Ernest, wery cool, ’Pinky Binn says it’s sixty-five, and Pinky Binn ain’t no storyteller, and you hadn’t otter call her one.’  That takes all the talk out of the teacher.  He just sets there wrappin’ his legs round the chair and glarin’.  Ernest’s voice rings clear above the school now, like the Declaration of Independence.  ‘In Turkey Walley, teacher,’ he says, ’five times eleven apples is sixty-five.  They raises bigger apples there.’

“Leander’s legs unsprung.  He ketched Ernest by the hair and lifted him to the platform.  Boys, you otter ‘a’ seen it.  It was David and Goliath all over agin, only fightin’ fair.  Havin’ Leander holdin’ his hair give the boy an advantage—­it was two hands agin one.  Leander had but the one to operate his stick with, while Ernest was drivin’ both fists right into the darkness in front of him.  The stick was making no impression, and some of the small boys that didn’t know no better begin to cheer.  Boys, you otter ‘a’ been there.  You’d have enjoyed it, Henery.  Leander seen what he needed was tactics, and his regular tactics was to hold the scholar at arm’s length by the hair.  He tried it and it didn’t work.  Ernest was usin’ tactics too.  He wasn’t wastin’ strength and beatin’ his arms around.  He just smiled.  That smile aroused the teacher in Leander agin.  He couldn’t stand it.  He had never had a boy do that before; he forgot himself and sailed in.  Boys, that was fightin’ then.  You’d have enjoyed it, Henery.  Still, I guess it couldn’t have been much to watch, for there was nothin’ to see but dust—­a rollin’, roarin’ cloud of it, backward and forward over the platform.  I don’t know just what happened.  Pap couldn’t tell.  Leander couldn’t ‘a’ told you.  Ernest couldn’t ‘a’ told you.  There was war—­real war, and after it come peace.”

“Ernest whipped, I know,” cried Henry Holmes.

“The teacher was licked—­good—­good!” shouted Isaac Bolum.

“No, boys,” said Josiah solemnly, “that couldn’t have been.  Even in fairy stories sech things couldn’t happen.  But when the dust cleared away, Leander’s body lay along the floor, and towerin’ over him, one foot on his boosom, stood the darin’ scholar.  I guess the teacher had been took ill.”

“Mebbe it was appleplexy,” suggested Elmer Spiker.

“Mebbe it was,” said Josiah.  “It must have been somethin’ like that; but whatever it was, there stood the boy.  ‘You is free,’ he says, addressin’ the scholars.  And the children broke from the seats and started for’a’d to worship him.  And Pinky Binn was almost on her knees at his feet, when a strange thing happened.