“I dinna think there is ony place in all the world so guid as the place ye own,” Dannie said earnestly. “I dinna care a penny what anybody else has, probably they have what they want. What I want is the land that my feyther owned before me, and the house that my mither kept. And they’ll have to show me the place they call Eden, before I’ll give up that it beats Rainbow Bottom-summer, autumn, or winter. I dinna give twa hoops fra the palaces men rig up, or the thing they call ‘landscape gardening.’ When did men ever compete with the work of God? All the men that have peopled the earth since time began could have their brains rolled into one, and he would stand helpless before the anatomy of one of the rats in these bags. The thing God does is guid enough for me.”

“Why don’t you take a short cut to the matin’-house?” inquired Jimmy.

“Because I wad have nothing to say when I got there,” retorted Dannie. “I’ve a meetin’-house of my ain, and it juist suits me; and I’ve a God, too, and whether He is spirit or essence, He suits me. I dinna want to be held to sharper account than He faces me up to, when I hold communion with mesel’. I dinna care for better talkin’ than the ‘tongues in the trees’; sounder preachin’ than the ‘sermons in the sontes’; finer readin’ than the books in the river; no, nor better music than the choir o’ the birds, each singin’ in its ain way to burst its leetle throat about the mate it won, the nest they built, and the babies they are raising. That’s what I call music o’ God, spontaneous, and the soul o’ joy. Give it to me every time compared with notes frae a book. And all the fine places that the wealth o’ men ever evolved winna begin to compare with the work o’ God, such as I’ve got around me every day.”

“But I want to see life,” wailed Jimmy.

“Then open your eyes, mon, fra the love o’ mercy, open your eyes! There’s life sailing over your heid in that flock o’ crows going home fra the night. Why dinna ye, or some other mon, fly like that? There’s living roots, and seeds, and insects, and worms by the millions whenever ye are setting foot. Why dinna ye creep into the earth and sleep through the winter, and renew your life with the spring? The trouble with ye, Jimmy, is that ye’ve always followed your heels. If ye’d stayed by the books, as I begged ye, there now would be that in your heid that would teach ye that the old story of the Rainbow is true. There is a pot of gold, of the purest gold ever smelted, at its foot, and we’ve been born and own a good living richt there. An’ the gold is there; that I know, wealth to shame any bilious millionaire, and both of us missing the pot when we hold the location. Ye’ve the first chance, mon, fra in your life is the great prize mine will forever lack. I canna get to the bottom of the pot, but I’m going to come close to it as I can; and as for ye, empty it! Take it all! It’s yours! It’s fra the mon who finds it, and we own the location.” (Rainbow 103-5)