Transcription:
16 California is a far cry , for one and probably I shall never see it. For I am only a humble Workie and have to face the
stey brae with as much contentment as I can. I love to travel, it is in the blood, and there are bitter days, when everything
goes wrong, and I would gladly leave all this so-called civilization astern. But I am in the upper forties, and must think
about concerving the finances, against the unproductive days that will surely come if I live. And when I have had shekels,
my face was always turned homewards and, My thoughts will wake and glide to harbour-lights, and boyhood's mirth, And quays
that skirt a Northern firth, And ships that wait the tide. But anyhow I keep up the hope that I may see the Auld Toon again.
13 my way home from the shop I would ring Macfarlane's bell and dart for home. Last year a friend of mine moved in there,
and I wrote inquiring if the old bell handle was still there. She replied, saying it is still there, and added Michty laddie
what garr'd ee think o' sic a thing as that. But as Friend Ogilvie says, Perhaps it is always the first vivid scene impressed
on a boy's mind that stays with him clearly to the end. Vandals have descended on Belhaven in these later days. The birk tree,
that you see over inside the dyke, behind the letter box, has been felled as an improvement. The wee hoose, at the milestane
once occupied by Matthie Watt, purveyor of treacle buns, (black and white) and gundy, has been torn down, and a 05419