In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

CHAPTER I.

WHY I RELATE MY EXPERIENCES IN THE SOUTHWEST.—INTRODUCTORY.

On a visit to New York, many years ago, after the first few months of my ministerial labors in the wilds of the Southwest, I met a warm personal friend, a genial, generous, noble Christian woman, who at once said to me:

"And so you are a Western missionary. Well, do tell me if anything strange or funny ever did happen to a missionary. Mother has taken the home-missionary papers ever since I was a child, and I always read them; and I often wonder if anything strange or funny did ever happen to a Western missionary."

I had recently spent three happy years in the Union Theological Seminary in that city, and had come back to attend the heart-stirring anniversaries, held in those days in the old Broadway Tabernacle, and to meet again the many friends who had followed me in my labors with their kind wishes and their prayers. Though nearly thirty years have passed since I received that greeting, I have never forgotten, and have very often recalled it. And I have as often thought that it was most natural that the churches and people at large who send forth and sustain the heroic laborers who are toiling in the varied departments of Christian effort in our newer States and Territories, should desire a much fuller account of their daily lives and labors. As many of them travel extensively, and see pioneer border-life in all its aspects and phases, I have thought it most natural and reasonable that the people should desire to know more of their adventures; more of their contact with the rough, whole-souled people with whom they so often meet and mingle; more of that strange compound of energy, recklessness, and daring, the hardy hosts who erect their log-cabins and fell the forests in the van of our American civilization, in its triumphant westward march. Only one day in seven is set apart as sacred time, and only a few hours of that day are devoted to what are generally regarded as spiritual duties. A description of these duties alone, whether performed on Sabbath-days or week-days, is a very inadequate description of missionary life as a whole. In order to perform these duties, a man must eat and drink, take care of his body, mingle with the world, and meet all his responsibilities as a man and a citizen.

In the pages that follow it will be my purpose to present a portraiture of ministerial life in the wilds of the Southwest, in all its aspects and phases, exactly as I found it. I shall attempt to portray week-day life as well as Sunday life. I shall describe scenes of wonderful and thrilling religious interest, and the most common and homely incidents of every-day life, and, as far as possible, give an idea of my life as a whole. I shall attempt to describe the politicians, preachers, and people; the country in which they live, their manners and customs, their barbecues, basket-meetings, and weddings, and all the peculiarities of their open, free, and genial home-life in its social, political, and religious aspects and relations. In this I shall be successful only so far as I succeed in perfectly describing their life and my own during the many years that I mingled with them.

My lady friend and questioner, to whom I have referred, was slightly mistaken in calling me a "missionary." I was not one in name. At the time of my graduation from the Theological Seminary, I was under appointment as a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to West Africa; but hæmorrhages from my lungs prevented my entrance upon that work.

After extended travels by sea and land for nearly five years, I had so far recovered my voice as to be able to preach, and was very anxious to be about my chosen life-work. But my physicians—Dr. Gurdon Buck, Dr. Alfred C. Post, and Dr. John H. Swett, of the University Medical College—as kind as they were distinguished and skillful, told me that I would never be able to perform the duties of a settled pastor; that the study, labor, and care of such a life would completely break down my health in a very few months. They told me that I must engage in some labor that would give me a large amount of exercise in the open air; and that if it involved horseback-riding it would be all the better for my health, and probably give me more years in which to labor. I accordingly accepted an agency from the American Bible Society, which involved the exploration on horseback of the wild regions in the Southwest described in this volume. In addition to very extended travels by steamboat up and down many of the larger and smaller Southwestern and Southern rivers, I have ridden a great many thousand miles on horseback—I have no means of telling how many. For a long time I rode my horse several thousands of miles yearly. Bishop Kavenaugh, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in introducing me, as an agent of the American Bible Society, to a Southwestern conference over which he was presiding, told them that, "although a Presbyterian," I had "out-itinerated the Itineracy itself."

I spent a night with the Governor of a Southwestern State, at the house of his sister, who was the wife of an Episcopal clergyman. We lodged in the same room, occupying separate beds, as was very common in that region. The Governor was genial and social, and we conversed until long after midnight. We talked of the hills, valleys, and mountains, of families and communities, of the customs, manners, and peculiarities of different classes of people, over a very wide portion of the State. As I was about to leave in the morning, the Governor said to me:

"Sir, you know more about this State, and more people in it, than any man I ever saw."

I replied: "I am surprised, Governor, to hear you make that statement. I know that politicians canvass the State most thoroughly; that you are expected to make speeches in every county, and in as many neighborhoods as possible; and that you try to shake hands with as many as you can of those that you expect and wish to vote for you. As you were born and educated in the State, and have canvassed it so thoroughly and successfully, I supposed that you knew a great deal more about it, and a great many more people in it, than I do."

"I do not," he replied, very positively, "and I never saw a man in my life who did."

I state these facts as my reason and justification for writing this book; that my readers may understand that I am not a novice in regard to the things whereof I write; that I know whereof I affirm. Indeed, I will tell them confidentially that I have obtained a "degree," one not so easily acquired as some others, and more honored in the wilds of the country. It is "B.B.," and means Brush-Breaker. The exposition of the full meaning of this "degree" will explain the origin and meaning of my title to this book.

In attending a conference, presbytery, association, or other ecclesiastical meeting in the wilds of the country, as the old veteran and other preachers were pointed out to me by some friend, he would say:

"That is Father A——. He is an old Brush-Breaker"—and all the younger men would press forward to shake his hand and do him honor; or, "That is Brother B——. He has broken a right smart chance of brush"; or, "That is young Brother C——, wonderfully self-satisfied and conceited, as you see. The sisters have flattered him so much that he has got the 'big head' badly. He will be sent to Brush College, to break brush a year or two, and will come back humbled, and will make a laborious and useful man"; or, "That is our devoted and beloved young Brother D——. His soul is all on fire with love for his Master, and he will thank God for the privilege of going anywhere in the Brush to preach and sing of Jesus and his salvation."

This use of the word Brush enters largely into the figures of speech of the people of the Southwest. On one occasion I heard a Methodist bishop preach on a Sabbath morning to a very large congregation, composed of the Conference, the people of the village, and the visitors in attendance. During the first half of his sermon, which was extemporaneous, he did not preach with his accustomed clearness and power. His thoughts were evidently very much confused, and it was rather painful than otherwise to witness his struggle to get the mastery of his mind and subject. But he accomplished this at length, and closed his sermon with great power and effect. In returning from church, a young circuit-rider said to me:

"Didn't you think the Bishop got badly brushed in the first part of his sermon? I sometimes get so brushed in my sermons that I think I will never try to preach again. It's a comfort to a beginner to know that an old preacher sometimes gets brushed."

Figurative language of this kind abounded among the people of the Southwest, and was very expressive. These provincialisms had usually grown out of the peculiar life and habits of the people. Many of them seem to have originated in the perils of early flat-boat navigation—when they were accustomed to float down-stream by daylight, and tie up to some stump or tree for the night! Woe betide the cargo, boat, and crew, if that to which they had "made fast" failed them in the darkness of the night! Hence, as I suppose, this provincialism.

If I made inquiries in regard to the character of a man who had been recommended to me for a Bible distributor, I was not told that he was a reliable or an unreliable man, but, "He'll do to tie to," or "He won't do to tie to"; and if the case was particularly bad, "He won't do to tie to in a calm, let alone a storm." As there were so many perils in this kind of navigation, those were regarded as extremely fortunate who reached their destination in safety, and could send back word that they had made the trip; hence, "to make the trip" was a universal synonym for success. And so, when a novice attempted to make a speech, preach a sermon, address a jury, or engage in any kind of business, the people predicted his success or failure by saying, "He'll make the trip," or "He won't make the trip." They never said of a young man, or an old widower, that he was addressing or courting a lady, but, "He is setting to her," a figure of speech derived from bird-hunting with setter-dogs, as I suppose. When such a suit had been unsuccessful, they did not say the lady rejected or "mittened" her suitor, but, "She kicked him." The first time I ever heard that figure used was at a social gathering in Richmond, Virginia, in 1843, where the belle of the evening was a Miss Burfoot. After being introduced to her by a friend, he told me confidentially that she had recently "kicked" Mr. H——, a gentleman present, to whom he had already introduced me. To be "kicked" by a Burfoot seemed to me a more than usually striking figure. When many persons were striving for the same object, or where there were rival aspirants for the heart and hand of the same lady, they said of the successful one, "The tallest pole takes the persimmon."

I was once present at an ecclesiastical meeting in the Brush, where motions of different kinds were piled upon each other, until the greatest confusion prevailed as to the state of the question before the body, and the moderator was appealed to to give his decision in the matter. I did not fully comprehend his decision, but it was clear and satisfactory to the body over which he was presiding, all of whom, like himself, were old and experienced hunters. Arising to his feet, as became a presiding officer thus appealed to, and lifting his tall, lank form until his head was among the rafters of the low log school-house, he hesitated a moment, and then said, "Brethren, my decision is that you are all ahead of the hounds."

These are but specimens of the figurative language—the provincialisms—that abound among the people of the Southwest.

I do not, therefore, in the pages that follow, speak of my travels in the "wilderness" or "forests" or "hills" or "mountains" of the Southwest, but adopt a more comprehensive term, universally prevalent in the regions explored, and describe some of my experiences in the Brush.

Though I commenced my labors in the South as a general agent and superintendent of the colporteur operations of the American Tract Society in 1843—ten years before my first visit to the Southwest—though I became acquainted with its home-life, as that life could only be learned, by such extended horseback travels, and such religious labors, prosecuted with all the energy and all the enthusiasm of early vigorous manhood, I shall devote this volume to descriptions of home-life in the Southwest. My reasons for this will be obvious and approved at a glance. Very little that would be new can now be written of the old-time home-life in the South. The fascinating and beautiful descriptions of Southern social life given us in the letters of Hon. William Wirt, the distinguished Attorney-General of the United States, in his "British Spy"; the full and minute biographies of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others, so exhaustive of every feature of this life; with the matchless descriptions of the inimitable Thackeray, and other later writers, leave very little to be said in illustration of this theme. But the true, the real old-time social, political, and religious home-life of the people of the Southwest is almost unknown to the great mass of the American people. Comparatively little has been written which is the result of extended personal contact with, and intimate personal knowledge of, the people. They have been largely the subjects of exaggeration and caricature.

In this field I have garnered many rich and golden sheaves, where no other reaper had ever thrust in the sickle. Here I have drawn word-pictures of many scenes in the social life of a generation, and a state of civilization, rapidly passing away, never to reappear, that otherwise would have had no memorial only as perpetuated in the traditions of the people. I will only add that I am indebted to no library, to no book, not even to a newspaper, for a single fact presented in this volume. They were all gathered incidentally while laboriously engaged in the duties of my profession, as a general agent of the American Bible Society, and while traveling for years in the interests of the college over which I was called to preside. They all relate to the ante-bellum period in the history of our country.