ind, the
sugar and gold, etc., and promised to send him a big box full of that
tree sugar packed in gold from the glorious paradise over the sea,
poor lonely grandfather, about to be forsaken, looked with downcast
eyes on the floor and said in a low, trembling, troubled voice, "Ah,
poor laddies, poor laddies, you'll find something else ower the sea
forbye gold and sugar, birds' nests and freedom fra lessons and
schools. You'll find plenty hard, hard work." And so we did. But
nothing he could say could cloud our joy or abate the fire of
youthful, hopeful, fearless adventure. Nor could we in the midst of
such measureless excitement see or feel the shadows and sorrows of his
darkening old age. To my schoolmates, met that night on the street, I
shouted the glorious news, "I'm gan to Amaraka the morn!" None could
believe it. I said, "Weel, just you see if I am at the skule the
morn!"

Next morning we went by rail to Glasgow and thence joyfully sailed
away from beloved Scotland, flying to our fortunes on the wings of the
winds, care-free as thistle seeds. We could not then know what we were
leaving, what we were to encounter in the New World, nor what our
gains were likely to be. We were too young and full of hope for fear
or regret, but not too young to look forward with eager enthusiasm to
the wonderful schoolless bookless American wilderness. Even the
natural heart-pain of parting from grandfather and grandmother Gilrye,
who loved us so well, and from mother and sisters and brother was
quickly quenched in young joy. Father took with him only my sister
Sarah (thirteen years of age), myself (eleven), and brother David
(nine), leaving my eldest sister, Margaret, and the three youngest of
the family, Daniel, Mary, and Anna, with mother, to join us after a
farm had been found in the wilderness and a comfortable house made to
receive them.

In crossing the Atlantic before the days of steamships, or even the
American clippers, the voyages made in old-fashioned sailing-vessels
were very long. Ours was six weeks and three days. But because we had
no lessons to get, that long voyage had not a dull moment for us boys.
Father and sister Sarah, with most of the old folk, stayed below in
rough weather, groaning in the miseries of seasickness, many of the
passengers wishing they had never ventured in "the auld rockin'
creel," as they called our bluff-bowed, wave-beating ship, and, when
the weather was moderately calm, singing songs in