“Well, then,” says Freckles, “if any one was to use brass knucks on me, I would have to use brass knucks on them, and I won't fight any one that uses brass knucks in private.” “Well, then,” says the show kid, “my brass knucks is in my trunk in the tent, and you don't dast to follow me and fight with bare fists.” “My brass knucks is at home,” says Freckles, which was the first I knew he ever had any, “and I do dast.” So each one searched the other for brass knucks, and they went off together, me following. The fight was to be under the bridge over the crick down by the school-house on the edge of the woods. But when they got down there, the strip of sand by the side of the crick was in shadow. So they went on top of the bridge, to fight in the moonlight. But the moonlight was so bright they were afraid they would be seen by some farmer coming into town and maybe told on and arrested. So they sat down on the edge of the bridge with their feet hanging over and talked about where they had better fight to be private, as gentlemen should. And they got to talking of other things. And pretty soon they began to kind of like each other, and Freckles says: “What's your name?” “Percy,” says the show kid. “But you better not call me that. I'd fight if I was called that out of the family. Call me Spike. What's your name?” “Well, then,” says Freckles, “1 don't like mine either; mine is Harold. But call me Freckles.” Spike says he wished he had more freckles himself. But he don't get much chance for freckles, he says; his mother takes such awful good care of all the complexions in their family. “Well, then,” says Freckles, “I think your mother is an awful nice lady.” Spike, all of a sudden, bursts out crying then and says how would Freckles like it if people wrote notes to _his_ mother and was yelled at about her? And Freckles says how would _he_ like it if _he_ was the one was yelled at, and he never had any idea the lady was grown up and had a family, and he got to sniffling some himself. “Spike,” he says, “you tell your mother I take it all back. You tell her I was in love with her till I seen her plain off the stage, and since I have seen her and her family plain, I don't care two cents for her. And I'll write her an apology for falling into love with her.” Which he done it, then and there, in the moonlight, jabbing his fountain pen into his wart, and it read: _Dear Little Eva. Since I seen your husband and son I decided not to say anything about matrimony, and beg your pardon for it. This is wrote in my blood and sets you free to fall in love with who you please. You are older and look different from what I expected, and so let us forget bygones._ _Yours truly,_ _H. Watson._ “Spike,” says Freckles, when they were walking back to town together, chewing licorice and pretending it was tobacco, “do you really have some brass knucks?” “No,” says Spike. “Do you, Freckles?” “No,” says Freckles.