And She will say to pardon her for taking the liberty at a time like this, but She has saw her own name on to that note. And then, Freckles says, She will open it and read it out loud right there in the parlour to all of them, and they will all say how the departed must have liked her to draw up a note to her wrote in his own blood like that.
And then, Freckles says, She will say, yes, he must have liked her, and that she liked him an awful lot, too, but She never knew he liked her, and She wished now she had of known he liked her an awful lot, because to write a note in his own blood like that showed that he liked her an awful lot, and if he only was alive now she would show she liked him an awful lot and would kiss him to show it. And she would not be scared to kiss him in front of all those people standing around the sides of the parlour, dead or alive. And then she would kiss him, Freckles says. And maybe, Freckles says, he wouldn't be dead after all, but only just lying there like the boy that travelled around with the hypnotizer who was put in a store window and laid there all the time the hypnotizer was in town with everybody making bets whether they could see him breathing or not. And then, Freckles says, he would get up out of his casket, and his Sunday suit with long pants would be on, and he would take the note and say: “Yes, it is to you, and I wrote it with my own blood!”
Which, Freckles says, he has a loose tooth he could suck blood out of any time, not wanting to scrape his arm on account of blood poison breaking out. Though he says he had thought of using some of Spot's blood, but that would seem disrespectful, somehow. And the tooth-blood seemed disrespectful, too, for he did not know the girl right well. But it would have to be the tooth-blood, he guessed, for there was a fellow out by the county line got lockjaw from blood poison breaking out on him, and died of it. And when She handed him the note, Freckles says, he would tell the people in the parlour: “Little Eva and I forgive you all!”
“Little Eva!” says Stevie. “Gosh all fish hooks, Freckles, it ain't the girl in the show, is it?”
“Uh-huh!” says Freckles, kind of sad and proud. “Freckles,” says Stevie, after they had both set there and thought, saying nothing, for a while, “I got just one more question to ask you: Are you figuring you will get married? Is it as bad as that?”
“Uh-huh!” says Freckles.
Stevie, he thought for another while, and then he got up and put his hand on to Freckles's shoulder.
“Freckles, old scout,” he says, “good-bye. I'm awful sorry for you, but I can't chase around with you any more. I can't be seen running with you. I won't tell this on you, but if it was ever to come out I wouldn't want to be too thick with you. You know what the Dalton Gang would do to you, Freck, if they ever got on to this. I won't blab, but I can't take no risks about chumming with you.”
And he went away and left Freckles and me sitting there. But in a minute he came back and said:
“Freckles, you know that iron sling-shot crotch of mine? You always used to be stuck on that slingshot crotch, Freckles, and I never would trade it to you. Well, Freckles, you can have that darned old iron slingshot crotch free for nothing!”