A Scotsman came to Canada about forty years ago, with nothing but his hands to help himself. He had been used to farming at home, and here he hired himself out to a farmer. Year after year he toiled on, worked and saved. In about fifteen years he found that he had saved enough to buy and pay cash for a farm. You, no doubt, reader, think it a long time to work for the first start, but just wait and see what he did when he got a start. He marries his employer’s daughter and sets up farming for himself. If he was a good hired man, he was equally good as a boss, and his farm began to bloom and season after season to look neater. Keeping right on, even with the low prices which he then got for his grain, he added to his farm until he owned absolutely and farmed 150 acres of Ontario’s best lands. Now he is on the high road to success, but the big Scotch heart within him went out to his father-in-law, and this came near being his ruin. His father-in-law had been a wealthy man, but became involved, and the son-in-law endorsed for the father-in-law for a sum as great as his land was then worth. It is only the old history of such endorsations to repeat: the endorser had to pay, of course. The father-in-law failed, leaving the young man almost penniless. Neighbors, not of the sterling stuff he was made of, advised him to sell his stock, because that was not mortgaged, and take the money and run away.
“I will pay every cent,” said the honest Scot, “only give me time.” Away he went to the holders of the notes, and plainly and squarely told them that he could not pay them now, but if they would wait he would pay them every cent.
“Never! I will work it all out in a little while if you will only wait.”
The merchants with whom he dealt, knowing the sterling qualities of the man, came forward and told him that he should have anything he wanted. And he bared his arms, went to work, and gradually paid off every dollar of his indebtedness, and stuck to his home when those who counselled him to run away had lost their homes and gone away west. He buys another farm, and with its aid, and the old farm as well, pays for it in a few seasons. A palatial home he erects, and his farm becomes one of the best cultivated in the locality. Now, had this man not been known as a man of sterling integrity, his property must have been all taken from him when those notes became due. But being so favorably regarded, he got the chance which put him on his feet again. His character stood him in good stead, for his merchants having lands they had taken for debts, offered them to our Scot on favorable terms, with easy terms of payment, and the Scot finds himself the absolute owner of five hundred acres of first-class land, besides money at his credit in the banks, and a large farm stock at home. In thirty-five years this penniless Scot makes about $70,000, after the reverses he had suffered from his large-heartedness. Money honestly, fairly acquired, a respected member of the community all the time, a man whose word no one dare impugn, manifestly his course was far better than if he had run away, and it is probable had he run away in his adversity that to-day he would have been in very moderate circumstances. Again, I doubt if any country in this world shows better possibilities than Ontario does for a man to rise. And these are not particularly isolated instances. Many more I might cite of what may be achieved in this glorious Ontario of ours.