tree_and_leaf | (no subject)

When my grandfather was a very young man, not all that long after the Great War, he drove a grocer's van round the farms and settlements about the Gala Water. He carried all kinds of things - tinned goods, and string, and bits of agricultural supplies in a small way. And once a week, he had fish.

One day, he was driving up a steep hill and realised to his horror that the van doors had come open - he had been in a hurry the last time he had stopped - and the things gleaming in the road behind him were fish. His fish. So he went back and picked up the scattered and dusty haddock and herring, and then, for want of a better solution, went down to the burn and washed them.

The next place he had to call wasn't far off, and he presented the fish to a busy farmer's wife with some trepidation.

"Ach, laddie," she beamed. "What grand fresh fish! They look like you just guddled them oot the burn the now!"