That morning Jehosophat had gone with the Toyman to Sawyer's Mill over
on Wally's Creek. Marmaduke felt lonely, for there was nobody but
Hepzebiah to play with, and she wouldn't leave her dolls, and he had
long ago gotten past playing with _them_. As he was wandering
forlornly around the barnyard, wondering what he could do, he heard a
shout over by the Miller farm.
"You're out!"
It was a very fascinating cry, an inviting one as well. Looking over
the field he saw boys--at least six of them--playing baseball. So he
hurried over to get in the game, too.
But his old enemy "Fatty" told him that they didn't "want any
_kids_ hangin' around."
And Dicky Means agreed with that.
"Naw, we don't want any _kids_!"
"I can catch an' I can pitch--curves, too," Marmaduke protested, but
they wouldn't believe him.
"You can't, either," Fatty yelled back, "you'd muff it every time.
Wouldn't he, Means?"
He was talking to _Dicky_ Means, but he called him by his last
name just because he had heard grown-up men do that sometimes and he
thought it was very smart.
Again Dicky Means agreed with Fatty.
"_Sure_ he'd muff it every time."
Reddy Toms and Harold Skinner didn't take Marmaduke's part, nor did
Sammy Soapstone, though he had borrowed Marmaduke's mouth-organ and
lost it, and had Marmaduke's appendix all pickled in alcohol in a big
bottle and wouldn't give it back, either. But they were all bigger
than Marmaduke, so what could he do but sit on the fence and watch
them, while his fingers fairly itched to catch one of those "flies."
And the crack of the bat against the ball did sound so fine across the
field.
At last he couldn't stand it, so he got down from the fence, and
shouted at them,
"I wouldn't play in your ole game--not for a _million dollars_!"
And off he walked towards his own barn, swinging his arms all the way,
as if he were holding a bat and showing them just how well he could
play. My! what long "flies" he would knock, if he only had the
chance--over the dead chestnut tree, over the Gold Rooster on the top
of the barn, and even above the Long White Finger of the Church
Pointing at the Sky. Maybe, sometime, if he hit it hard enough and
just right, the ball would sail on and on, and up and up, to the Moon:
and the Ole Man there would catch it and throw it down to him again.
But he would have to practice a lot first, so, when he reached the
house, he went in and found a ball of his own. He turned it over and
over in his fingers, admiring it. It was a fine one, with leather as
white as buckskin but very hard, and thick seams sewed in the cover
with heavy thread, winding in and out in horseshoe curves.
It had a dandy name, too,--"Rocket," that was it. And he threw it up
high up, up, up, until it reached the eaves of the barn and startled
the swallows, who flew out and swept the sky with their pretty wings,
chattering angrily at him.
He watched to see where the ball would fall, and ran under it, holding
his hands like a little cup. It fell into them, but it fell _out_
even quicker than it had fallen in. Jiminy! but that ball was hard!
Marmaduke thought the man who made it should have left the "et" from
its name and called it plain "Rock" instead. It was just like a rock
covered with hard leather.
He tried it again, but he didn't throw it up quite so high.
"Crack!" it went against the side of the barn, and little clouds of
hay-dust from the loft danced in the air, and the swallows chattered
still more angrily:
"He persists--sists--sists--sists--sists," they called to one another.
This time the ball fell on his cheekbone and raised a lump as round
and as hard as a marble.
He didn't cry. Oh, no! for he was trying hard these days to be a
regular boy and never to cry even one little whimper. So he just went
in the house and Mother put a kiss and some arnica on it--it is always
more effective if mixed that way--and out he came and tried it all
over again. For regular boys never give up. Of course, at first he
threw the ball a little lower than before, but that was only wise. And
this time it did fall into his hands and he held it tight. Over and
over he practised until his hands were pretty red from catching the
hard "Rocket" ball, but he felt very happy inside--which is what
counts, for one doesn't mind being sore _outside_ if one is all
right _within_.
However, all the time he could hear the sound of that bat over on the
Miller lot. Then--all of a sudden--he heard an altogether different
sort of noise--more like a crash and a smash than a crack.
"Glass!" that was it!
"Hooray!" he shouted in delight, "_now_ that Fatty's going to get
it."
But he was wrong. Fatty was too plump to hit a ball so hard. It was
Dicky Means that had done it. And, like Fatty, he was always up to
tricks, only usually Fatty _planned_ them and Dicky _did_ them.
Yes, it was Dicky Means who had hit that ball right through Mis'
Miller's window, the big parlor window, too, and she expected the
Methodist ladies of the Laborforlovesociety that very afternoon. There
was Mis' Miller now, running out of the house and shrieking,--
"You younglimbosatan, you'll pay for that!"
"Pleeze, Mis' Miller, I haven't any money," Dicky was saying, very
politely, with his eye on the broom she held in her hand, "I'll pay
you tomorrow."
"No, you'll settle it _now_," she told him--very cross she was,
too, "or I'll tell your mother, and your father'll paddle you in the
woodshed." Then she added,--"an' you won't get your ball."
Dicky seemed to be more worried about the ball than about the
woodshed, for he whined.
"Aw, pleeze, Mis' Miller, have a heart!"
You see, "Have a heart!" was an expression he had heard down in the
city, and for the last week the boys had been using it every chance
they got.
Still it didn't work on Mis' Miller, for she only shook her head
angrily and took her broom and shouted,--
"Scat, get out!"--just as if they were so many cats--"an' don't come
back for the ball till you come with the money in your hand."
And as everybody in the neighborhood used to say, "Gracious, but Mis'
Miller has a turrible temper!" or "Whew, but can't she get mad?" and
because she was flourishing that broom right in their faces, why, they
did scat like so many cats, just as she had told them.
Across the field they all came running, straight towards Marmaduke,
who pretended not to see them at all, but just kept passing his Rocket
ball from one hand to the other, trying to juggle it like the trick
men in the circus.
When they saw that ball, all the boys suddenly grew very polite to
Marmaduke.
"Lend us your ball, Marmy!" they said.
"Wouldn't you like to have it!" he replied, still juggling the ball,
but he watched them out of the corner of his eye. They had been pretty
mean to him, but he supposed he ought to be decent even if they
weren't, and besides it would be fine to play a real game with "sides"
instead of one just by himself.
"All right," he said, after making them wait long enough to want that
ball very much, "if you'll play 'sides' 'stead of' two o' cat,' and
let me be captain."
"Aw!" said Dicky, "you're not big enough."
"All right," replied Marmaduke, still juggling that fine Rocket ball,
"you'll have to play with some ole rock then."
"Aw, come 'n, have a heart!"
Marmaduke thought it over for a little while. To "have a heart" was
like "heaping coals of fire" on people's heads, in minister's
language, he supposed. And he wasn't so fond of that. But anyway he
gave in.
"All right," he agreed, "come 'n, where'll we play?"
"Here," said Fatty, "this big rock'll be home-plate, and that one over
there by the chestnut tree 'first.' An' we'll choose up sides--first
choosin'!"
Then Dicky, who insisted on being the other captain, picked up the bat
and threw it with the handle uppermost to Fatty, who caught it around
the middle. Then Dicky clasped his fingers around the bat just above
Fatty's hand; then Fatty put his left hand above Dicky's right; and
Dicky his left hand next; and so on until their fingers almost reached
the handle of the bat. There was just a little space left. If Fatty
could squeeze his plump fingers in between Dicky's and the top he
would win, and he could have first choice of the best players for his
side. But his fingers were much too fat.
"Your pinky's over," said Dicky, and Reddy Toms picked up a flat stone
and scraped it over the top of the bat, and Fatty howled and let go.
So it was Dicky's turn to choose, and Marmaduke waited breathlessly.
He hoped that he would be chosen first, second anyway. He ought to be,
for wasn't it his ball they were going to play with!