*Stagger.
**To run with outspread arms.
Belyve,* the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie** rin
A cannie*** errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,****
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
*In a little.
**Carefully.
***Not difficult.
****Wages paid in money.
"With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers:*
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd, fleet;
Each tells the uncos** that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view.
The mother, wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new:***
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.
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