,"
added Donald, with a heavy sigh.
"May be," said Mrs. Boyd. Yet as she looked up at her son--she
really did look up at him, he was so tall--she felt that if his
honest, intelligent face and manly bearing did not win something
at last, what was the world coming to? "My boy," she said,
"things are very hard for you, but not harder than for others. I
remember once, when I was only a few years older than you,
finding myself with only half a crown in my pocket. To be sure
it was a whole half-crown, for I had paid every half-penny I owed
that morning, but I had no idea where the next half-crown would
come from. However, it did come. I earned two pounds ten, the
very day after that day."
"Did you really, mother?" said Donald, his eyes brightening.
"Then I'll go on. I'll not 'gang awa back to my mither,' as that
old gentleman advised me, who objected to bark himself; a queer,
crabbed old fellow he was too, but he was the only one who asked
my name and address.
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