“When intermission come, Sime he gits off in one corner an’ begins blowin’ to a lot of the boys. I heard him talkin’ loud ’bout me, so I steps over. He sayd it was all a mistake; that he could beat me at anything--spellin’, wrastlin’ or fishin’. He was showin’ off agin, fer he talked loud like Becky Stump could hear. I makes up me mind I wouldn’t stand his blowin’.
“‘See here, Sime Cruller!’ I sais, sais I, ‘you uns is nawthin’ but a blow-horn,’ I sais. ‘You claims you can wrastle. Why, I can th’ow you in less time than it takes to tell it, an’ if you steps outside I’ll prove me words.’
“That kinder took Sime Cruller down, fer wrastlin’ was his speciality an’ he’d th’owed every felly in the walley ’ceptin’ me, an’ him an’ me hed never clinched, fer I wasn’t considered much at a fight. But me dander was up an’ I wasn’t in fer lettin’ him show off.
“‘You th’ow me!’ he sais. Then he begin to laugh like he’d die at the wery idee.
“With that we went outside, follered by the rest of the boys. They was a quarter-moon overhead, an’ the girls put two candles in the school-house winders, so, with the snow, we could see pretty well.
“At it we went. Boys, you otter ’a’ ben there! You otter ’a’ seen it! That was wrastlin’! ’Hen Sime an’ me clinched I ketched him ’round the waist with my right arm an’ got a hold of the strap of his right boot with the forefinger of me left hand. He gits his left arm ’round my neck an’ down my back somehow, an’ with his right hand tears the buttons off me coat an’ grabs me in the armhole of me waistcoat. Over we goes, like two dogs, snarlin’, an’ snappin’, while the boys in a ring around us cheered, an’ the girls crowdin’ the school-house porch trembled an’ screamed with fright. We twisted, we turned, we rolled over an’ over tell we looked like livin’ snowballs. Sime got off the boot I’d a holt on, an’ give me a sudden turn that almost sent me on me back. But I was quick. Mighty souls, but I was quick! I ups with me foot an’ lands me heel right on his chist, an’ he went flyin’ ten feet inter a snow-bank, kerryin’ me coat-sleeve with him. He was lookin’ up at the moon ’hen I run up to him, an’ I’d hed him down, but he turned over, an’ they wasn’t nawthin’ fer me to do but to set on his back. I ’low I must ’a’ set there fer half an hour, restin’ an’ gittin’ me wind. Anyway, I was so long I almost forgot I was wrastlin’, fer he give me a sudden turn, an’ ’fore I knowd it he hed the waist holt an’ hed almost th’owed me.