n,
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.

"Well, Pa 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 step
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 bizness, 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 like 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,
a