every bit of chicken feed, and then take half the egg
money because the chickens got into his garden; and how Abner Page
give his wife twenty-five cents for spendin' money the time she went
to visit her sister.

"Sally Ann always was a masterful sort of woman, and that night it
seemed like she was possessed. The way she talked made me think of the
Day of Pentecost and the gift of tongues. And finally she got to the
minister! I'd been wonderin' all along if she was goin' to let him
off. She turned around to where he was settin' under the pulpit, and
says she, 'Brother Page, you're a good man, but you ain't so good you
couldn't be better. It was jest last week,' says she, 'that the women
come around beggin' money to buy you a new suit of clothes to go to
Presbytery in; and I told 'em if it was to get Mis' Page a new dress,
I was ready to give; but not a dime was I goin' to give towards
puttin' finery on a man's back. I'm tired o' seein' the ministers
walk up into the pulpit in their slick black broadcloths, and their
wives settin' down in the pew in an old black silk that's been turned
upside down, wrong side out, and hind part before, and sponged, and
pressed, and made over till you can't tell whether it's silk, or
caliker, or what.'

"Well, I reckon there was some o' the women that expected the roof to
fall down on us when Sally Ann said that right to the minister. But it
didn't fall, and Sally Ann went straight on. 'And when it comes to the
perseverance of the saints and the decrees of God,' says she, 'there
ain't many can preach a better sermon; but there's some of your
sermons,' says she, 'that ain't fit for much but kindlin' fires.
There's that one you preached last Sunday on the twenty-fourth verse
of the fifth chapter of Ephesians. I reckon I've heard about a hundred
and fifty sermons on that text, and I reckon I'll keep on hearin' 'em
as long as there ain't anybody but men to do the preachin'. Anybody
would think,' says she, 'that you preachers was struck blind every
time you git through with the twenty-fourth verse, for I never heard a
sermon on the twenty-fifth verse. I believe there's men in this church
that thinks the fifth chapter of Ephesians hasn't got but twenty-four
verses, and I'm goin' to read the rest of it to 'em for once anyhow.'

"And if Sally Ann didn't walk right up into the pulpit same as if
she'd been ordained, and read what Paul said about men lovin' their
wives as Christ loved the church,