This story features two of the most common figures in rural jokelore: the preacher and the mule. There is even a body of literature devoted to mule folklore, and this semester I consulted a MA thesis dedicated to mules in folk literature. Many of our preacher jokes probably descended from old world priest jokes (which have been around for a looking time), but this one is probably locally grown.
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Preacher Paps got the call to preach while he was going to college down in Mars Hill, and he was called to preach at a little church down in Flag Pond Tennessee. Every Sunday he would walk all the way to Flag Pond from North Carolina, and eventually the congregation got to feeling bad for him, so they gave him a Mule to ride. They gave him $2 a week for his preaching and $4 a week to feed his mule.
Well, one Sunday in the middle the wintertime Preacher Paps rode on all the way down into Flagpond and by the time he got there he was almost froze to death and sick and miserable. He went on in the church, and found that only 3 people had come: the chair of the deacon board and two others. Well it ticked off Paps that he had come all that way in the freezing cold for three people, and he started yelling about how '' you people here dont want to hear the word of God!" And " Shoot, you think more of the Mule than you do me! You pay it twice as much! Maybe the you ought to just let that mule preach next Sunday!"
And the chair of the Deacons just said: "suits me, as far as I see it, we'd just be trading one jack-ass for another!''
It made Preacher Paps so mad that he decided to stay and preach there. That summer they say he baptized 100 people down there.
