Madeline Brandeis - The Wee Scotch Piper

When I began to write these stories about children of all lands I had just returned from Europe whither I journeyed with Marie and Ref. Maybe you don't know Marie and Ref. I'll introduce them: Please meet Marie, my very little daughter, and Ref, my very big reflex camera.

These two are my helpers. Marie helps by being a little girl who knows what other little girls like and by telling me; and Ref helps by snapping pictures of everything interesting that Marie and I see on our travels. I couldn't get along without them.

Several years have gone by since we started our work together and Marie is a bigger girl – but Ref hasn't changed one bit. Ref hasn't changed any more than my interest in writing these books for you. And I hope that you hope that I'll never change, because I want to keep on writing until we'll have no more countries to write about – unless, of course, some one discovers a new country.

Even if a new country isn't discovered, we'll find foreign children to talk about – maybe the children in Mars! Who knows? Nobody. Not even Marie – and Marie usually knows about most things. That's the reason why, you see, though I sign myself

In the wee village of Aberfoyle, which is in Perthshire County, Scotland, lived Alan Craig, a shepherd.

The sheep of Scotland, like the bagpipes and bluebells, are famous, and in Aberfoyle there are many.

Dotted alongside the road are the bright bluebells, lighting up in true fairy array the darkness made by big, shady trees.

Shrieking through the stillness of a summer evening, comes the sound of the bagpipes. This music is furnished by a tattered piper marching up and down, up and down. He hopes that the people will throw pennies for the love of the tune he plays.

And the sheep, like little dots of white in the green meadows, graze. But sometimes, they, too, shriek when they are herded together, perhaps for the clipping.

When the sheep all bleat together, it sounds very much like the shrieking of the bagpipes. Maybe that is how the bagpipe was really started. Perhaps the sound was first uttered by a herd of Scotch sheep!

It was not yet clipping time on the small farm of Alan Craig. His sheep still roamed the hills. Their heavy, curly wool weighed them down and made them look as if they had on long, woollen nighties.

The babies sometimes walked right under their mothers, and then they were completely hidden.

On a hill sat Alan Craig, and by his side his faithful dog, Roy. Roy was a real sheep dog and was proud of his profession.

You know, when people are called professionals, it means that they are trained in one occupation. Of course, people make money at their professions, and this was the only difference between Roy and a professional human.

Roy was a professional sheep dog, but he did his work out of devotion to his master. Also he did it because it was in his blood to love to race the timid sheep over the hills and obey his master's commands.

"Back, Roy!" shouted Alan Craig.

Roy jumped to his feet and, barking, ran to bring back the flock, which had disappeared around a rocky mountain.

"Bowwow-wow!" The sheep heard him coming and, stupid creatures that they are, started to run the other way. "Bowwow!"

"Down, sir, down!" came the voice of Alan Craig from afar, and Roy understood.

Silently he made a dash for the leading sheep and, bounding ahead of the herd, he stood on guard. His feet were planted apart, and his tongue hung out. He was barking in his own language a short Scotch bark, which meant, "Now, will you go back?"

All but the leading sheep began to turn. That leader was, however, a mother sheep with a loved baby. She had always been very suspicious of Roy.

Perhaps he had once snapped at her baby, for he often had to do this to make the sheep behave. At any rate, the mother sheep could not forgive him. Without any fear, she now sprang toward Roy and butted her head in defiance.

Roy stood his ground and then made a plunge at her legs. Meanwhile, he let out a shrill bark as one of her sharp horns hit his leg. It was a short but hard battle.

At last Roy returned to his master, his tongue nearly sweeping the ground. But there was a triumphant expression in his eyes as he drove the crowd of panting sheep into a circle around Alan Craig and threw himself at his master's feet to await his reward.

This was not long in coming. Alan Craig appreciated his helper. In fact Roy was really the shepherd. Alan had only to speak his commands – "work his dog," as the Scotch say – and Roy did the rest.

Now he stroked his dog and said, "Good, Roy! Well done!"

Alan's language was well understood by Roy, but these words would have sounded this way to you: "Gude, Roy! Weel dune!" had Alan spoken in the Scotch dialect to Roy.

He could speak very good English, and did when he spoke to Englishmen. But you see, Roy was a Scotchman!

From the little white cottage in the hollow came the smell of dinner – fresh pancakes and meat cooking.

Alan picked up his crook – the kind that little Bopeep used – only Alan did not look like little Bopeep. Indeed, he was very different.

He was a big strong man. Although we picture a Scotch shepherd dressed in kilts and socks and perhaps a tam, Alan Craig wore none of these. Kilts and socks and tams are for the gentry, Alan would tell you, and shepherds are too poor to afford them.

So Alan wore an old suit which might have once been worn by your own father and then given away to some beggar. Alan was poor like most of the villagers, for Scotland is rather a poor country.

Still, in the little village of Aberfoyle, everyone was happy. In the evenings the people from the big city of Glasgow came in big buses. They danced outside on the village green to the tune of the pipes, while they gloried in the fresh country air.

So you must not think that Alan Craig and his family suffered. Indeed, there could hardly have been a happier little family in Scotland.

That evening Alan wended his way homeward and was met by his wife and baby. If you have ever seen how an Indian mother carries her baby, then you will know how Mrs. Craig carried hers. Only instead of carrying it on her back as the Indians do, she carried it in front wrapped securely in her plaid shawl.

Her one arm was thus free, and she worked most of the day this way, while knowing and feeling her little one safe in her arms.

The family sat down to dinner in their wee kitchen, for the farmers have no such luxury as a dining room. They started their soup, a thick broth made of barley and vegetables of all kinds. Mother Craig poured it out of the big tureen.

Just at this time, the door burst open, and a ruddy-faced boy of ten years rushed into the room.

"Ian Craig, do you know the hour?" asked Mother Craig.

The boy stood in the doorway and smiled at the family. He sniffed with delight the pleasant odor coming to him from the table.

"Ay, Mother," answered the boy. "Well do I know."

Then he prepared to take his place at the table, with a gesture of rubbing his stomach in thinking of what was to be put inside.

"What a bonny smell, Mother!" he continued. "And surely the taste is even bonnier!"

"'Tis the glib tongue you have, Ian Craig," laughed his father. "You could write poetry to the smell of a good dinner! And now, what have you to tell us to-night?"

Now, Ian was always full of stories and tales of adventure. He was one of those children to whom something exciting is always happening.