The Boy's Book of Buccaneers

Excerpt: Jack looked up from the book he had been reading. ?Father,? he asked, ?what was a buccaneer? Cousin Fred says buccaneers and pirates were the same thing, and Jim says they were not, and in this story they speak of pirates and buccaneers both.? ?Fred and Jim are both wrong and both right,? replied Mr. Bickford. ?Buccaneers were pirates, but pirates were not necessarily buccaneers. But nowadays the two are often confused and writers of stories do not seem to realize the difference and make it still more confusing. When Fred comes over to-night bring him into the library, and I?ll try to straighten out the puzzle and tell you about the buccaneers.? ?Say, Fred!? cried Jack, when his cousin came [2]bouncing into Jack?s den that evening. ?You were way off. Buccaneers were not the same as pirates. Dad says so, and he?s going to tell us all about them to-night. Come on down to the library.? ?That?ll be dandy,? agreed Fred, enthusiastically. ?And of course if Uncle Henry says they?re not the same, why they?re not, but I always thought they were. I wonder if Captain Kidd was a pirate or a buccaneer.? ?Ask Dad, he knows!? laughed Jack, as the two raced downstairs to Mr. Bickford?s library. They found him surrounded by books with odd, old-fashioned, worn leather bindings and with some faded and yellowed maps and cuts on the table before him. ?Well, boys,? he greeted them, ?I suppose you want to know all about the buccaneers who sailed the Spanish Main, eh??