“I do,” says Stevie. “You're a licked, licked liar--and so's your Aunt Mariar,” says Freckles. “I ain't got any Aunt Mariar,” says Stevie. “You don't dast to have an Aunt Mariar,” says Freckles. “I do dast,” says Stevie. Then Tom put a chip on each of their shoulders, and pushed them at each other, and the chips fell off, and they went down behind the barn and had it out, and Freckles licked him. Which proves Freckles couldn't be stopped from writing that note if he wanted to, and he was still so mad that he wrote it right then and there back of the barn on a leaf torn out of a notebook Tom Mulligan owned, with his fountain pen, using his own nose bleed that Stevie had just drawed out of him; and he read out loud what he wrote. It was: _Dear Miss Little Eva: The rose is red, the violet's blue. Sugar is sweet and so are you. Yours truly. Mr. H. Watson. This is wrote in my own blood._ “Well, now, then,” says Stevie, “where's the coffin?” “What do you mean, the coffin?” says Freckles. “Last night,” says Stevie, “you was makin' a lot of brags, but this morning it looks like you didn't have the sand to act up to them.” “If you think you've got size enough to make me lay down into a coffin with that note,” says Freckles, “you got another think cornin' to you. There ain't a kid my size, nor anywhere near my size, in this whole town can make me lay down into a coffin with that note. And if you think so, you just try it on!” Stevie, he doesn't want to fight any more. But Tom Mulligan says never mind the casket. Nobody really wants him to lay in a casket anyhow. He says he is willing to bet a million dollars Freckles doesn't dast to carry that note to the show grounds and give it to that Little Eva. “I dast!” says Freckles. “Dastn't!” says Tom. “You don't dast to knock this chip off my shoulder,” says Freckles. “I dast!” says Tom. And Stevie give him a push, and he did it. And they had it. Freckles got him down and jammed his head into the ground. “Now, then,” he says, “do I dast to carry that note, or don't I dast to?” “You dast to,” says Tom. “Leave me up.” And that was the way it come about that Freckles had to carry the note, though not wanting to at all. But he did it. We all went with him over to the show grounds, Stevie Stevenson and Tom Mulligan and Mutt, Tom's dog, and me. There was a lady sitting out in front of one of the tents on a chair. She had been washing her hair, and it was spread out to dry over her shoulders, and she was sewing on a pair of boy's pants. She had on a pair of those big horn-rimmed glasses, and we could see from her hair, which had gray in it, that she was quite an old lady, though small. I heard later that she was all of thirty-five or thirty-six years old. The rest of us hung back a little ways, and Freckles went up to her and took off his hat. She laid down her sewing and smiled at him. “Well, my little man, what is it?” she said. “Were you looking for somebody?”