The Tides of Barnegat Part 23

"He smashed me fist! He smashed me fist! Oh! Oh!" whined Scootsy, hopping about with the pain, sucking the injured hand and shaking its mate at Archie, who was still brandis.h.i.+ng the sapling and yelling himself hoa.r.s.e 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 long gra.s.s of the dune.

Archie and Tod were now dancing about the deck in a delirium of delight--calling out in true piratical terms, "We die, but we never surrender!" Tod now and then falling into his native vernacular to the effect that he'd "knock the liver and lights out o' the hull gang," an expression the meaning of which was wholly lost on Archie, he never having cleaned a fish in his life.

Here a boy in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves straightened up in the yellow gra.s.s and looked 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 to untie first one shoe and then the other. Two of the gang followed on a run. When the three reached the water's edge they danced about like Crusoe's savages, waving their arms and shouting. Sandy by this time had stripped off his clothes and had dashed into the water. A long plank from some lumber schooner was drifting up the beach in the gentle swell of the tide. Sandy ran abreast of it for a time, sprang into the surf, threw himself upon it flat like a frog, and then began paddling sh.o.r.eward. The other two now rushed into the water, grasping the near end of the derelict, the whole party pus.h.i.+ng and paddling until it was hauled clean of the brine and landed high on the sand.

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

Archie heaped a pile of pebbles within reach of his hand and waited the attack. What the savages were going to do with the plank neither he nor Tod could divine. The derelict was now dragged over the sand to the hulk, Tod and Archie pelting its rescuers with stones and sh.e.l.ls as they came within short range.

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

Archie took his stand, his long sapling in his hand, and waited. He thought first he would unseat the end of the plank, but it was too far below him and then again he would be exposed to their volleys of stones, and if he was hurt he might not get back on his craft. Tod, who had resigned command in favor of his henchman after Archie's masterly defence in the last fight, stood behind him. Thermopylae was a narrow place, and so was the famous Bridge of Horatius. He and his faithful Tod would now make the fight of their lives. Both of these close shaves for immortality were closed books to Tod, but Archie knew every line of their 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 up and was immediately knocked from his perch by Tod, whose pole swung around his head like a flail. Then Scootsy tried it, crawling up, protecting his head by ducking it under his elbows, holding meanwhile by his hand. Tod's blows fell about his back, but the boy struggled on until 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 they could stick to the plank. Five boys now climbed up. Archie belabored the first one with the pole and Tod grappled with the second, trying to throw him from the rail to the sand, some ten feet below, but the rat close behind him, in spite of their efforts, reached forward, caught the rail, and scrambled up to his mate's a.s.sistance. In another instant both had leaped to the sloop's deck.

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

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

With a whoop the savages followed, jumping over the holes in the planking 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 flas.h.i.+ng, all the blood of his overheated little body blazing in his face. The tears of defeat were trembling under his eyelids, He had been outnumbered, but he would die game. In his hand he carried, unconsciously to himself, the big-bladed pocket knife the captain had given him. He would as soon have used it on his mother as upon one of his enemies, but the Barnegat invaders were ignorant of that fact, knives being the last resort in their environment.

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

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

"Drawed a knife, hev ye!" he snarled. "Drawed a knife, jes' like a spad that 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 my coat, Tod," and he began stripping off his little jacket.

"I ain't fightin' no spads," sneered Sandy. He didn't want to fight this one. "Yer can't skeer n.o.body. You'll draw a pistol next. Yer better go home to yer mammy, if ye kin find her."

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

Archie sprang forward to avenge the insult, but before he could reach Scootsy'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 the side and dropped one after the other to the sand below just as the Fogarty head appeared at the bow. It was but a step and a spring for him, and with a lurch he gained the deck of the wreck.

"By jiminy, boys, mother thought ye was all killed! Has them rats been botherin' ye? Ye oughter broke the heads of 'em. Where did they get that plank? Come 'sh.o.r.e, 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 a mess 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 and Archie walking beside them, the fisherman gleaned from the boys the details of the fight. Archie had recovered the captain's knife and it was now in his hand.

"Called ye a 'pick-up' did he, the rat, and said ye didn't have no mother. He's a liar! If ye ain't got a mother, and a good one, I don't know 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 and the boys had entered the kitchen in search of the mess of clams, the fisherman winked to his wife, jerked his head meaningly over one shoulder, and Mrs. Fogarty, in answer, followed him out to the woodshed.

"Them sneaks from Barnegat, Mulligan's and Farguson's boys, and the rest of 'em, been lettin' out on Archie: callin' him names, sayin' he ain't got no mother and he's one o' them pa.s.s-ins ye find on yer doorstep in a basket. I laughed it off and he 'peared to forgit it, but I 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 to the 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, and he's so flighty half the time and talks so much ye can't believe one-half he says--something about Miss Jane comin' across Archie's mother 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 there was women and babies up to Doctor John's horsepital 'stead o' men. It's jes' like her," and Mrs. Fogarty, not to lose her steps, stooped over a pile of wood and began gathering up an armful.

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

"And he won't. Miss Jane ain't no fool. She knows more about him than anybody 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 is good enough for anybody. Tod would have been dead half a dozen times if it hadn't been for her and Doctor John, and there ain't n.o.body knows it better'n me. It's just like her to let Archie come here so much with Tod; she knows I ain't goin' to let nothin' happen to him. And as for mothers, Sam Fogarty," here Mrs. Fogarty lifted her free hand and shook her finger in a positive way--"when Archie gits short of mothers he's got one right here, don't make no difference what you or anybody else says," and she tapped her broad bosom meaningly.

Contrary, however, to Fogarty's hopes and surmises, Archie had forgotten neither Sandy's insult nor Scootsy's epithet. "He's a pick-up" and "he ain't got no mammy" kept ringing in his ears as he walked back up the beach to his home. He remembered having heard the words once before when he was some years younger, but then it had come from a pa.s.sing neighbor and was not intended for him. This time it was flung square in his face. Every now and then as he followed the trend of 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 the steamers and the sails of the fis.h.i.+ng-boats as they caught the light of the setting sun. The epithet worried him. It was something to be ashamed 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 st.u.r.dy little figure the moment he turned the corner and ran to meet him.

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

"Yes, it's awful late. I ran all the way from the church when I saw the clock. 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 Scootsy Mulligan tried to--"

Jane stopped the boy's joyous account with a cry of surprise. They were now 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. I could have licked 'em if they come on one at a time, but they got a plank and crawled up--"

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

"Why, on the pirate s.h.i.+p, where we've got our Bandit's Home. Tod is commodore and I'm first mate. Tod and I did all we could, but they didn't fight fair, and Scootsy called me a 'pick-up' and said I hadn't any 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, his honest blue eyes searching her own.

Jane caught her hand to her side and leaned for a moment against the stone wall. This was the question which for years she had expected him to ask--one to which she had framed a hundred imaginary answers. When as a baby he first began to talk she had determined to tell him she was not his mother, and so get him gradually accustomed to the conditions of his birth. But every day she loved him the more, and every day she had put it off. To-day it was no easier. He was too young, she knew, to take in its full meaning, even if she could muster up the courage to tell him the half she was willing to tell him--that his mother was her friend and on her sick-bed had entrusted her child to her care. She had wanted to wait until he was old enough to understand, so that she should not lose his love when he came to know the truth. There had been, moreover, always this fear--would he love her for s.h.i.+elding his mother, or would he hate Lucy when he came to know? She had once talked it all over with Captain Holt, but she could never muster up the courage 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 lived under this cloud long enough--there ain't n.o.body can live a lie a whole lifetime, Miss Jane. I'll take my share of the disgrace along of my dead boy, and you ain't done nothin', G.o.d knows, to be ashamed of. Tell him! It's grease to yer throat halyards and everything'll run smoother afterward. Take my advice, Miss Jane."