“Well, Pa he was paralyzed, and he and the other deacon rushed out to pick up the minister and the first old man, and when they struck the steps they went kiting.  Pa’s feet somehow slipped backwards, and he turned a summersault and struck full length on his back, and one heel was across the minister’s neck, and he slid down the steps, and the other deacon fell all over the other three, and Pa swore at them, and it was the worst looking lot of pious people I ever saw.  I think if the minister had been in the woods somewhere, where nobody could have heard him, he would have used language.  They all seemed mad at each other.  The hired girl told Ma there was three tramps out on the sidewalk fighting Pa, and Ma she took the broom and started to help Pa, and I tried to stop Ma, ’cause her constitution is not very strong and I didn’t want her to do any flying trapeze business, but I couldn’t stop her, and she went out with the broom and a towel tied around her head.  Well, I don’t know where Ma did strike, but when she came in she said she had palpitation of the heart, but that was not the place where she put the arnica.  O, but she did go through the air like a bullet through cheese, and when she went down the steps a-bumpity-bump, I felt sorry for Ma.  The minister had got so he could set up on the sidewalk, with his back against the lower step, when Ma came sliding down, and one of the heels of her gaiters hit the minister in the hair, and the other foot went right through between his arm and his side, and the broom liked to pushed his teeth down his throat.  But he was not mad at Ma.  As soon as he see it was Ma he said, ’Why, sister, the wicked stand in slippery places, don’t they?’ and Ma she was mad and said for him to let go her stocking, and then Pa was mad and he said, ’look-a-here you sky-pilot, this thing has gone far enough,’ and then a policeman came along and first he thought they were all drunk, but he found they were respectable, and he got a chip and scraped the soap off of them, and they went home, and Pa and Ma they got in the house some way, and just then the letter-carrier came along, but he didn’t have any letters for us, and he didn’t come onto the steps, and then I went up stairs and I said, ’Pa, don’t you think it is real mean, after you and I fixed the soap on the steps for the letter-carrier, he didn’t come on the step at all,’ and Pa was scraping the soap off his pants with a piece of shingle, and the hired girl was putting liniment on Ma, and heating it in for palpitation of the heart, and Pa said, ’You dam idjut, no more of this, or I’ll maul the liver out of you,’ and I asked him if he didn’t think soft soap would help a moustache to grow, and he picked up Ma’s work-basket and threw it at my head, as I went down stairs, and I came over here.  Don’t you think my Pa is unreasonable to get mad at a little joke that he planned himself?”

The grocery man said he didn’t know, and the boy went out with a pair of skates over his shoulder, and the grocery man is wondering what joke the boy will play on him to get even for the cayenne pepper.