THE AN ILLUSTRATED 83 FAMILY MAGAZINE BIBLE HOUSE, FOURTH AVE., AND NINTH ST., NEW YORK Published Monthly One Dollar per Year in Advance Editor, DONALD MACDOUGALL, B.D. ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE NEW YORK POST OFFICE VOL. V. NEW YORK, MAY, 1905 No. 2 TO ADVERTISERS A FEW REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD ADVERTISE IN Because it has a field of its own, and is the only high class Illustrated Monthly Magazine circulated among the best Scotch American families in the U. S. Because it is in its fourth year is increasing in circulation and popularity, and has been on a paying basis from the first, depending for its support upon direct subscribers more than on advertisers. Because it reports the doings of 200 organized societies with a membership of over 25,000. Because, as a family magazine, read by thousands, it is admirably adapted for general advertisements and is worthy of your consideration and patronage. Advertising rates on application. TO SUBSCRIBERS THE CALEDONIAN is issued on the 1st of EVERY MONTH. Price $1.00 a year in advance. Any subscriber failing to receive his copy within a reasonable time of publication is requested to notify us at once, sending correct address, as Post Office notices are received stating that copies cannot be delivered on account of removals, wrong addresses, etc. When subscription is due, prompt remittance is appreciated. We do not stop sending the magazine to any address on our books until specifically requested to do so. Payment of arrearage, if any, should accompany notice of discontinuance. AGENTS WANTED Do you wish to make money by representing THE CALEDONIAN in your town? We give liberal commission and salary to energetic men and women. Send your full address, enclosing references, and we will appoint you to begin work at once. Editorial Notes Kindly comments come clustering to us of the marked improvement of our first issue of Vol. V. We are sure that the May number will justify the hopes of our readers in regard to the advances we have made. New Agents are being appointed in new localities, and the year opens full of promise to the CALEDONIAN and its friends, with a constantly increasing circulation. Our correspondence shows a growing interest in the articles published in our columns. We have had inquiries in regard to the causes that led to the impeachment of President ANDREW JOHNSON, whose trial was so graphically described by THOMAS DIXON, JR., in our last issue. We cannot do better than advise our correspondents to to read Mr. DIXON'S last book, "The Clansman," where they will find the matter described in fuller detail than is possible in our pages. Questions have also come to us in regard to the scene so happily described by JAMES KENNEDY in his last chararcter sketch. The sketches as we understand them are the result of the golden thread of fancy interwoven with the merest shred of fact or tradition. In a similar vein are JAMES M. BARRIE'S delightful "Auld Licht Idyls," and the "Return of Haggart" from Mr. BARRIE's pen in our present issue might well form a model to all who attempt writing of Scottish life and character. It gives us pleasure to present another extract from the journal of KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN, whose description of "Housekeeping in Fife" cannot fail to be heartily enjoyed by our readers. We do not hesitate to claim that the gifted American lady has a command of the Scottish dialect unequalled in purity by any of the "kailyaird school" of novelists. REV. MARCUS SCOTT, D. D., by the continuance of his historical sketches in regard to the history of Presbyterianism, reminds us in a vivid, condensed example of exact writing the noble part that Scotland has taken in maintaining the simplicity and purity of revealed religion. DR. SCOTT's contributions are interesting, instructive and timely. Next issue will treat of "The Covenanters." Our nearest neighbor, the Dominion of Canada, is prominently brought before us in the able article of J. D. MACKAY, LL.M. LL.M. Mr. MACKAY has thoroughly mastered his subject, and while we are all proud of the marvelous growth of the United States, we are apt to forget that our neighbors are also flourishing. At some points immigration from the United States to Canada is increasing. The poetical contributions. of MR. GEORGE TAYLOR and MR. KENNETH MACIVER Worthily maintain the claim that the transplanted Scot loses none of his poetical quality on this side of the Atlantic, but rather bursts into higher flame. Mr. MACIVER'S verses are finely spiritual. MR. TAYLOR'S melodious lines are full of practical good sense, which might be studied with profit by some of our Baptist brethren. Song and story are well represented by MRS. BRADEN and MRS. GODDARD, two American ladies whose contributions will be appreciated by all lovers of the beautiful and the true. MRS. BRADEN'S Scotch is better than much that is grown in Scotland. MR. JAMES W. DRAPE, of Pittsburg, contributes a characteristic article on "The Great Highland Bagpipe," which will meet with the warm commendation of all who are delighted with the strains of that soul-stirring instrument. We indorse every word of MR. DRAPE'S spirited article, except, perhaps, the last paragraph. There is a limit even to bagpipes, and life has bagpipes, and life has sufficient jars without the added tumult of being in a small room with twelve pipers in full blast. Our miscellaneous features will show an improvement in matter and in classification. At the request of the officers of one of the popular Scottish societies we publish a brief history of the "Lindsays," and we will be pleased to publish brief sketches of any of the historical Scottish clans or families that may be desired by any of the societies of a Scottish kind. II. UNCLE WILLIE. It was one of those short spasms of tropical heat that sometimes comes from the torrid zone to mar the glory of June when the good ship St. Andrew swung into its pier in the harbor of New York. The great city was like a vast furnace, and the throngs of sweltering humanity were hugging the water edge or lounging about the shady side of the streets. A hundred men were at work unloading the ship before it was made fast to the dock. Cranes were swinging, chains rattling, bales and boxes were tumbling ashore before the gangplank for the passengers was ready. Bundles of Ameri can raw material were being hoisted on board, and the European raw material looked on with strange eyes over the side of the ship into the promised land. Our two friends, Mr. Gordon and Mr. MacGregor, were on hand, Jeames with his high hat and white vest, as became the president of the Bluebells. Tam had taken his whiskers to the barber the next day after the grand ball, and was now shaven and shorn and clothed and in his right mind. The Twa Bairns were with Mrs. Gordon, and were being better taken care of than many whose parents were still to the fore. Mrs. Gordon would have liked to have kept them herself, as she had none of her own, but claimants seemed to come from all quarters of the globe. There was an aunt in Canada, twice removed, not from her habitation, but from kinship. There was a half-hearted half-cousin in California who might take the Twa Bairns, but he would like to know exactly what the result of the benefit ball amounted to. Then there was their mother's uncle Willie and aunty Jean in Scotland. The Twa Bairns seemed to know all about them. They had heard their parents speaking about them. Then there was a long letter from the minister of Windyhillocks, in Scotland, recommending uncle Willie as the proper guardian, and finally there was uncle Willie. himself, farmer at Luckyslap, coming on the St. Andrew to take away the Twa Bairns. When two or three men or women meet together in New York City, the first thing they do is to elect a president. Mr. Gordon was elected. Tam was treasurer. Committees were in the formative state, and the new Scottish society, the Bluebells, blossomed. The executive committee was on hand to welcome Luckyslap. Lang Tam boarded the ship as if he were the owner, and in his perambulations he soon located the stranger. Uncle Willie was clad as if for a Siberian Winter. A mighty overcoat of impenetrable texture covered a muititude of lesser but equally formidable garments. There was an inner coat or terrible tweed, thick and tough as the heathery turf of the Grampian hills. A sleeved waistcoat of fadeless plush, with moleskin sleeves, gave a solidity and massiveness to his structure that resembled the substantial appearance of an anored train. The shaggy beard was tangled and rank as an uncropped hedge, and then his head, with its luxuriant, leonine growth of weather-beaten hair, and then the crowning climax of the inevitable Tam o' Shanter bonnet, weighing several pounds of itself, not speaking of the great cluster of wool that, like a mighty thistle head, crowned the edifice. The feet were possibly more formidable, iron clad, with nailheads like the serried ranks of a brigade in column, with toe and heel plates of shining steel. Then the corduroy breeks, furrowed like a turnip field and impervious as leather. "I'm real glad to see ye, an' how are ye, an' whaur's the twa bairns. Are they ready? Ye see, I'm nae gaun to leave the ship. I michtna get the road back. I can juist bide here, ye ken. They're sailin' in twa 'r three days again." me. "Luckyslap," said Tam, "the little bit o' heat has turned your head. Listen to We are getting up a public dinner for you. The Bluebells, sir, the best blood of the Scots in America, are gathering to do you honor, sir. The Twa Bairns are waiting for you, sir, at Mrs. Gordon's parlor, sir. Stay on the ship, sir? I guess not, sir. What do you think we are, sir? We are a committee of reception appointed by the Bluebells to receive you, sir. We have a public duty to perform, sir. Come off your perch, sir. Luckyslap succumbed to the blandishments of the garrulous Tam, and the trio wandered to where the street cars were drawn by fleet-footed steeds, and they were soon at Mrs. Gordon's back parlor, and the meeting of the Twa Bairns in their best and brightest and Uncle William in his strongest and heaviest was the sight that met the eye of Mrs. Gordon and her worthy associates. In the evening the Bluebells gathered and clustered about the new arrival. Uncle William grew garrulous under the persuasion of the social surroundings. The evening air was cooler, and the beverages brewed by the accomplished Tam seemed to have the happy effect of cooling the heated blood while warming and The thawing the heart. It was handshaking and questioning and reminiscences and anecdotes and experiences, and after many strange ways had been traversed in thought, the prospective journey and the method of bringing up the children was led up to, and Uncle William, warming to the subject, delivered his views in these words. face of uncle William, what little was seen of it, was dull and heavy as his garments, settled and sad as the bronze efnigy of a Pilgrim father, and seamed and red as a boiled lobster. The sweat rolled in translucent globules over Willie's beard and fell in heavy drops at his feet. "Are you Luckyslap?" queried Lang Tam. "I'm a' that's left o' 'm," answered William. Hands were clasped, and the two Scots worthies eyed each other for a moment. "Are you ane o' the billies that's takin' care o' the Twa Bairns?" said Willie. "Ay, juist that," said Tam, "and here's anither billie. Mr. Jeemes Gordon, this is Mr. Arnot o' Luckyslap." "Maister Gordon," said Mr. Arnot, "Aye, ye see, we hae nae heat to speak o' there. There's aye a caller air aboot the fit o' the hills. In the Simmer gloaming now, when the day's wark is dune an' we hae the lang daylicht, the young fowk'll tak' a dander doun to the water, an' when the trouts are loupin' it's grand to hae a half dizzen heuks an' hae a forenicht's fishin'. The laddie'll sune get into the knack o't. Syne in a week or twa the blaeberries 'll be ready, fine an' |