Whiles I think I've sung a song sae often everyone must be tired of it. I'm fond o' that wee song masel', and it was aye John's favorite, among all those in my repertory. But it seems I canna sing it often enough, for more than once, when I've not sung it, the audience hasna let me get awa' without it. I'll ha' gie'n as many encores as I usually do; I'll ha' come back, maybe a score of times, and bowed. But a' over the hoose I'll hear voices rising—Scots voices, as a rule.
"Gie's the wee hoose, Harry," they'll roar. And: "The wee hoose 'mang the heather, Harry," I'll hear frae another part o' the hoose. It's many years since I've no had to sing that song at every performance.
Sometimes I've been surprised at the way my audiences ha' received me. There's toons in America where maist o' the folk will be foreigners— places where great lots o' people from the old countries in Europe ha' settled doon, and kept their ain language and their ain customs. In Minnesota and Wisconsin there'll be whole colonies of Swedes, for example. They're a fine, God fearing folk, and, nae doot, they've a rare sense of humor o' their ain. But the older ones, sometimes, dinna understand English tae well, and I feel, in such a place, as if it was asking a great deal to expect them to turn oot to hear me.
And yet they'll come. I've had some of my biggest audiences in such places, and some of my friendliest. I'll be sure, whiles I'm singing, that they canna understand. The English they micht manage, but when I talk a wee bit o' Scots talk, it's ayant them altogether. But they'll laugh—they'll laugh at the way I walk, I suppose, and at the waggle o' ma kilts. And they'll applaud and ask for mair. I think there's usually a leaven o' Scots in sic a audience; just Scots enough so I'll ha' a friend or twa before I start. And after that a's weel.
It's a great sicht to see the great crowds gather in a wee place that's happened to be chosen for a performance or twa because there's a theatre or a hall that's big enough. They'll come in their motor cars; they'll come driving in behind a team o' horses; aye, and there's some wull come on shanks' mare. And it's a sobering thing tae think they're a' coming, a' those gude folk, tae hear me sing. You canna do ought but tak' yourself seriously when they that work sae hard to earn it spend their siller to hear you.
I think it was in America, oot west, where the stock of the pioneers survives to this day, that I began to realize hoo much humanity counted for i' this world. Yon's the land of the plain man and woman, you'll see. Folk live well there, but they live simply, and I think they're closer, there, to living as God meant man tae do, than they are in the cities. It's easier to live richtly in the country. There's fewer ways to hand to waste time and siller and good intentions.
It was in America I first came sae close to an audience as to hae it up on the stage wi' me. When a hoose is sair crowded there they'll put chairs aroond upon the stage—mair sae as not to disappoint them as may ha' made a lang journey tae get in than for the siller that wad be lost were they turned awa'. And it's a rare thing for an artist to be able tae see sae close the impression that he's making. I'll pick some old fellow, sometimes, that looks as if nothing could mak' him laugh. And I'll mak' him the test. If I canna make him crack a smile before I'm done my heart will be heavy within me, and I'll think the performance has been a failure. But it's seldom indeed that I fail.
There's a thing happened tae me once in America touched me mair than a'most anything I can ca' to mind. It was just two years after my boy John had been killed in France. It had been a hard thing for me to gae back upon the stage. I'd been minded to retire then and rest and nurse my grief. But they'd persuaded me to gae back and finish my engagement wi' a revue in London. And then they'd come tae me and talked o' the value I'd be to the cause o' the allies in America.
When I began my tour it was in the early winter of 1917. America had not come into the war yet, wi' her full strength, but in London they had reason to think she'd be in before long—and gude reason, tae, as it turned oot. There was little that we didna ken, I've been told, aboot the German plans; we'd an intelligence system that was better by far than the sneaking work o' the German spies that helped to mak' the Hun sae hated. And, whiles I canna say this for certain, I'm thinking they were able to send word to Washington frae Downing street that kept President Wilson and his cabinet frae being sair surprised when the Germans instituted the great drive in the spring of 1918 that came sae near to bringing disaster to the Allies.
Weel, this was the way o' it. I'll name no names, but there were those who knew what they were talking of came tae me.