Year: 1878




My teacher wants me to write a com.
posishun on soap. l like to write COM
posishuns better than arithmetic, cause
l can write lots of it out of the ensiclo-
psdier--I wonder why they can't call
that thing dictionary, or something
that you can pronounce without hearing
your jaw crack-but l don't see much
soap in it. 1t says "soap is compound
formed by the union of alkalies with
oils and fats" That's blamed lie (my
big brother. who is looking over my
shoulder, says no 1t amt, it's an alkali,
and then be lafed). and if I was ensi-
clopedier man would know better than
that.


Soap is stuff you wash with and make
bubbles with. Strikers use soap to rub
on the railroad tracks or grease, and that
stops the engine from going cause the
wheels run round just like a horse to a
treadmill what they saw wood with up
at the depot / like horses. but I
wouldn't like to be treadmill horse.
I'd like to be striker, cause it must be
fun to grease the tracks with soap and
see the train stop and the passengers
ane engineer get out and talk.


The most l know about soap is Mon.
days, cause mother she washes on Mon
days and father stays over to the store.
| always go off Mondays and stay away
from home as late as can. My mother
on washing day gets up blue, and by
nine O'Clock she is red, by ten O'Clock
she il cross, and by eleven o'clock she
is mad.


One day, when my mother was look.
ing red and wild and gritting her teeth
and rolling up her sleeves and firing
chairs at the dog and yelling at the hens
that's what she always does when she
commences to wash-the grocery man
he drove up to the door and h'isted out
box of soap and showed it in tho door.
I knew it was from father. cause mother
had been growing at him for not get
ting better soap.


Well, l crawed off about the usual
time, but noticed father lying around
like, outside of the house, as If he was
watching the effect of the soap. When
ever mother made an unusually big
spatter in the washtubs, he would climb
off to the barn aud wait till things got
quiet, and then he would sneak back
and look into the windows.


l met Anasuerus Tompkins while I
was loafing in the village, and he said,
let's go fishing; 80 went back to the
woodshed to get my lines. went in
awful quiet and thought no one heard
me, but it was about noon and the fire
had gone down, and mother came out
for wood to stoke it up. heard her
coming, and when I remembered what
mother was on washing days I com.
menced to shake. tried to hide, but
she seen me; but I never got such
start like I did when she didn't take me
by the naps OF the neck and sling me all
round the woodshed. No she Just said
poor boy, you must be hungry, and I
said you bet I am, and she said come in
and get some dinner, and I went in and
got some dinner, and it wasn't bread
and water and last Saturdays potatoes
neither, but a real dinner.


Then father came creeping in, leaving
could scoot out If she tried to comb his
hair with the washboard. He SHE'D
whom she came in, and got in corner
cause l hadn't any idea father would
get off without being rubbed down with
broomstick; but marm just went up to
him kind of easy and said, Don't be
alarmed, Edward. I know I have not
been the wife ! shonld be to you on
Mondays, but no longer have to under
go the terrible ordeal of big wash with
incompetent SOAP,


Then father hugged her aud said,
"I'll live on soap hereafter. I'll paper
the rooms with it. I'll put soap shingles
on the roof. I'll fill the cellar with it
III feed it to the hens. I'll have soap
furniture put in the spare room, III
toss the pennies on Sunday to send soap
to the heatben. I'll-i'll-" You'll cal
your dinner" said mother and she ga,
him down in a chair, and you would
have thought his throat was soaped.
Its like romance amt it?" said he
my son." said he, ''give over you
J childish ideas of being circus man ant
direct your budding intellect to soap,
Father is wild to get me into soaI
factory. HISS got in another lot OF soap
and mothor ain't so much as scowled a
him since. That's all I know abou