“I don't have to put it on again, and you ain't big enough to make me do it,” says Freckles. “I can too make you.” “Can't.” “Huh, you can't run any sandy over me!” “I'll show you whether I can or not!” “Come on, then, over back of the Baptist Church, and show me.” “No, I won't fight in a graveyard.” “Yah! Yah! Yah!--'fraid of a graveyard at night! Fraid-cat! Fraid-cat! Fraid-cat!” There isn't any kid will stand for that, so they went over to the graveyard back of the Baptist Church. It was getting pretty dark, too. I followed them, and sat down on a grave beside a tombstone to watch the fight. I guess they were pretty much scared of that graveyard, both of those boys; but us dogs had dug around there too much, making holes after gophers, and moles, and snakes for me to mind it any. They hadn't hit each other more than half a dozen times, those boys, when a flea got hold of me right in the middle of my back, up toward my neck--the place I never can reach, no matter how hard I dig and squirm. It wasn't one of my own fleas, by the way it bit; it must have been a tramp flea that had been starved for weeks. It had maybe come out there with a funeral a long time before and got lost off of someone, and gone without food ever since; and while I was rolling around and twisting, and trying to get at it, I bumped against that tombstone with my whole weight. It was an old slab, and loose, and it fell right over in the grass with a thud. The boys didn't know I was there, and when the tombstone fell and I jumped, they thought ghosts were after them, though I never heard of a ghost biting anybody yet. It was all I could do to keep up with those boys for the next five minutes, and I can run down a rabbit. When they stopped, they were half a mile away, on the schoolhouse steps, hanging on to each other for comfort. But, after a while they got over their scare, and Squint said: “There ain't any use in you denying that apple, Freckles; two others, besides me, not counting a girl, saw you put it there.” “Well,” said Freckles, “it's nobody's business.” “But what I can't make out,” says Squint, “is what became of the red pepper. We knew you wasn't the kind of a softy that would bring apples to teacher unless they was loaded with cayenne pepper, or something like that. So we waited around after school to see what would happen when she bit into it. But she just set at her desk and eat it all up, and slung the core in the stove, and nothing happened.” “That's funny,” says Freckles. And he didn't say anything more. “Freckles,” says Squint, “I don't believe you put any red pepper into that apple.” “I did,” says Freckles. “You're a liar!” “Well,” says Squint, “what become of it, then?” “That's none of your business, what become of it,” says Freckles. “What's it to you what become of it? How do I know what become of it?” “Freckles,” says Squint, “I believe you're stuck on teacher.”