Thirdly, What I have heard, does hear, and cannot help; I mean the difference between the old women and the young.
Fourthly, Conclude with an advice to young men and young women, how to avoid the buying of Janet Juniper’s stinking butter,[138] which will have a rotten rift on their stomach as long as they live.[139]
First, The first thing then, I see and observe is, that a wheen daft giddy-headed, cock-nosed, juniper nebbed mothers, bring up a wheen sky-racket dancing daughters, a’ bred up to be ladies, without so much as the breadth of their lufe of land, it’s an admiration to me, whare the lairds are a’ to come frae that’s to be coupled to them; work, na, na, my bairn manna work, she’s to be a lady, they ca’ her Miss, I maun hae her lugs bor’d says auld Numps the mither; thus the poor pet is brought up like a mitherless lamb, or a parrot in a cage; they learn naething but prick and sew, and fling their feet when the fidle plays, so they become a parcel of yellow-faced female-taylors, unequal matches for countrymen, Flanders-babbies, brought up in a box, and must be carried in a basket; knows nothing but pinching-poverty, hunger and pride; can neither milk kye, muck a byre, card, spin, nor yet keep a cow from a corn-rigg; the most of such are as blind penny-worths, as buying pigs in pocks, and ought only to be matched with Tacket-makers, Tree-trimmers, and Male-taylors, that they may be male and female agreeable in trade, since their piper fac’d fingers are not for hard labour; yet they might also pass on a pinch for a black Sutor’s wife, for the stitching of white seams round the mouth of a lady’s shoe; or, with Barbers or Bakers they might be buckled, because of their muslin-mouth and pinch-beck speeches, when barm is scant, they can blow up their bread with fair wind, and when the razor is rough, can trim their chafts with a fair tale, oil their peruke with their white lips, and powder the beau’s pow with a French-puff; they are well versed in all the science of flattery, musical tunes, horn-pipes, and country-dances, though perfect in none but the reel of Gamon.
Yet these are they the fickle farmer fixes his fancy upon; a bundle of clouts, a skeleton of bones, Maggy and the Much, like twa fir-sticks and a pickle tow, neither for his plate nor his plow; very unproper plenishing, neither for his profit nor her pleasure, to plout her hands through Hawkey’s[140] caff-cog, is a hateful hardship for Mammy’s Pet, and will hack a’ her hands. All this I have seen and heard, and been witness to; but my pen being a goose-quill, cannot expose their names nor places of abode, but warns the working-men out of their way.
Secondly, I see another sort, who can work, and maun work till they be married, and become mistresses themselves; but as the young man receives them, the thrift leaves them; before that, they wrought as for a wager, they span as for a premium, busked as for a brag, scour’d their din skins as a wauker does worsted blankets, kept as mim in the mouth as a minister’s wife, comely as Diana, chaste as Susanna, yet the whole of their toil is the trimming of their rigging, though their hulls be everlastingly in a leaking condition; their backs and their bellies are box’d about with the fins of a big fish,[141] six petticoats, a gown and apron, besides a side sark down to the ankle-banes; ah! what monstrous rags are here, what a cloth is consumed for a covering to one pair of buttocks! I leave it to the judgement of any ten taylors in town, if 30 pairs of mens’ breeches may not be cut, from a little above the easing of Bessy’s bum, and this makes her a motherly-like woman, as sturdy a fabric as ever strade to market or mill.
But when she’s married she turns a madam, her mistress did not work much, and why should she! Her mother tell’d ay she wad be a lady, but cou’d never show where her lands lay; but when money is all spent, credit broken, and conduct out of keeping, a wheen babling bubly bairns, crying piece minny, parich minny, the witless waster[142] is at her wit’s-end. Work now or want, and do not say that the world has war’d you; but Lofty-Nodle, your giddy-headed-mother has led you astray, by learning you to be a lady, before ye was fit to be a servant-lass, by teaching you laziness instead of hard labour, by giving you such a high conceit of yourself, that no body thinks any thing of you now, and you may judge yourself to be one of those, that wise people call Littleworth; but after all, my Dear Dirty-face, when you begin the warld again, be perfectly rich before you be gentle, work hard for what you gain, and you’ll ken better how to guide it, for pride is an unperfect fortune, and a ludicrous life will not last long.
Another sort I see, who has got more silver than sense, more gold than good nature, more muslins and means than good manners, tho’ a sack can hold their siller, six houses and a half cannot contain their ambitious desires. Fortunatus’s wonderful purse[143] would fail in fetching the fourth part of their worldly wants, and the children imitate their mothers, chattering like hungry cranes, crying still I want, I want, ever craving, willfully wanting, till all be brought to a doleful dish of desolation, and with cleanness of teeth, a full breast, an empty belly, big pockets without pence, pinching penury perfect poverty, drouth, hunger, want of money, and friends both, old age, dim eyes, feeble joints, without shoes or clothes, the real fruits of a bad marriage, which brings thoughtless Fops to both faith and repentance in one day.
Thirdly, Another thing I see, hear, and cannot help, is the breeding of bairns, and bringing them up like bill-stirks, they gie them walth o’ meat, but nae manners: but whan I was a bairn, if I didna bend to obedience, I ken mysel what I gat which learned me what to gie mine again; if they had tell’d me tuts, or prute-no, I laid them o’er my knee, and a com’d crack for crack o’er their hurdies, like a knock bleaching a harn-web, till the red wats stood on their hips, this brought obedience into my house, and banished dods and ill-nature out at the door; I dang the de’il out o’ them, and dadded them like a wet dish-clout till they did my bidding: But now the bairns are brought up to spit fire in their mither’s face, and cast dirt at their auld daddies: How can they be good who never saw a sample of it; or reverence old age, who practised no precepts in their youth? How can they love their parents, who gave them black poison instead of good principles? Who shewed them no good, nor taught them no duties! No marvel such children despise old age, and reverence their parents as an old horse does his father.