The Tides of Barnegat

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

  CHAPTER XIII

  SCOOTSY'S EPITHET

  Lying on Barnegat Beach, within sight of the House of Refuge andFogarty's cabin, was the hull of a sloop which had been whirled in onenight in a southeaster, with not a soul on board, riding the breakerslike a duck, and landing high and dry out of the hungry clutch of thesurf-dogs. She was light at the time and without ballast, and laystranded upright on her keel. All attempts by the beach-combers tofloat her had proved futile; they had stripped her of her standingrigging and everything else of value, and had then abandoned her. Onlythe evenly balanced hull was left, its bottom timbers broken and itsbent keelson buried in the sand. This hulk little Tod Fogarty, agedten, had taken possession of; particularly the after-part of the hold,over which he had placed a trusty henchman armed with a cutlass madefrom the hoop of a fish barrel. The henchman--aged seven--woreknee-trousers and a cap and answered to the name of Archie. The refugeitself bore the title of "The Bandit's Home."

  This new hulk had taken the place of the old schooner which had servedCaptain Holt as a landmark on that eventful night when he strodeBarnegat Beach in search of Bart, and which by the action of theever-changing tides, had gradually settled until now only a hillockmarked its grave--a fate which sooner or later would overtake thisnewly landed sloop itself.

  These Barnegat tides are the sponges that wipe clean the slate of thebeach. Each day a new record is made and each day it is wiped out:records from passing ships, an empty crate, broken spar or uselessbarrel grounded now and then by the tide in its flow as it moves up anddown the sand at the will of the waters. Records, too, of manyfootprints,--the lagging steps of happy lovers; the dimpled feet ofjoyous children; the tread of tramp, coast-guard or fisherman--allscoured clean when the merciful tide makes ebb.

  Other records are strewn along the beach; these the tide alone cannotefface--the bow of some hapless schooner it may be, wrenched from itshull, and sent whirling shoreward; the shattered mast and crosstrees ofa stranded ship beaten to death in the breakers; or some batteredcapstan carried in the white teeth of the surf-dogs and dropped beyondthe froth-line. To these with the help of the south wind, the tidesextend their mercy, burying them deep with successive blankets of sand,hiding their bruised bodies, covering their nakedness and the marks oftheir sufferings. All through the restful summer and late autumn thesebattered derelicts lie buried, while above their graves the childrenplay and watch the ships go by, or stretch themselves at length, theireyes on the circling gulls.

  With the coming of the autumn all this is changed. The cruel north windnow wakes, and with a loud roar joins hands with the savage easter; thestartled surf falls upon the beach like a scourge. Under their doublelash the outer bar cowers and sinks; the frightened sand flees hitherand thither. Soon the frenzied breakers throw themselves headlong,tearing with teeth and claws, burrowing deep into the hidden graves.Now the forgotten wrecks, like long-buried sins, rise and stand naked,showing every scar and stain. This is the work of the sea-puss--therevolving maniac born of close-wed wind and tide; a beast so terriblethat in a single night, with its auger-like snout, it bites huge inletsout of farm lands--mouthfuls deep enough for ships to sail where butyesterday the corn grew.

  In the hull of this newly stranded sloop, then--sitting high and dry,out of the reach of the summer surf,--Tod and Archie spent every hourof the day they could call their own; sallying forth on variouspiratical excursions, coming back laden with driftwood for a bonfire,or hugging some bottle, which was always opened with trembling, eagerfingers in the inmost recesses of the Home, in the hope that sometidings of a lost ship might be found inside; or with their pocketscrammed with clam-shells and other sea spoils with which to decoratethe inside timbers of what was left of the former captain's cabin.

  Jane had protested at first, but the doctor had looked the hull over,and found that there was nothing wide enough, nor deep enough, norsharp enough to do them harm, and so she was content. Then again, theboys were both strong for their age, and looked it, Tod easily passingfor a lad of twelve or fourteen, and Archie for a boy of ten. The onedanger discovered by the doctor lay in its height, the only way ofboarding the stranded craft being by means of a hand-over-hand climb upthe rusty chains of the bowsprit, a difficult and trousers-tearingoperation. This was obviated by Tod's father, who made a ladder for theboys out of a pair of old oars, which the two pirates pulled up afterthem whenever an enemy hove in sight. When friends approached it waslet down with more than elaborate ceremony, the guests being escortedby Archie and welcomed on board by Tod.

  Once Captain Holt's short, sturdy body was descried in the offingtramping the sand-dunes on his way to Fogarty's, and a signalflag--part of Mother Fogarty's flannel petticoat, and blood-red, asbefitted the desperate nature of the craft over which it floated, wasat once set in his honor. The captain put his helm hard down and cameup into the wind and alongside the hulk.

  "Well! well! well!" he cried in his best quarterdeck voice--"what areyou stowaways doin' here?" and he climbed the ladder and swung himselfover the battered rail.

  Archie took his hand and led him into the most sacred recesses of theden, explaining to him his plans for defence, his armament of barrelhoops, and his ammunition of shells and pebbles, Tod standing silentlyby and a little abashed, as was natural in one of his station; at whichthe captain laughed more loudly than before, catching Archie in hisarms, rubbing his curly head with his big, hard hand, and telling himhe was a chip of the old block, every inch of him--none of which dideither Archie or Tod understand. Before he climbed down the ladder heannounced with a solemn smile that he thought the craft was wellprotected so far as collisions on foggy nights were concerned, but hedoubted if their arms were sufficient and that he had better leave themhis big sea knife which had been twice around Cape Horn, and whichmight be useful in lopping off arms and legs whenever the cutthroatsgot too impudent and aggressive; whereupon Archie threw his arms aroundhis grizzled neck and said he was a "bully commodore," and that if hewould come and live with them aboard the hulk they would obey hisorders to a man.

  Archie leaned over the rotten rail and saw the old salt stop a littleway from the hulk and stand looking at them for some minutes and thenwave his hand, at which the boys waved back, but the lad did not seethe tears that lingered for an instant on the captain's eyelids, andwhich the sea-breeze caught away; nor did he hear the words, as thecaptain resumed his walk: "He's all I've got left, and yet he don'tknow it and I can't tell him. Ain't it hell?"

  Neither did they notice that he never once raised his eyes toward theHouse of Refuge as he passed its side. A new door and a new roof hadbeen added, but in other respects it was to him the same grewsome,lonely hut as on that last night when he had denounced his son outsideits swinging door.

  Often the boys made neighborly visits to friendly tribes and settlers.Fogarty was one of these, and Doctor Cavendish was another. Thedoctor's country was a place of buttered bread and preserves and a rompwith Rex, who was almost as feeble as Meg had been in his last days.But Fogarty's cabin was a mine of never-ending delight. In addition tothe quaint low house of clapboards and old ship-timber, with itssloping roof and little toy windows, so unlike his own at Yardley, andsmoked ceilings, there was a scrap heap piled up and scattered over theyard which in itself was a veritable treasure-house. Here were rustychains and wooden figure-heads of broken-nosed, blind maidens andtailless dolphins. Here were twisted iron rods, fish-baskets, brokenlobster-pots, rotting seines and tangled, useless nets--some used ascoverings for coops of restless chickens--old worn-out rope, tangledrigging--everything that a fisherman who had spent his life on Barnegatbeach could pull from the surf or find stranded on the sand.

  Besides all these priceless treasures, there was an old boat lyingafloat in a small lagoon back of the house, one of those seepage poolscommon to the coast--a boat which Fogarty had patched with a bit ofsail-cloth, and for which he had made two pairs of oars, one for eachof the "crew," as he called the lads, and which Archie learned tohandle with suc
h dexterity that the old fisherman declared he wouldmake a first-class boatman when he grew up, and would "shame the wholebunch of 'em."

  But these two valiant buccaneers were not to remain in undisturbedpossession of the Bandit's Home with its bewildering fittings andenchanting possibilities--not for long. The secret of the uses to whichthe stranded craft bad been put, and the attendant fun which CommodoreTod and his dauntless henchman, Archibald Cobden, Esquire, were dailygetting out of its battered timbers, had already become publicproperty. The youth of Barnegat--the very young youth, ranging fromnine to twelve, and all boys--received the news at first with hilariousjoy. This feeling soon gave way to unsuppressed indignation, followedby an active bitterness, when they realized in solemn conclave--themeeting was held in an open lot on Saturday morning--that the captureof the craft had been accomplished, not by dwellers under BarnegatLight, to whom every piece of sea-drift from a tomato-can to afull-rigged ship rightfully belonged, but by a couple of aliens, one ofwhom wore knee-pants and a white collar,--a distinction in dress highlyobnoxious to these lords of the soil.

  All these denizens of Barnegat had at one time or another climbed upthe sloop's chains and peered down the hatchway to the sand coveringthe keelson, and most of them had used it as a shelter behind which, inswimming-time, they had put on or peeled off such mutilated rags ascovered their nakedness, but no one of them had yet conceived the ideaof turning it into a Bandit's Home. That touch of the ideal, thatgilding of the commonplace, had been reserved for the brain of thecurly-haired boy who, with dancing eyes, his sturdy little legs restingon Tod's shoulder, had peered over the battered rail, and who, with aburst of enthusiasm, had shouted: "Oh, cracky! isn't it nice, Tod! It'sgot a place we can fix up for a robbers' den; and we'll be bandits andhave a flag. Oh, come up here! You never saw anything so fine," etc.,etc.

  When, therefore, Scootsy Mulligan, aged nine, son of a ship-caulker whoworked in Martin Farguson's ship-yard, and Sandy Plummer, eldest ofthree, and their mother a widow--plain washing and ironing, two doorsfrom the cake-shop--heard that that French "spad," Arch Cobden whatlived up to Yardley, and that red-headed Irish cub, Tod Fogarty--Tod'shair had turned very red--had pre-empted the Black Tub, as the wreckwas irreverently called, claiming it as their very own, "and-a-sayin'they wuz pirates and bloody Turks and sich," these two quarrelsome townrats organized a posse in lower Barnegat for its recapture.

  Archie was sweeping the horizon from his perch on the "poop-deck" whenhis eagle eye detected a strange group of what appeared to be humanbeings advancing toward the wreck from the direction of Barnegatvillage. One, evidently a chief, was in the lead, the others followingbunched together. All were gesticulating wildly. The trusty henchmanimmediately gave warning to Tod, who was at work in the lower holdarranging a bundle of bean-poles which had drifted inshore the nightbefore--part of the deck-load, doubtless, of some passing vessel.

  "Ay, ay, sir!" cried the henchman with a hoist of his knee-pants, as aprelude to his announcement.

  "Ay, ay, yerself!" rumbled back the reply. "What's up?" The commodorehad not read as deeply in pirate lore as had Archie, and was not,therefore, so ready with its lingo.

  "Band of savages, sir, approaching down the beach."

  "Where away?" thundered back the commodore, his authority now assertingitself in the tones of his voice.

  "On the starboard bow, sir--six or seven of 'em."

  "Armed or peaceable?"

  "Armed, sir. Scootsy Mulligan is leadin' 'em."

  "Scootsy Mulligan! Crickety! he's come to make trouble," shouted backTod, climbing the ladder in a hurry--it was used as a means of descentinto the shallow hold when not needed outside. "Where are they? Oh,yes! I see 'em--lot of 'em, ain't they? Saturday, and they ain't noschool. Say, Arch, what are we goin' to do?" The terminal vowelssoftening his henchman's name were omitted in grave situations; so wasthe pirate lingo.

  "Do!" retorted Archie, his eyes snapping. "Why, we'll fight 'em; that'swhat we are pirates for. Fight 'em to the death. Hurray! They're notcoming aboard--no sir-ee! You go down, Toddy [the same free use ofterminals], and get two of the biggest bean-poles and I'll run up thedeath flag. We've got stones and shells enough. Hurry--big ones, mindyou!"

  The attacking party, their leader ahead, had now reached the low sandheap marking the grave of the former wreck, but a dozen yards away--thesand had entombed it the year before.

  "You fellers think yer durned smart, don't ye?" yelled Mr. WilliamMulligan, surnamed "Scootsy" from his pronounced fleetness of foot."We're goin' to run ye out o' that Tub. 'Tain't yourn, it's ourn--ain'tit, fellers?"

  A shout went up in answer from the group on the hillock.

  "You can come as friends, but not as enemies," cried Archiegrandiloquently. "The man who sets foot on this ship without permissiondies like a dog. We sail under the blood-red flag!" and Archie struckan attitude and pointed to the fragment of mother Fogarty's own nailedto a lath and hanging limp over the rail.

  "Hi! hi! hi!" yelled the gang in reply. "Oh, ain't he a beauty! Look atde cotton waddin' on his head!" (Archie's cropped curls.) "Say, sissy,does yer mother know ye're out? Throw that ladder down; we're comin' upthere--don't make no diff'rence whether we got yer permish or not--andwe'll knock the stuffin' out o' ye if ye put up any job on us. H'istout that ladder!"

  "Death and no quarter!" shouted back Archie, opening the big blade ofCaptain Holt's pocket knife and grasping it firmly in his wee hand."We'll defend this ship with the last drop of our blood!"

  "Ye will, will ye!" retorted Scootsy. "Come on, fellers--go for 'em!I'll show 'em," and he dodged under the sloop's bow and sprang for theoverhanging chains.

  Tod had now clambered up from the hold. Under his arm were two stouthickory saplings. One he gave to Archie, the other he kept himself.

  "Give them the shells first," commanded Archie, dodging a beach pebble;"and when their hands come up over the rail let them have this," and hewaved the sapling over his head. "Run, Tod,--they're trying to climb upbehind. I'll take the bow. Avast there, ye lubbers!"

  With this Archie dropped to his knees and crouched close to the heel ofthe rotting bowsprit, out of the way of the flying missiles--each boy'spockets were loaded--and looking cautiously over the side of the hulk,waited until Scootsy's dirty fingers--he was climbing the chain handover hand, his feet resting on a boy below him--came into view.

  "Off there, or I'll crack your fingers!"

  "Crack and be--"

  Bang! went Archie's hickory and down dropped the braggart, his oathlost in his cries.

  "He smashed me fist! He smashed me fist! Oh! Oh!" whined Scootsy,hopping about with the pain, sucking the injured hand and shaking itsmate at Archie, who was still brandishing the sapling and yellinghimself hoarse in his excitement.

  The attacking party now drew off to the hillock for a council of war.Only their heads could be seen--their bodies lay hidden in the longgrass of the dune.

  Archie and Tod were now dancing about the deck in a delirium ofdelight--calling out in true piratical terms, "We die, but we neversurrender!" Tod now and then falling into his native vernacular to theeffect that he'd "knock the liver and lights out o' the hull gang," anexpression the meaning of which was wholly lost on Archie, he neverhaving cleaned a fish in his life.

  Here a boy in his shirt-sleeves straightened up in the yellow grass andlooked seaward. Then Sandy Plummer gave a yell and ran to the beach,rolling up what was left of his trousers legs, stopping now and then tountie first one shoe and then the other. Two of the gang followed on arun. When the three reached the water's edge they danced about likeCrusoe's savages, waving their arms and shouting. Sandy by this timehad stripped off his clothes and had dashed into the water. A longplank from some lumber schooner was drifting up the beach in the gentleswell of the tide. Sandy ran abreast of it for a time, sprang into thesurf, threw himself upon it flat like a frog, and then began paddlingshoreward. The other two now rushed into the water, grasping the nearend of the derelict, the whole party pushing
and paddling until it washauled clean of the brine and landed high on the sand.

  A triumphant yell here came from the water's edge, and the balance ofthe gang--there were seven in all--rushed to the help of the dauntlessthree.

  Archie heaped a pile of pebbles within reach of his hand and waited theattack. What the savages were going to do with the plank neither he norTod could divine. The derelict was now dragged over the sand to thehulk, Tod and Archie pelting its rescuers with stones and shells asthey came within short range.

  "Up with her, fellers!" shouted Sandy, who, since Scootsy's unmanlytears, had risen to first place. "Run it under the bowsprit--up withher--there she goes! Altogether!"

  Archie took his stand, his long sapling in his hand, and waited. Hethought first he would unseat the end of the plank, but it was too farbelow him and then again he would be exposed to their volleys ofstones, and if he was hurt he might not get back on his craft. Tod, whohad resigned command in favor of his henchman after Archie's masterlydefence in the last fight, stood behind him. Thermopylae was a narrowplace, and so was the famous Bridge of Horatius. He and his faithfulTod would now make the fight of their lives. Both of these close shavesfor immortality were closed books to Tod, but Archie knew every line oftheir records, Doctor John having spent many an hour reading to him,the boy curled up in his lap while Jane listened.

  Sandy, emboldened by the discovery of the plank, made the first rush upand was immediately knocked from his perch by Tod, whose pole swungaround his head like a flail. Then Scootsy tried it, crawling up,protecting his head by ducking it under his elbows, holding meanwhileby his hand. Tod's blows fell about his back, but the boy struggled onuntil Archie reached over the gunwale, and with a twist of his wrist,using all his strength, dropped the invader to the sand below.

  The success of this mode of attack was made apparent, provided theycould stick to the plank. Five boys now climbed up. Archie belaboredthe first one with the pole and Tod grappled with the second, trying tothrow him from the rail to the sand, some ten feet below, but the ratclose behind him, in spite of their efforts, reached forward, caughtthe rail, and scrambled up to his mate's assistance. In another instantboth had leaped to the sloop's deck.

  "Back! back! Run, Toddy!" screamed Archie, waving his arms. "Get on thepoop-deck; we can lick them there. Run!"

  Tod darted back, and the two defenders clearing the intervening rottentimbers with a bound, sprang upon the roof of the old cabin--Archie's"poop."

  With a whoop the savages followed, jumping over the holes in theplanking and avoiding the nails in the open beams.

  In the melee Archie had lost his pole, and was now standing, hat off,his blue eves flashing, all the blood of his overheated little bodyblazing in his face. The tears of defeat were trembling under hiseyelids, He had been outnumbered, but he would die game. In his hand hecarried, unconsciously to himself, the big-bladed pocket knife thecaptain had given him. He would as soon have used it on his mother asupon one of his enemies, but the Barnegat invaders were ignorant ofthat fact, knives being the last resort in their environment.

  "Look out, Sandy!" yelled Scootsy to his leader, who was now sneakingup to Archie with the movement of an Indian in ambush;--"he's drawed aknife."

  Sandy stopped and straightened himself within three feet of Archie. Hishand still smarted from the blow Archie had given it. The "spad" hadnot stopped a second in that attack, and he might not in this; the nextthing he knew the knife might be between his ribs.

  "Drawed a knife, hev ye!" he snarled. "Drawed a knife, jes' like a spadthat ye are! Ye oughter put yer hair in curl-papers!"

  Archie looked at the harmless knife in his hand.

  "I can fight you with my fists if you are bigger than me," he cried,tossing the knife down the open hatchway into the sand below. "Hold mycoat, Tod," and he began stripping off his little jacket.

  "I ain't fightin' no spads," sneered Sandy. He didn't want to fightthis one. "Yer can't skeer nobody. You'll draw a pistol next. Yerbetter go home to yer mammy, if ye kin find her."

  "He ain't got no mammy," snarled Scootsy. "He's a pick-up--me fathersays so."

  Archie sprang forward to avenge the insult, but before he could reachScootsy's side a yell arose from the bow of the hulk.

  "Yi! yi! Run, fellers! Here comes old man Fogarty! he's right on top o'ye! Not that side--this way. Yi! yi!"

  The invaders turned and ran the length of the deck, scrambled over theside and dropped one after the other to the sand below just as theFogarty head appeared at the bow. It was but a step and a spring forhim, and with a lurch he gained the deck of the wreck.

  "By jiminy, boys, mother thought ye was all killed! Has them rats beenbotherin' ye? Ye oughter broke the heads of 'em. Where did they getthat plank? Come 'shore, did it? Here, Tod, catch hold of it; I jes'wanted a piece o' floorin' like that. Why, ye're all het up, Archie!Come, son, come to dinner; ye'll git cooled off, and mother's got amess o' clams for ye. Never mind 'bout the ladder; I'll lift it down."

  On the way over to the cabin, Fogarty and Tod carrying the plank andArchie walking beside them, the fisherman gleaned from the boys thedetails of the fight. Archie had recovered the captain's knife and itwas now in his hand.

  "Called ye a 'pick-up' did he, the rat, and said ye didn't have nomother. He's a liar! If ye ain't got a mother, and a good one, I don'tknow who has. That's the way with them town-crabs, allus cussin'somebody better'n themselves."

  When Fogarty had tilted the big plank against the side of the cabin andthe boys had entered the kitchen in search of the mess of clams, thefisherman winked to his wife, jerked his head meaningly over oneshoulder, and Mrs. Fogarty, in answer, followed him out to the woodshed.

  "Them sneaks from Barnegat, Mulligan's and Farguson's boys, and therest of 'em, been lettin' out on Archie: callin' him names, sayin' heain't got no mother and he's one o' them pass-ins ye find on yerdoorstep in a basket. I laughed it off and he 'peared to forgit it, butI thought he might ask ye, an' so I wanted to tip ye the wink."

  "Well, ye needn't worry. I ain't goin' to tell him what I don't know,"replied the wife, surprised that he should bring her all the way out tothe woodshed to tell her a thing like that.

  "But ye DO know, don't ye?"

  "All I know is what Uncle Ephraim told me four or five years ago, andhe's so flighty half the time and talks so much ye can't believeone-half he says--something about Miss Jane comin' across Archie'smother in a horsepital in Paris, or some'er's and promisin' her a-dyin'that she'd look after the boy, and she has. She'd do that here if therewas women and babies up to Doctor John's horsepital 'stead o' men. It'sjes' like her," and Mrs. Fogarty, not to lose her steps, stooped over apile of wood and began gathering up an armful.

  "Well, she ain't his mother, ye know," rejoined Fogarty, helping hiswife with the sticks. "That's what they slammed in his face to-day, andhe'll git it ag'in as he grows up. But he don't want to hear it fromus."

  "And he won't. Miss Jane ain't no fool. She knows more about him thananybody else, and when she gits ready to tell him she'll tell him.Don't make no difference who his mother was--the one he's got now isgood enough for anybody. Tod would have been dead half a dozen times ifit hadn't been for her and Doctor John, and there ain't nobody knows itbetter'n me. It's just like her to let Archie come here so much withTod; she knows I ain't goin' to let nothin' happen to him. And as formothers, Sam Fogarty," here Mrs. Fogarty lifted her free hand and shookher finger in a positive way--"when Archie gits short of mothers he'sgot one right here, don't make no difference what you or anybody elsesays," and she tapped her broad bosom meaningly.

  Contrary, however, to Fogarty's hopes and surmises, Archie hadforgotten neither Sandy's insult nor Scootsy's epithet. "He's apick-up" and "he ain't got no mammy" kept ringing in his ears as hewalked back up the beach to his home. He remembered having heard thewords once before when he was some years younger, but then it had comefrom a passing neighbor and was not intended for him. This time it wasflung square in his face. Every now
and then as he followed the trendof the beach on his way home he would stop and look out over the sea,watching the long threads of smoke being unwound from the spools of thesteamers and the sails of the fishing-boats as they caught the light ofthe setting sun. The epithet worried him. It was something to beashamed of, he knew, or they would not have used it.

  Jane, standing outside the gate-post, shading her eyes with her hand,scanning the village road, caught sight of his sturdy little figure themoment he turned the corner and ran to meet him.

  "I got so worried--aren't you late, my son?" she asked, putting her armabout him and kissing him tenderly.

  "Yes, it's awful late. I ran all the way from the church when I saw theclock. I didn't know it was past six. Oh, but we've had a bully day,mother! And we've had a fight. Tod and I were pirates, and ScootsyMulligan tried to--"

  Jane stopped the boy's joyous account with a cry of surprise. They werenow walking back to Yardley's gate, hugging the stone wall.

  "A fight! Oh, my son!"

  "Yes, a bully fight; only there were seven of them and only two of us.That warn't fair, but Mr. Fogarty says they always fight like that. Icould have licked 'em if they come on one at a time, but they got aplank and crawled up--"

  "Crawled up where, my son?" asked Jane in astonishment. All this was anunknown world to her. She had seen the wreck and had known, of course,that the boys were making a playhouse of it, but this latterdevelopment was news to her.

  "Why, on the pirate ship, where we've got our Bandit's Home. Tod iscommodore and I'm first mate. Tod and I did all we could, but theydidn't fight fair, and Scootsy called me a 'pick-up' and said I hadn'tany mother. I asked Mr. Fogarty what he meant, but he wouldn't tell me.What's a 'pick-up,' dearie?" and he lifted his face to Jane's, hishonest blue eyes searching her own.

  Jane caught her hand to her side and leaned for a moment against thestone wall. This was the question which for years she had expected himto ask--one to which she had framed a hundred imaginary answers. Whenas a baby he first began to talk she had determined to tell him she wasnot his mother, and so get him gradually accustomed to the conditionsof his birth. But every day she loved him the more, and every day shehad put it off. To-day it was no easier. He was too young, she knew, totake in its full meaning, even if she could muster up the courage totell him the half she was willing to tell him--that his mother was herfriend and on her sick-bed had entrusted her child to her care. She hadwanted to wait until he was old enough to understand, so that sheshould not lose his love when he came to know the truth. There hadbeen, moreover, always this fear--would he love her for shielding hismother, or would he hate Lucy when he came to know? She had once talkedit all over with Captain Holt, but she could never muster up thecourage to take his advice.

  "Tell him," he had urged. "It'll save you a lot o' trouble in the end.That'll let me out and I kin do for him as I want to. You've livedunder this cloud long enough--there ain't nobody can live a lie a wholelifetime, Miss Jane. I'll take my share of the disgrace along of mydead boy, and you ain't done nothin', God knows, to be ashamed of. Tellhim! It's grease to yer throat halyards and everything'll run smootherafterward. Take my advice, Miss Jane."

  All these things rushed through her mind as she stood leaning againstthe stone wall, Archie's hand in hers, his big blue eyes still fixed onher own.

  "Who said that to you, my son?" she asked in assumed indifference, inorder to gain time in which to frame her answer and recover from theshock.

  "Scootsy Mulligan."

  "Is he a nice boy?"

  "No, he's a coward, or he wouldn't fight as he does."

  "Then I wouldn't mind him, my boy," and she smoothed back the hair fromhis forehead, her eyes avoiding the boy's steady gaze. It was only whensomeone opened the door of the closet concealing this spectre that Janefelt her knees give way and her heart turn sick within her. In all elseshe was fearless and strong.

  "Was he the boy who said you had no mother?"

  "Yes. I gave him an awful whack when he came up the first time, and hewent heels over head."

  "Well, you have got a mother, haven't you, darling?" she continued,with a sigh of relief, now that Archie was not insistent.

  "You bet I have!" cried the boy, throwing his arms around her.

  "Then we won't either of us bother about those bad boys and what theysay," she answered, stooping over and kissing him.

  And so for a time the remembrance of Scootsy's epithet faded out of theboy's mind.