Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/241

 where quarterly conference was held every three months, and each church was expected to contribute a certain amount at that time. Each member was supposed to give twenty-five cents, which they did not always do.

In a town like M—boro, for instance, where the church had one hundred members, not over twenty-five are considered live members; that is, only twenty-five could be depended upon to pay their quarterly dues regularly, the others being spasmodic, contributing freely at times or nothing at all for a long time.

Orlean often laughed as she told me some of the many ways her father had of making the "dead ones" contribute, but with all the tricks and turns the position was not a lucrative one, there being no certainty as to the amount of the compensation. Mrs. Ewis told me the family had always been poor and got along only by saving in every direction. I could see this as Orlean seemed to have few clothes and had worn her sister's hat to Dakota.

Her sister was said to be very mean and disagreeable, and if anyone in the family had to do without anything it was never the sister. She was quarrelsome and much disliked while Orlean was the opposite and would cheerfully deprive herself of anything necessary. Her mother, Mrs. Ewis went on to tell me, was a "devil, spiteful and mean and as helpless as a baby." I believed a part of this but not all. I had listened to Mrs. McCraline, and while I felt she was somewhat on the helpless order, I did not believe she was mean, nor a "devil." Meanness and deviltry are usually discernible in