ck-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 passing 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 fishing-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 sturdy 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 ship, 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