“You see, Pa likes a joke the best of anybody you ever saw, if it is on somebody else, but he kicks like a steer when it is on him.  I asked him this morning if it wouldn’t be a good joke to put some soft soap on the front step, so the letter-carrier would slip up and spill hisself, and Pa said it would be elegant.  Pa is a Democrat, and he thinks that anything that will make it unpleasant for Republican office holders, is legitimate, and he encouraged me to paralyze the letter-carrier.  The letter-carrier is as old a man as Pa, and I didn’t want to humiliate him, but I just wanted Pa to give his consent, so he couldn’t kick if he got caught in his own trap.  You see?  Well, this morning the minister and two of the deacons called on Pa, to have a talk with him about his actions in church, on two or three occasions, when he pulled out the pack of cards with his handkerchief, and played the music box, and they had a pretty hot time in the back parlor, and finally they settled it, and were going to sing a hymn, when Pa handed them a little hymn book, and the minister opened it and turned pale and said, ‘what’s this?’ and they looked at it, and it was a book of Hoyle’s games instead of a hymn book.  Gosh, wasn’t the minister mad!  He had started to read a hymn and he quit after he had read two lines where it said, ’In a game of four-handed euchre, never trump your partner’s ace, but rely on the ace to take the trick on suit.’  Pa was trying to explain how the book came to be there, when the minister and the deacons started out, and then I poured the two quart tin pail full of soft soap on the front step.  It was this white soap, just the color of the step, and when I got it spread I went down in the basement.  The visitors came out and Pa was trying to explain to them, about Hoyle, when one of the deacons stepped on the soap and his feet flew up and he struck on his pants and slid down the steps.  The minister said ’great heavens, deacon, are you hurt? let me assist you,’ and he took two quick steps, and you have seen these fellows in a nigger show that kick each other head over heels and fall on their ears, and stand on their heads and turn around like a top.  The minister’s feet slipped and the next I saw he was standing on his head in his hat, and his legs were sort of wilted and fell limp by his side, and he fell over on his stomach.  You talk about spreading the gospel in heathen lands.  It is nothing to the way you can spread it with two quarts of soft soap.  The minister didn’t look pious a bit, when he was trying to catch the railing he looked as though he wanted to murder every man on earth, but it may be he was tired.