LET 'ER BUCK 



There is a hush. The card games ceased as Jock's 

 melodious voice breaks into the Highland pathos of 

 Annie Laurie and Highland Mary. Even the clicking 

 at the pool tables stops. Perhaps it was the under- 

 standing which comes from familiarity with the knocks 

 and nuances of life that enriched the remarkable 

 quality of his voice, which could cause a smile to spread 

 over the visages, or a wet glint to glisten in the eyes 

 of the roughest-cut diamond of any crowd. 



Round after round of applause showed there was 

 no sitting down for the singer; so it was "I hate ter-r-r 

 get-tup in the mor-r-rnin'," "I love a lassie," and so on, 

 until an old skinner of a combine crew and a bunch 

 of ranch-hands called for the song they had heard 

 Jock had composed about working on the big 

 combine. 



"Well, y' see, fellers, I'll tell y' how I came ter-r 

 write this wee bit song. Y' see last year-r I was on 

 the big MacDonald Ranch near Pilot Rock wor-r-king 

 as header-r puncher-r, and for th' benefit o' th' tender- 

 foots in the crowd I'll go a wee bit into detail — and I 

 have nae doot they'll understand the meanin' o' the 

 song better-r. 



"Saturday nights the wheat r-ranchers would gi' a 

 party fer-r th' harvester-rs and most o' th' hands 

 would round up at some ranch hoose. Weel, at one 

 o' these someone suggested that as I had written a 

 Roond-Up song, why not one on th' big combine, per- 

 haps the most important and certainly the most strikin' 

 featur-re on a wheat ranch today — the big combine 

 which mows, winnows, thr-reshes and sacks up the 

 wheat — does what it used to take a hundr-rud 

 men and as many horses to do, and in half the 

 time. 



128 



