'Ou, he's fu' weel; only gey girnie whiles wi' his back-teeth,' glibly answered the urchin, throwing aside his shyness when his precious charge had become the subject.
'Dear me, Jockie,' laughed my friend, 'you will have some trouble with him then?'
'Whiles,' soberly said the boy, who, although conscious that the question was meant for banter, seemed unable to restrain himself on a matter evidently near his heart. 'He disna sleep weel, an' I'm obliged to sit up at nicht an' whussle till him; but he's guid, puir mannie, when the fashious teeth are no troublin' him.'
We were much affected by the artless affection which Jockie displayed towards his uncle; and learned recently with pleasure that he had, through the minister's good services, been appointed pupil-teacher in what was formerly the parish school; and that his nursling, hardier than the rest of the family, was acquiring his first knowledge under his nephew's affectionate tuition.
Without pleading ignorance of the evils frequently attendant on the practice of intrusting children with the care of infants, we prefer simply to accept it as inevitable, and to contemplate the advantages with which it is as undoubtedly accompanied. In the first place, it is this early discipline, this facing of the harder realities in their lot from the outset, which could alone prepare those in the humbler walks of life to tolerate the position in which their maturer years will have to be spent. The girl whom necessity has taught the rudiments of housewifery simultaneously with her alphabet, and the mysteries of nursing together with the secret of making pot-hooks and hangers, will blend most naturally and easily into the mistress of a poor man's home, where the anxieties and solicitudes common to women are indefinitely multiplied. If not so palpable, the value to boys of the knowledge of simple household duties is after all scarcely less important; for aptitude in these is perhaps the most efficacious weapon with which he can enter the lists of a determinately arduous life. In their acquirement the future workman has been taught self-reliance and the habit of industry—qualities on which his success mainly depends; while he is specifically prepared for the not uncommon eventuality—as soldier, sailor, or emigrant, or even in the ordinary casualties of married life in his own sphere—of having to minister to the physical wants of himself and others. Nor in the last of these situations will his juvenile experience of 'minding the bairn' be without its useful application; for at meal-times, in his evenings off work, and even in the night-watches, he will be called upon to accept his share in those solemn rites which his domestic felicity has entailed.
There is a reflection too of a far higher character to which the consideration of this simple theme not inaptly gives rise. Solicitude for the welfare of those whom they have cared for and protected remains with the elder brothers and sisters in greater or less force throughout life; and the younger members of the family can never wholly divest themselves of the confidence and respect which such services have engendered. Each unit in the tale of the poor man's family thus stands to the other not merely in the fraternal, but, in varying degrees, also in the filial relation. Hence that wonderful tenacity of kindredship by which they are distinguished. Diverging careers, conflicting interests, petty jealousies, and even animosities, may temporarily step in to arrest the current of their affection; but the advent of calamity or sorrow to one or other is a signal which rarely fails to reunite them in bonds stronger than ever. Is not blood, after all, thicker than water, in their own idiomatic phrase? The successful digger or colonial shepherd needs nothing more transcendental than the memory of the humble home in which all were mutually dependent, to send his tenderest thoughts wandering across the ocean which divides him from his playmates and friends. Wherever their various lots may be cast, there is to the end a common haunt in which their loving spirits may meet, in the 'auld clay biggin' or 'humble cot' where each in his turn performed his part in 'minding the bairn.'
The family affections are, moreover, the pith and marrow of patriotism; and who will venture to estimate the degree in which a nation's stability is dependent upon the primitive economy of the poor man's household? It is only by association with the loves and sorrows and joys of his childhood that the external surroundings of his home become endeared to the heart of man. How naturally Burns arises, in his Cotter's Saturday Night, from the more immediate reflections which the happiness of his humble characters suggests, to that eloquent exclamation in praise of his native land, beginning,
From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs.