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.