"YANKEE DOODLE"
"Ben," said Donald, "just listen to the green gawks singing and whistling that 'Yankee Doodle.' They think it is the finest tune on earth, and the latest martial music from England. I remember the bit of a surgeon who wrote that in fun two years ago, just to make sport of them."
"Well, Donald, I like it myself; and as our boys have taken it up, they're apt to fight well under it."
"'Deed, man, they'll no do anything with it. It's just a poor foolish tune."
How little we foresaw the popularity of that air. For years the bands of the British regiments played it in derision of the provincials. Percy's troops marched to Lexington to this music. They did not play it on their return. During the Revolution our men played it whenever the British were defeated, and the tune gradually became unpopular in the British army.
"Donald, our men may be green and awkward, but they are God-fearing men, most of them, members of the church; and they don't drink like fish, nor swear like pirates, as these newcomers do, whose conceit and overbearing ways are hard to endure."
"You're right there, Ben. It's no bad thing to have a gude opinion of oneself, provided it's not altogether too gude. And I maun say that these men put themselves too high. And a man should have a bridle on his tongue, and not be drinking too much of this nasty rum."
"They laugh at our ways of speaking, and say we speak through our noses. You of the Black Watch talk differently from them. I heard a captain, the other day, telling of pumpkins, which he called pompions. 'Yes,' he said, 'the pompion is a good vegetable, and an excellent succedaneum to the cabbage, in the latter part of the winter.' What do you think of succedaneum, Donald?"
"'Deed, I think it's a fine word. I don't know what it means, but it has a grand sound. I'll manage to bring it in, in the future, when I hear people using big words. Benjamin, I'm obliged to you."
"A few days later, I heard this captain talking about the fogs in Nova Scotia, which he said, 'are owing to the steamy breath of fish and sea animals.' I put that down at once. If I could only hear him talk right along, I think I'd learn a good deal about nature. How do you like it?"