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e3^^?,·>? m-£TAe lAiibbîona'iy' G^^ by Richard Lawson For nine consecutive years, exactly three weeks before Christmas, Frankie Bragg set up his folding table at the corner of Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and he manned his post every day, except Sundays, until Christmas Eve. This year was to be no different. On a Thursday morning, he hobbled through Crumley's Alley, weighted to one side by the table he carried under his right arm and looking as if he might tip over if it weren't for the counter balance of a shopping bag he held in the crook of the other arm. At the end of the alley, he turned west onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and when he came to Sixth Street, he nearly collapsed. He panted for air, and the little he sucked into his lungs felt as if it had been scorched by the warm, December sun. Frankie rested a while, using the table for a short crutch, and then he went to work. In less than ten minutes, he was pacing back and forth in front of his stand, ringing a toneless bell and poking a foilcovered can toward pedestrians on his side of the street. "Give to the old and the poor!" he cried, his voice rising and falling in a lamenting song. "Jesus our Lord was 38 born on Christmas Day, and there's no better time to offer our thanks and love than during the Holy Season. Give to the old and the poor!" A variety ofreligious tracts were spread over the table top, and when someone gave Frankie a dime or quarter, he insisted they choose a phamplet. It was his gift to them, a fair exchange, he thought. "You take this and read it every day," he said. "God will bless you. It'll remind you of your kindness to those less fortunate. And Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have loved one another." "Give to the elderly and the poor!" he shouted. "'This is my commandment ,' Jesus said, 'that ye love one another as I have loved you.' Give to the elderly and the poor! Make their Christmas as bright as yours! Give to the elderly and the poor!" Frankie stopped pacing now and then to rearrange the pamphlets or to retape the stenciled sign that hung from the front edge of the table and kept coming unstuck at the corners. "CHRISTIAN HOME MISSIONARY FUND," the first line read. The second line was printed in smaller letters, "The Rev. Franklin Bragg, Missionary." "Give to the old and poor! 'These things I command you, that ye love one another.' God bless you, God bless you. Take this and let it remind you of your kindness. And Jesus said, ? am the bread of life. He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst!' Give to the old and the poor!" When the stores closed at six, Frankie had collected $4.23 in change. The first few days were always slow, he assured himself while he packed to leave. His office was at the far end of Crumley's Alley, wedged between a tailor's shop and a storeroom inhabited by mannequins. By the time he got there, he was panting again, and his hand was so cramped he could hardly straighten his fingers after he leaned the table against the outside of the building. There were no windows, only a door with a thick sheet of plywood where a pane of glass had been. When Frankie first rented the space, he paid $15 to have "Christian Home Missionary Fund" painted in gold letters arching across the glass. Someone threw a wine bottle through it less than a week later, and Frankie nailed up the plywood. He knew it hadn't been vandalism; God had been angered by Frankie's show of vanity. As he turned the key in the lock, he instinctively gave the bottom of the door a solid kick to help the key turn. He grunted when he stooped to pick up a letter and a circular the mailman had shoved...

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