There are numerous instances of enthusiastic and grateful bridegrooms who have presented the officiating clergyman with live pigs as wedding fees.
But it is not only as a reward for performing the marriage ceremony that the country parson is "paid in kind." Sometimes he receives a large part of his salary in this way. The members of his congregation each subscribe a certain amount of money towards the salary that is guaranteed the minister. Farmer Brown will, he says, contribute four dollars as his share. In the winter, when Farmer Brown should hand over his four dollars to the church treasurer, he finds himself short of ready cash, but with an abundant supply of wood on hand, having in the autumn felled many trees in his forest. Nothing can be more certain than that the minister needs fuel in the winter; therefore, Farmer Brown loads his waggon with logs of wood, drives to the parsonage, and deposits it in the minister's back yard, announcing to the minister that he "reckons thar 's mor'n four dollars wirth of wood in that thar load!"
The minister can, perhaps, make use of that one load of wood very conveniently; but when, as is frequently the case, a dozen frugal farmers among his parishioners are struck with the same sort of notion—that of paying their subscriptions in wood instead of money—the unfortunate parson has more wood than he can burn for many winters to come, and his back yard is entirely taken up with it. He needs sugar, and paraffin, and rice, and butter, as well as a cheerful fireside. Did I say butter? Well, sometimes he gets more butter than he wants, too. Says the farmer to his wife: "Jane, I promised to pay three dollars towards the parson's salary. Bein' as you're makin' fine butter this summer, you jes' take him a couple o' pounds a week till you've made three dollars' worth." Two pounds of fresh yellow butter weekly from the dairy of a parishioner would be appreciated by the parson's family. They would rather have it than the stale butter from the village shop; but since butter is made on all farms, and many farmers' wives send the parson butter to pay off their subscriptions, the parson's larder overflows with butter, while many other necessaries are scarce. It is the same with potatoes and cabbages and beetroots, with eggs, and with hay for the minister's horse, which, by the way, is not forgotten when the time for paying subscriptions comes round. The minister loves his horse, and is glad to have plenty of hay and oats for it to eat; but to have in his barn enough of these articles to last a horse through several lifetimes, while the children are needing boots and coats for the present winter, is not a state of affairs that appeals to his sense of the fitness of things. Some of our country parsons, with an instinct for business, not inborn, but thrust upon them by a stern necessity, have been known to become dealers in wood, potatoes, hay, and other things of which they have an over-supply, selling their surplus stock off to their neighbours. In this way they are able to get a little ready cash with which to purchase such necessary commodities as do not "grow on the farm."
In the beginning of my article I have referred to "donation parties," and have said that some ministers are guaranteed a certain number of dollars and a "donation" as a yearly salary. The donation party is, I believe, a strictly American institution, which originated about a century ago in the very thinly settled regions of the United States among the pioneers. It is still extremely popular in country towns and farming neighbourhoods. Say that a clergyman receives eight hundred dollars a year and a "donation," or it may be that he is promised two donations. That means that besides his money, he will be surprised one night or two nights in the year by fifty or a hundred, or perhaps two or three hundred, people marching into his house with bundles of every size and description. His visitors will bring with them pounds of sugar, barrels of flour, jars of pickles, bags of salt, tinned meats and vegetables, remnants of calicoes, muslins, cloths, and silks, from the village "general store," white lawn neckties, cooking utensils, bed-clothing, pictures to hang upon the wall, patent medicines (including soothing syrups for the babies), shoes and stockings, a few live chickens—in fact, everything that the minds of his parishioners can conceive of his needing. Besides all these things, a "proper" donation party is expected to carry along its own supper, during which, sometimes, a collection is taken up and a purse of money presented to the parson. A good donation party, given by a generous lot of church people, is a thing not to be despised by the recipient. Store-cupboards, cellars, and wardrobes are frequently stocked for a whole year to come, and the minister is thus able to put by, for the education of his children, a goodly sum of money out of his cash salary.
A DONATION PARTY.
(Bringing the parson's "stipend.")
But there is another kind of donation party that is by no means welcome at the parson's house. There are country churches who promise the pastor seven hundred dollars a year, without saying anything about a donation party. But in midwinter the donation party makes its appearance, the members of it bringing along anything they happen to have on hand which they do not want for themselves. Sometimes the things are useful, sometimes not. They do not bring along their own supper; instead, they eat up everything the minister has in the house, often necessitating his sending out to shops for a sufficiency of provisions. When they have enjoyed their suppers, a man who is designated as the "donation spokesman" stands on a kitchen chair, and in a loud voice "appraises the value" of each article that has been "donated": a pair of boots so much, a few yards of calico so much, a jar of jam so much, a bale of hay so much; and thus the list of things is gone through. Then the appraised values are added up and the sum deducted from the ministers salary. If the appraiser considers that one hundred dollars' worth of things have been "donated," he then and there declares that sum to have been paid on account of the salary. Perhaps an etching, handsomely framed, has been among the articles. The poor parson does not stand in particular need of an etching, yet nevertheless the picture is counted as fifteen or twenty dollars towards his salary! A clergyman's wife who, during the first years of her married life, had been the victim of such donation parties, once told me this pathetic story. A young woman invalid, a member of her husband's church, hearing that a donation party was to be given to her pastor, and not knowing of the existence of such a personage as a donation "appraiser," wove a watch-guard from her own black hair that had been cut off during her illness; the guard was mounted in gold, and sent to the minister on the evening of the donation party. It was placed among the other articles, and at the end of the evening its value was appraised at ten dollars!
A DONATION SPOKESMAN.