So what's to be done, Ranald, my boy?
You can't go to the parish school before you've learned your letters." "There's Kirsty, papa," I suggested.
"Yes; there's Kirsty," he returned with a sly smile.

"Kirsty can do everything, can't she ?" "She can speak Gaelic," I said with a tone of triumph, bringing her rarest accomplishment to the forefront.
"I wish you could speak Gaelic," said my father, thinking of his wife, I believe, whose mother tongue it was.

"But that is not what you want most to learn.

Do you think Kirsty could teach you to read English ?" "Yes, I do." My father again meditated.
"Let us go and ask her," he said at length, taking my hand.
I capered with delight, nor ceased my capering till we stood on Kirsty's earthen floor.

I think I see her now, dusting one of her deal chairs, as white as soap and sand could make it, for the minister to sit on.