After we had had our supper and had gone to our room Adrian come a-runnin’ in and told us that a company of Scotch soldiers wuz marchin’ through the place on their way to Sterling.
So we quickly made our way out onto a balcony, where we could git a good view of ’em, with their short kilt skirts, bare legs, plaid stockin’s, and feathers. If it hadn’t been for their whiskers and mustaches, you’d most thought they wuz wimmen.
Sez Alice, “Oh, how picturesque they look! don’t they?”
And I sez, “More picturesque than comfortable!” Sez I, “What clothes them must be to wear into a battle-field, or to pick rosberrys in! What would hender thorns and bullets from stickin’ right into them bare legs?”
Sez I, “They don’t use no reason; we see to-day that they ust to dress in iron all over, when they ust to go into battle, but now they go half naked.”
Sez I, “Oh, the beauty of megumness! They wore too much in old times, and now not enough, which, I’ll bet, their cold legs would testify to, if they could speak up.”
As I said of the bagpipes—but more anon.
It wuz that night, jest as I wuz preparin’ my body for rest, that Josiah’s dreamy study a-lookin’ at the bagpipes become manifest. I see my companion foldin’ up two handkerchiefs kinder queer and a-measurin’ ’em by his arm, and anon kinder layin’ his jack-knife between ’em, and actin’.
And I sez, “What are you a-doin’, Josiah Allen?”
“Why,” sez he, “I wuz a-thinkin’ of makin’ a bagpipe.”