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.
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