Well, after the show was out, quite a lot of the dogs and boys that was friends of mine and of Freckles was waiting for us. Being in a show like that made us heroes. But some of them were considerably jealous of us, too, and there would have been some fights, but Freckles says kind of dignified that he does not care to fight until his show is out of town, but after that he will take on any and all who dare--that is, he says, if he doesn't decide to go with that show, which the show is crazy to have him do. And me and him and Stevie Stevenson, which is his particular chum, goes off and sets down on the schoolhouse steps, and Stevie tells him what a good actor he was, running across the stage with me after that Uncle Tom. But Freckles, he is sad and solemn, and he only fetches a sigh. “What's eatin' you, Freckles?” Stevie asks him. Freckles, he sighs a couple of times more, and then he says: “Stevie, I'm in love.” “Gosh, Freckles,” says Stevie. “Honest?” “Honest Injun,” says Freckles. “Do you know who with?” says Stevie. “Uh-huh!” says Freckles. “If you didn't know who with, how would you know you was?” But Stevie, he says you might be and not know who with, easy enough. Once, he says, he was like that. He says he was feeling kind of queer for a couple of weeks last spring, and they dosed him and dosed him, with sassafras and worm-medicine and roots and herbs, and none of it did any good. His mother says it is growing-pains, and his father says it is either laziness and not wanting to hoe in the garden or else it is a tapeworm. And he thinks himself maybe it is because he is learning to chew and smoke tobacco on the sly and keeps swallowing a good deal of it right along. But one day he hears his older sister and another big girl talking when they don't know he is around, and they are in love, both of them, and from what he can make out, their feelings is just like his. And it come to him all of a sudden he must be in love himself, and it was days and days before he found out who it was that he was in love with. “Who was it?” asks Freckles. “It turned out to be Mabel Smith,” says Stevie, “and I was scared plumb to death for a week or two that she would find out about it. I used to put toads down her back and stick burrs into her hair so she wouldn't never guess it.” Stevie says he went through days and days of it, and for a while he was scared that it might last forever, and he don't ever want to be in love again. Suppose it should be found out on a fellow that he was in love? “Stevie,” says Freckles, “this is different.” Stevie asks him how he means. “I _want_ her to know,” says Freckles. “Great Scott!” says Stevie. “No!” “Uh-huh!” “It don't show on you, Freckles,” says Stevie.