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.