But it does beat all what simple things some folks will carry. Shakespeare Bobbet carried the minister a pair of spurs. Thinks I to myself, “What is he goin’ to use ’em on, the saw horse or the front gate?” For they have kep’ him doun so low, that he is too poor to own any other steeds.
And Betsey Bobbet brought him a poem of hers all flowered off round the edges, and trimmed with pink ribbon. I haint nothin’ aginst poetry, but with a big family like Brother Minkley’s, it did seem to me that there was other things that would be more nourishin’ and go further.
After we had left our vittles in the procession room where we was goin’ to eat, I marched into the meetin’ house room which was full of folks, and Brother Minkley came up to talk with me. I felt low spirited, for Betsey’s design wore on me. And when Brother Minkley took my hand in his’en, and shook it in the purest and most innocent manner, and said, “Sister Allen, what is the matter? are you havin’ a xercise in your mind?”
Says I to him, “Yes, Brother Minkley, I be.”
I turned the subject quickly then, for I abhor hippocrites, and I felt that I was a deceivin’ him. For whereas he thought I was havin’ a religous xcercise performin’ in my mind, I was not; it was Betsey Bobbet’s design that was a wearin’ on me. So I waved off the subject quickly, though I knew that like as not he would think I was a backslidin’ and was afraid he would ketch me at it. Thinks’es I, better let him think I am a slidin’ back, I can endure false importations better than I can let myself out for a hyppocrite. I waved off the subject and says I,
“That was a beautiful sermon of yours last Sunday, Brother Minkley.”
“You mean that from the text ‘He overthrew the tables of the money changers,’ and so forth; I am glad it pleased you, sister Allen. I meant to hit a blow at gamblin’ that would stagger it, for gamblin’ is a prevailin’ to a alarmin’ extent.” And then says he, plantin’ himself firmly before me, “Did you notice, sister Allen, the lucid and logical manner in which I carried up the argument from the firstly to the twenty-thirdly?”
I see then I was in for it. Brother Wesley Minkley haint got another fault on earth as I know on—only jest a catchin’ his church members and preachin’ his sermons over to ’em. But I have said 100 times that I am glad he has got that, for it sets me more at rest about him on windy days. Not that I really s’pose he will ascend, but if he hadn’t got that fault I should be almost tempted to examine his shoulder blades occasionally, (on the outside of his coat,) to see if his wings was a spoutin’, he is so fine and honest and unsuspiceious.
When his sermons are so long that they get up into the twentiethlies, and thirtiethlies, as they jinerally do, I can’t say but what it is a little wearin’ on you, to stand stun still whenever he happens to catch you, in the store, or street, or doorstep, and have him preach ’em all over to you alone. You feel kinder curious, and then sometimes your feet will get to sleep. But on the present occasion I rejoiced, for it freed me for the time bein’ from Betsey’s design. He laid holt of that sermon, and carried it all up before me through the firstlys and the tenthlys, just as neat and regular as you could hist a barel up the chamber stairs, and had just landed it before the ninteenthly which was, “That all church members had ort to get together, and rastle with the awful vice of gamblin’ and throw it, and tread onto it,” when Betsey Bobbet appeared before us suddenly with a big bag before her and says she,