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Updated: May 13, 2025
He advanced a few paces toward the weathered heap of debris and broke into a time-honored taunt: Silvey, th' bilvey, Th' rik-stick-stilvey! To which the intrenched commander of the enemy replied, Fletcher, oh, Fletcher, Th' old fly catcher, and exposed just enough of his person to wriggle ten brazen fingers from the tip of his nose. John made a last, despairing attempt. "'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid-cat!
Perry Alford came punctual to the minute, and shortly thereafter Red Brown, Sid DuPree, Silvey, and Skinny Mosher. Mrs. Fletcher had made use of her telephone to make the gathering a little more of a party for John than he had anticipated. Another display of the presents followed, while his father and mother stood in the parlor doorway and beamed down upon the youngsters.
"Let's make 'er a real home grounds," he said suddenly. "Soon as it gets drier, we'll bring our rakes over and get this stuff out of the way;" he kicked a rusty tin can to one side. "Then we'll cut the grass and make cinder base lines, and everything'll be just peachy." Silvey beamed, enthralled as usual by John's fertile imagination.
"Had to bring him," the unfortunate elder boy exclaimed when he reached the diamond. "Ma wouldn't let me come unless I did." They accepted the affliction resignedly. "He can watch," said Silvey. "Come on, John. Toss up your little ball while we're waiting." Accordingly, the first baseman brought out a lopsided ten-cent ball and threw it toward third.
Silvey retreated promptly to the shelter of his own army. Presently his four weakest marksmen advanced. "Wants to get us fighting," explained General Fletcher, as he restrained his impatient subordinates. "Then he and Skinny and Sid will pick us off. Come on and remember." They advanced silently without wasting a cucumber.
Silvey, his trousers' pockets strangely distorted, sprinted down the street and halted on the cement walk in front of the Fletcher house. "Oh, John-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e!" John appeared at an upper window in answer to the ear-piercing call. He carried a dustrag in one hand, and an expression of extreme discontent was on his freckled face. "What you want?" "Come on out." "Can't."
A few minutes later they clambered over the shaky fence which separated the field from the sidewalk and neighboring dairy pasturage. Silvey dug his foot into the yielding turf, which had formed the scene of that football scrimmage between the "Jeffersons" and the "Tigers." "'Most dry enough to play on," he observed. John nodded.
"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly. "And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't run the team, the team can't use my things!" There was an astounded silence.
That afternoon he walked north to the branch library to turn in his book on which a six-cent fine impended. With the yellow card in his hand, he went over to the fiction section of the open shelves. No more Hentys, no more Optics. He was in love, and love stories he must have. Silvey, Perry Alford, and Red sauntered up just before supper to find out how the land lay.
He pulled out his watch dreamily a quarter of six and still but one captive and let his glance follow the wake of a graceful, white-hulled gasoline cruiser which chugged its way up from the south. Presently Silvey returned to break in upon his revery with the exciting news that a man near the life-preserver post had caught five fish. John sat up.
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