United States or Latvia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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!"
"Scootsy Mulligan! Crickety! he's come to make trouble," shouted back Tod, climbing the ladder in a hurry it was used as a means of descent into 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 no school. Say, Arch, what are we goin' to do?"
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.
When, therefore, Scootsy Mulligan, aged nine, son of a ship-caulker who worked in Martin Farguson's ship-yard, and Sandy Plummer, eldest of three, and their mother a widow plain washing and ironing, two doors from the cake-shop heard that that French "spad," Arch Cobden what lived up to Yardley, and that red-headed Irish cub, Tod Fogarty Tod's hair had turned very red had pre-empted the Black Tub, as the wreck was irreverently called, claiming it as their very own, "and-a-sayin' they wuz pirates and bloody Turks and sich," these two quarrelsome town rats organized a posse in lower Barnegat for its recapture.
"Death and no quarter!" shouted back Archie, opening the big blade of Captain 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 the overhanging chains. Tod had now clambered up from the hold.
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.
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.
"Crack and be " Bang! went Archie's hickory and down dropped the braggart, his oath lost 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 its mate at Archie, who was still brandishing the sapling and yelling himself hoarse in his excitement.
"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!"
All these things rushed through her mind as she stood leaning against the stone wall, Archie's hand in hers, his big blue eyes still fixed on her own. "Who said that to you, my son?" she asked in assumed indifference, in order to gain time in which to frame her answer and recover from the shock. "Scootsy Mulligan." "Is he a nice boy?" "No, he's a coward, or he wouldn't fight as he does."
Word Of The Day