Ann and Her Mother

by O. Douglas

Marget sat forward with one hand on each knee.

"Eh, I thocht it was an awfu' place. D'ye mind, Mem, thon day you took me awa' into Argyle Street to see the 'Poly'—a place mair like a toun than a shop? I was fair fear't."

Mrs. Douglas, picking up a stitch, stopped to laugh.

"That was a great day, Marget. You suddenly found yourself looking into a long mirror, and you turned to me and said, 'Eh, I say—there's a wumman awfu' like ma sister.'"

"Didn't you know yourself, Marget?" Ann asked.

"No' me. I had never seen the whole o' masel' afore, an' how was I to ken I was sic a queer-lookin' body?"

"I know," said Ann. "I've had some shocks myself." She turned to her mother. "I always sympathised with Trudi in The Benefactress when she looked into a mirror and was disgusted to find that she wasn't looking as pretty as she felt. But, Marget, what else struck you besides the size of the 'Poly' and its mirrors?"

Marget was chuckling to herself. "I aye mind how affrontit I was in the 'Poly.' I wanted to buy something, but the only thing I could mind I wanted was a yaird o' hat elastic. A young man, like a lord, leaned over the counter and says, 'What can I do for you, Madam?'"

Here Marget became convulsed with laughter, and had to wipe her eyes before going on. "'Aw,' says I, 'a yaird o' hat elastic,' an' says he, 'One penny, Madam.' I thocht fair shame to see a braw man like that servin' me wi' hat elastic. I telt the mistress I wadna gang back there till I needed a new goon or something wise-like. Ay, there was a heap o' queer things in Glasgae that we hadna in Kirkcaple, but I likit it fine. We a' settled doon rale comfortable, an' a'body that cam' to Glasgae frae Kirkcaple cam' to oor kirk, so we never felt far frae hame. Oh, I likit Glasgae rale weel when once I fund ma way aboot."

"It's odd," said Ann, "to think of Glasgow as the 'Scottish Oxford' of the seventeenth-century traveller. How pretty it must have been, with gardens going down to the Clyde, a college in the High Street, an old cathedral on a hill overlooking the city, and with so clear an air that a mountain called 'Ben Lomond' could be seen by the shopkeepers of King Street. Alack-a-day! the green places have been laid waste.... Mother, do you remember on winter nights as we sat round the fire how we sometimes used to hear men calling 'Call-er oy-sters? That is the most vivid recollection that has remained with me of those Glasgow days—a November evening with a touch of the fog that frost was apt to bring, a clear fire burning in the nursery grate, books and games scattered about, and through the misty stillness outside the cry, 'Call-er oy-sters.' I used to lift a corner of the blind to look out, wondering if I would see some wandering sailorman with a pokeful of oysters on his back—but there was nothing, nothing but the strangely mournful cry."