The Bennington Evening Banner

CHICKEN STOPPED CHASE
Negro "Deacon" Was Disappearing with Camp Meeting Collection
Oklahoma City, Okla. April 5—With an accordion pleated silk hat under his arm containing $1.17 in cash three buttons and two green cigarette coupons, the proceeds of the collection at a camp meeting here Monday, one of the pillars of the negro congregation in the form of a deacon sprinted through the town while the whole assemblage followed
He escaped by a plan which would seem to entitle him to a prominent place on a board of strategy in time of war. It is believed he had an ally and that the pot will have to be split with the latter, for just as the younger men and women of the congregation were coming up with the deacon and his hatful assets somebody let a chicken loose in the street, and as chicken comes pretty high around here, even on the hoof, the appearance of the fowl made the disappearance of the deacon as easy as the removal of a confection from the maniple of an infant.
One of the most prominent negro exhorters of these parts is known as "Sin Killer" Griffith, and he certainly had wickedness looking groggy at the camp meeting just outside of town.
He was telling of the awful eternity of brimstone, powder, dynamite and nitro-glycerine that the wicked would have to live in the midst of in the hereafter, while good folks stood around the brink above with their pockets full of fuses and matches, when he saw several of the faithless getting ready to depart. The champion "Sin Killer" yelled after them to keep off the brink if they couldn't listen any longer, and then ordered a hasty collection made, because it seemed to him the congregation itself was about to explode.
This duty was entrusted to Deacon Plunkett, who ran down to the front of the gathering and began to poke his silk lid under the noses of the worshippers, The other deacons who were not on the job, wondered why Deacon Plunkett had not been instructed by the "Sin Killer" to begin at the rear and work forward. This has always been a precaution at camp meetings when the preacher clasps the deacon in his arms as he reaches the platform.
When the deacon reached the last row of seats and pulled his hat away from a second hand chew of tobacco that was about to fall he waved a kiss to the crowd and started across the lots. Everybody followed, looking for a rebate, and the chase was well into the town before the mysterious chicken dropped and the pursuit was permanently destroyed.