"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 they say," she answered, stooping
over and kissing him.
And so for a time the remembrance of Scootsy's
epithet faded out of the boy's mind.
CHAPTER XIV
HIGH WATER AT YARDLEY
Ten years have passed away.
The sturdy little fellow in knee-trousers is a lad
of seventeen, big and strong for his age; Tod is three
years older, and the two are still inseparable. The
brave commander of the pirate ship is now a full-
fledged fisherman and his father's main dependence.
Archie is again his chief henchman, and the two
spend many a morning in Tod's boat when the blue-
fish are running. Old Fogarty does not mind it;
he rather likes it, and Mother Fogarty is always
happier when the two are together.
"If one of 'em gits overboard," she said one day
to her husband, "t'other kin save him."
"Save him! Well, I guess!" he replied. "Salt
water skims off Archie same's if he was a white
bellied gull; can't drown him no more'n you kin a
can buoy."
The boy has never forgotten Scootsy's epithet, although
he has never spoken of it to his mother--
no one knows her now by any other name.
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