Page:Folks from Dixie (1898).pdf/151

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MT. PISGAH'S CHRISTMAS 'POSSUM

No more happy expedient for raising the revenues of the church could have been found than that which was evolved by the fecund brain of the Reverend Isaiah Johnson. Mr. Johnson was wise in his day and generation. H knew his people, their thoughts and their appetites, their loves and their prejudices. Also he knew the way to their hearts and their pocketbooks.

As far ahead as the Sunday two weeks before Christmas, he had made the announcement that had put the congregation of Mt. Pisgah church into a flurry of anticipatory excitement.

"Brothahs an' sistahs," he had said, "you all reckernizes, ez well ez I does, dat de revenues of dis hyeah chu'ch ain't whut dey ought to be. De chu'ch, I is so'y to say, is in debt. We has a mo'gage on ouah buildin', an' besides de int'rus' on dat, we has fuel to buy an' lightin' to do.

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