not think only of themselves.

Than Tammas Haggart there can scarcely have been a poorer man, but
Tammas was the first to come forward with offer of help. To the day of
Jess's death he did not once fail to carry her water to her in the
morning, and the luxuriously living men of Thrums in these present days
of pumps at every corner, can hardly realize what that meant. Often
there were lines of people at the well by three o'clock in the morning,
and each had to wait his turn. Tammas filled his own pitcher and pan,
and then had to take his place at the end of the line with Jess's
pitcher and pan, to wait his turn again. His own house was in the
Tenements, far from the brae in winter time, but he always said to Jess
it was "naething ava."

Every Saturday old Robbie Angus sent a bag of sticks and shavings from
the sawmill by his little son Rob, who was afterward to become a man for
speaking about at nights. Of all the friends that Jess and Hendry had,
T'nowhead was the ablest to help, and the sweetest memory I have of the
farmer and his wife is the delicate way they offered it. You who read
will see Jess wince at the offer of charity. But the poor have fine
feelings beneath the grime, as you will discover if you care to look for
them; and when Jess said she would bake if anyone would buy, you would
wonder to hear how many kindly folk came to her door for scones.

She had the house to herself at nights, but Tibbie Birse was with her
early in the morning, and other neighbors dropped in. Not for long did
she have to wait the summons to the better home.

"Na," she said to the minister, who has told me that he was a better man
from knowing her, "my thocht is no nane set on the vanities o' the world
noo. I kenna hoo I could ever hae haen sic an ambeetion to hae thae
stuff-bottomed chairs."

I have tried to keep away from Jamie, whom the neighbors sometimes
upbraided in her presence. It is of him you who read would like to hear,
and I cannot pretend that Jess did not sit at her window looking
for him.

"Even when she was bakin'," Tibbie told me, "she aye had an eye on the
brae. If Jamie had come at ony time when it was licht she would hae seen
'im as sune as he turned the corner."

"If he ever comes back, the sacket" (rascal), T'nowhead said to Jess,
"we'll show 'im the door gey quick."

Jess just looked, and all the women knew how she would take Jamie to her
arms.

We did not know of the London woman then, and Jess neve