In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

CHAPTER V.

OLD-TIME BASKET-MEETINGS IN THE BRUSH.

Religious meetings, popularly denominated "basket-meetings," were known and recognized as established institutions in the Brush. They were among the assemblages that had resulted from the sparseness of the population in those regions. Where the country was hilly and mountainous, and the settlers were scattered along the streams in the narrow valleys; or the land was so rough and poor that only occasional patches would reward tillage; or for various other causes, the families were but few, and far distant from each other, it was a very difficult matter for the people to leave their homes day after day to attend a continuous meeting. Hence, among other religious gatherings, they had long been accustomed to hold what were called basket-meetings.

These meetings involved less labor and trouble than camp-meetings, and could often be held where such a meeting would be impossible. They were usually not as large, and did not continue as many days. They were called "basket-meetings" from the fact that those from a distance brought their provisions, already cooked, in large baskets, and in quantities sufficient to last them during the continuance of the meeting. They put up no tents or cabins on the ground. They did not cook or sleep there. They most frequently commenced on Saturday, and continued through the Sabbath. They generally had a prayer-meeting and preaching on Saturday forenoon, and then adjourned for an hour or two. During this intermission the greater part of the people dispersed in groups among the trees, and took their dinner after the manner of a picnic. Those living in the immediate vicinity returned to their homes for dinner, taking with them as many of those in attendance as they could possibly secure. Every stranger was sure of repeated invitations to dine, both with these families and neighborhood groups among the trees, and at the adjacent cabins. After dinner they reassembled and had a repetition of the services of the morning.

Unlike a camp-meeting, they had no services at night. When the afternoon meetings were concluded, the people dispersed and spent the night at the cabins within two or three miles around. All the people in these cabins usually kept open house upon such an occasion. They were present, and, after the benediction was pronounced, they mounted the stumps and logs and extended a general invitation to any present to spend the night with them. Not satisfied with giving this general invitation, they jumped down and went among the rapidly dispersing crowd and followed it with private personal solicitations to accept their proffered hospitality.

On the Sabbath, they reassembled with augmented numbers, and the services of Saturday were reënacted, with such additions and variations as the circumstances might demand.

The first basket-meeting that I ever attended was so new and strange to me in all its incidents, that, though many years have intervened, my recollections of it are as vivid as though it had occurred but yesterday. It was in a very rough, wild region. The country had been settled a long time, so that those in attendance were genuine backwoods people "to the manner born." The place of meeting was in a tall, dense, unbroken forest. The underbrush had been cut and cleared away, a few trees had been so felled that rude planks, made by splitting logs, could be placed across them for seats for the ladies, while the men mostly sat upon the trunks of other fallen trees. The pulpit or "stand" for the preacher was original and truly Gothic in its construction. It was made by cutting horizontal notches immediately opposite to each other, in the sides of two large oak-trees, standing about four feet apart, and inserting into these notches a board about a foot wide, that had been placed across a wagon and used for a seat by some of those present in coming to the meeting. The preacher placed his Bible and hymn-book upon this board, hung the indispensable saddle-bags in which he had brought them across one end of it, and so was ready for the services. I thought I had never seen in any cathedral a pulpit more simple and grand. Those towering, grand old oaks, with their massive, outstretching branches, spoke eloquently of the power and grandeur of the God who made them. And yet, small and puny as the preacher appeared in the contrast, it was a fitting place for him to stand and proclaim his message to the people who worshiped beneath them. Comparatively unlearned and ignorant as he was, he could tell them from that open Bible what they would never learn in the contemplation of grand old forests, or stars, or suns, or all the sublimest works of nature. All these are mute and dumb in regard to the story of the cross. However they may enkindle our rapture, or excite our reverence, they will never tell us how sin may be forgiven—how the soul may be saved.

The indispensable matter in the selection of grounds for a basket-meeting or a camp-meeting in the Southwest was a good spring of clear, running water. This must be so large as to furnish an abundance of water, not only for all the people who would be present, but for all the horses necessary to transport themselves and their provisions to the place of meeting. In hot weather the demands for water were large, and there was need for a "clear spring" like that so beautifully described by the poet Bryant:

"... yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth, and wandering, steeps the roots
Of half the mighty forest."

The sermon on this occasion was plain, sensible, and earnest. The preacher was superior to the people, and yet in all respects one of them. He had been born in the Brush, raised in the Brush, and had spent many years in preaching to the people in the Brush. He dressed as they dressed, talked as they talked, and, unconsciously to himself, used all their provincialisms in his sermons. In his thoughts, feelings, and manner of life he was in full sympathy with them. He had toiled among them long, earnestly, and successfully. He had preached to a great many congregations, scattered over a wide extent of Brush country. He had been associated with his brethren of different denominations in holding a great many union basket-meetings similar to the one now in progress. He was widely known, beloved, and honored. Perhaps the most widely known, honored, and successful pastorate in the country has been that of the late Rev. Dr. Gardner Spring, in New York. But I do not think that Dr. Spring, with all his talents, culture, and learning, could possibly have been as useful, as successful, as honored among these people, as was this preacher. He could not have eaten their coarse food, slept in their wretched beds, mingled with them in their daily life, or been in such complete sympathy with them in their poverty, struggles, temptations, and modes of thought, as to have so won their love and reverence, and led them in such numbers to the cross of Christ. "There are diversity of gifts, but the same spirit," etc. I honor these noble and heroic workers in the Master's vineyard, who thus toil on in the Brush, through scores of years, all unknown to fame. Many of them know nothing of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but they know how to win souls to Christ, and the highest authority has said, "He that winneth souls is wise."

That congregation, when assembled, seated, and engaged in their devotions, presented a scene not to be forgotten. The preacher, small in stature, stood upon a rude platform at the feet of the massive columns of his pulpit. The people were seated among the standing trees, upon seats arranged without any of the usual regularity and order, but lying at all points of the compass just as they had been able to fall, the smaller trees among the larger ones. The voice of prayer and song ascended amid those massive, towering columns, crowned with arches formed by their outstretching branches, and covered with dense foliage. It was the worship of God in his own temple. It carried the thoughts back to many scenes not unlike it, in the lives and labors of Christ and his apostles, when they preached and taught upon the Mount of Olives, by the shores of Gennesaret, and over the hills and valleys of Palestine. It gave new force and beauty to the familiar words of Bryant's grand and noble "Forest Hymn:"

"The groves were God's first temples, ere man learned
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them—ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication....
... Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives."

At the conclusion of the morning sermon the greater part of the congregation dispersed among the trees to take their dinner in the manner I have already described. I was invited to go with the preacher to a cabin about a mile distant, where we were to have our home during the meeting. We mounted our horses and accompanied our host through the woods to his residence. As I looked back, I saw that we were followed by some forty or more other guests. On reaching his home I found three buildings—a log-house, log-kitchen, and log-stable. Our horses were put in the stable and bountifully fed with corn in the ear and fodder. "Fodder" in these regions has a limited signification, and is applied only to the leaves which are stripped from the corn-stalks, tied in small bundles, and generally stacked for preservation. The stalks are not cut, as in the North and East, but the leaves are stripped from them while standing. This is the usual feed for horses in the place of hay.

The house was similar to all log-houses, but, as our company was so numerous, I had the curiosity to ask our host how large it was, and he told me that he cut the logs just twenty feet long. Its single room was, therefore, less than twenty feet square. We, however, received a warm and cordial welcome, and host, hostess, and guests seemed exceedingly happy. With a part of the company, I was soon invited into the adjoining house to dinner. This was much smaller—not more than ten or fifteen feet square. A loom in one corner filled a large part of the room. This was a very important part of their household treasures, as the greater portion of the clothing of the entire family was woven upon it. A long, narrow table, of home construction, occupied the space between the foot of the loom and the wall. There was a large fireplace in front, before which the coffee was smoking. A chair at each end and a bench on each side of the table furnished seats for ten guests. Our bill of fare was cold barbecued shoat, sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes, bread, honey, and coffee. Our honey was from a "bee tree," and our bread was of the Graham variety, from the necessities of the case. The wheat had been ground at a "horse mill" in the neighborhood, where they had no arrangements for separating the bran from the flour. Such a dinner was not to be despised by hungry men. By the way, I have found that over a very wide extent of our country the men, on such occasions, always eat first and alone, the women meanwhile standing around the table and waiting upon them. After we had finished our dinner, the table was rapidly reset by the aid of the "sisters" present, and ten more guests took their seats and dined. The same course was repeated until the table was set five times, and fifty persons had dined bountifully in that little log-cabin.

Having all dined, we returned to the preaching "stand," and the congregation reassembled. I preached to them at 4 P.M., and all the services were conducted to the close in a manner not essentially different from preaching services elsewhere.

The audience was dismissed for the night, and dispersed among the nearest cabins. My clerical friend and myself were joined by a young licentiate, and returned to spend the night at the house at which we had dined. The company was not as large as that at dinner, but to one inexperienced in such life, as I then was, it was beyond my comprehension how they could be entertained for the night. My experience and observation at dinner had shown me how we could get through with our supper. A succession of tables I understood, but how could that be applied to sleeping arrangements? A succession of beds was a kind of "succession" I had never heard or read of in ecclesiastical or any other history. But my perplexities were evidently not felt by any one else in the company, and I dismissed them.

All seemed as happy as they could well be. Conversation was animated. All tongues were loosed. There were stories of former basket and other meetings, of wonderful revivals, and of remarkable conversions. There were reminiscences of eccentric and favorite preachers who had labored among them long years before. There was the greatest variety of real Western and Southwestern religious melodies and songs. These were interspersed with the conversation during the evening, and were the source of great and unfailing interest and joy. So the hours rolled on, and all were happy. It was the occasion to which they had looked forward, and for which they had planned for months—the great occasion of all the year, and it brought no disappointment. For myself, I must say that if I ever drew upon my stores of anecdote, and whatever powers of entertaining I may possess, it was upon this occasion. I was quite in sympathy with the general joy and good feeling. During the evening one and another had called for the singing of different religious songs that were their favorites. On such occasions there was a general appeal to a young lady, who was quite the best singer in the company, to know if she knew the song called for; and if she did it was sung. At length a hymn was called for, and in response to the usual appeal she said she did not know it. I opened a book, found the hymn and tune, handed it to her, and said, "Here is the hymn with the tune. Perhaps you can sing it."

She declined to take the book, saying, with the utmost frankness, "Oh! sir, I can't read."

I now learned to my amazement that all the hymns and tunes she had sung that evening she had learned by rote—learned by hearing them sung by others. She was a young lady, some eighteen or twenty years old, of more than common beauty of face and form, and yet she had no hesitation at all in revealing the fact that she could not read. I afterward received a similar shock on remarking to a young lady that I met at a county-seat, whose home I had previously visited, "I understand that a number of the young ladies in your neighborhood can not read."

"Oh!" said she, "there are only two young ladies there that can read."

I afterward visited many neighborhoods where it was as proper to ask a young lady if she could read as it was to ask for a drink of water, the time of day, or any other question.

At length the evening passed, and the hour for rest and sleep came. One of our number "took the books" and led our evening devotions. A chapter was read, our final hymn was sung, and we all bowed in prayer around that family altar. As we arose from our knees, the brethren present all walked out of doors. The sisters remained within. Some "Martha" among them had enumerated our company. There were three beds in the cabin. These were divided, and a sufficient number of beds made up on the bedsteads and over the cabin-floor to furnish a sleeping-place for all our company. This accomplished, some signal—I know not what—was given, and the brethren returned to the house. I followed them. The sisters were all in bed, upon the bedsteads, with their heads covered up by the blankets. We got into our beds as though these blankets had been thick walls. Our numbers in this room included three young ladies, a man and his wife and child, and six other men.

When we awoke in the morning some of the brethren engaged in conversation for a time, until Mr. W——, the preacher, remarked, "I suppose it is time to think about getting up."

At this signal the sisters covered their heads again with their blankets, and we arose, dressed, and departed. My companion for the night was the young licentiate; and as we walked toward the stable to look after our horses—the first thing usually done in the morning by persons journeying on horseback—I remarked to him, "Last night has been something new in my experience. I never slept in that way before."

He looked at me with an expression of the profoundest astonishment, and exclaimed, "You haven't!"

I said no more. I saw that I was the verdant one. I was the only one in all the company to whom the experiences of the night suggested a thought of anything unusual or strange. So trite and true it is that "one half of the world does not know how the other half lives."

The Sabbath was the "great day of the feast." It brought together some three or four hundred people—a very large congregation in such a sparsely settled country. I made an address to them in the morning, explaining the extended operations of the American Bible Society in our own and other lands. I told them that the Society was then attempting to place a copy of the Word of God in every family in our country; that Mr. K——, a venerable and honored class-leader, had been appointed to canvass their county; and that either by sale or gift he would supply every family in the county with the Bible that would receive it. All of these facts were new to the most of them, and were listened to with the greatest interest. Large numbers of them had no Bibles in their families; they were more than sixty miles from a book-store, which many of them never visited, and they were glad to have the Bible brought to their own doors, and furnished to them at so small a price. By making these statements I gave the Bible-distributor an introduction to the people scattered over a wide extent of country, which prepared them to welcome him to their families and greatly facilitated his labors.

My brief address was followed by a sermon entirely different from those of the preacher I have already described, and deserves notice as a type of thousands that are preached to the people in the Brush. Scarcely a sentence in the sermon was uttered in the usual method of speech. It was drawled out in a sing-song tone from the beginning to the end. The preacher ran his voice up, and sustained it at so high a pitch that he could make but little variation of voice upward. The air in his lungs would become exhausted, and at the conclusion of every sentence he would "catch" his breath with an "ah." As he proceeded with his sermon, and his vocal organs became wearied with this most unnatural exertion, the "ah" was repeated more and more frequently, until, with the most painful contortions of face and form, he would with difficulty articulate, in his sing-song tone:

"Oh, my beloved brethren—ah, and sisters—ah, you have all got to die—ah, and be buried—ah, and go to the judgment—ah, and stand before the great white throne—ah, and receive your rewards—ah, for the deeds—ah, done in the body—ah."

From the beginning to the end of his sermon, which occupied just an hour and ten minutes by my watch, I could not see the slightest evidence that he had any idea what he was going to say from one sentence to another. While "catching his breath," and saying "ah," he seemed to determine what he would say next. There was no more train of thought or connection of ideas than in the harangue of a maniac. And yet many hundreds of such sermons are preached in the Brush, and I am sorry to add that thousands of the people had rather hear these sermons than any others. This "holy tone" has charms for them not possessed by any possible eloquence. As the preacher "warms up" and becomes more animated in the progress of his discourse, the more impressible sisters begin to move their heads and bodies, and soon all the devout brethren and sisters sway their bodies back and forth in perfect unison, keeping time, in some mysterious manner, to his sing-song tone.

It seemed sad to me that such a congregation, gathered from such long distances, should have the morning hour occupied with such a sermon. But it was a union meeting, the preacher was the representative of his denomination, and they would have gone away worse than disappointed—grievously outraged—if they could not have heard this sermon with the "holy tone."

But our basket-meeting was to be signalized by an incident always interesting in all countries, in all grades of society, among the most rustic as well as among the most refined. After the benediction, a part of the congregation who were in the secret remained upon their seats, casting knowing and pleasant glances at each other. My friend W——, who, like a good many other preachers, and some preachers' wives, had faithfully kept a secret that a good many were "just dying to know," took his position in front of the "stand." A trembling, blushing, but happy pair advanced from the crowd, and took their position before him. The groom produced from his pocket the indispensable license. The dispersing crowd, having by some electric influence been apprised of what was going on, came rushing back, and mounted the surrounding stumps and logs, forming a standing background to the sitting circle. All looked on and listened in silence, while the preacher in a strong, clear voice proceeded to solemnize the marriage and pronounce them husband and wife. The scene was strange and strikingly impressive. It seemed a wedding in Nature's own cathedral. The day was perfect. Some rays from the sun penetrated the dense foliage above and fell upon the scene, mingling golden hues with the shadows, as the poet, the recently deceased A.B. Street, has so beautifully described:

"Here showers the sun in golden dots,
Here rests the shade in ebon spots,
So blended that the very air
Seems network as I enter here."

After the usual congratulations and kisses the groom withdrew, and reappeared in a few moments mounted upon a large gray horse. The bride, having gained the top of a stump, mounted his horse behind him, and the two rode away, as happy and satisfied as they could well be.

The larger congregation of the Sabbath made larger demands upon their hospitality; but these demands were fully met. The dinner, both under the trees and at the cabins, was but a reënactment of the scenes of the day before on an enlarged scale.

In the afternoon Mr. W—— preached a sensible and earnest sermon, like that of the day before. In my pocket-diary, written at the time, I have characterized it as a "thundering sermon." His voice was strong, and capable of reaching the largest congregations that he addressed in the open air. This sermon concluded the services of the basket-meeting. As the benediction was pronounced, three gentlemen on horseback arrived upon the ground. They were a presiding elder, a circuit-rider, and a class-leader, on their way to conference. They had preached some fifteen miles away in the morning, and continued their journey to reach this meeting. I knew them all, and had preached with and for them at their homes. As they were strangers to most, if not all, the people, I introduced them to the clergymen and others present. They were some twenty miles from any hotel or public-house, and of course must spend the night with some of these people. My host, to whom I had introduced them, said:

"I should be very glad to have you all stay with me, but I can't take care of your horses. I have a plenty of houseroom, but my stable is full."

From what I have already said of the numbers who dined and lodged with him, it will be seen that he had very enlarged ideas of the capacity of his house. An enthusiastic neighbor, who was about as rough a looking specimen of a backwoodsman as I ever saw, stepped forward and said:

"I have room enough for your horses and you too. I should be glad to have you all go with me."

The presiding elder went with him, but the preacher and the class-leader were claimed by others.

Before leaving the grounds, it was arranged between us that we should all meet at a designated place in the morning, and I would travel with them to the conference, to which I was thus far on my way. Though not an Arminian, but a Calvinist, though not a Methodist, but a Presbyterian, I knew that a cordial welcome awaited me as a representative of the American Bible Society. I knew that, in addition to this official welcome, I should receive the warm greetings of brethren beloved, with whom I had traveled many hundreds of miles over their "circuits," and mingled in all the novel, interesting, and eventful scenes in their wild itinerant life. When I met the elder the next morning, I asked him the nature of the very ample accommodations that were offered him. He said he slept upon the floor, but he did not undertake to count the number who shared it with him.

So ended the various incidents of our basket-meeting; but the recollection of it has been among the pleasant memories of my life in the Brush.

SOME EXPLANATORY WORDS.

Perhaps some statement in explanation of this "rough" but abounding hospitality of the people in the Brush is demanded in justice to those persons and places whose hospitality would seem to suffer in the contrast. I might enumerate many circumstances connected with life in a wild, unsettled country that will occur to most readers as the cause of this abounding hospitality; but it seems to me that the chief reason is the fact that meat, bread, and all their provisions, excepting groceries, cost them so very little. They estimate what they can use scarcely more than the water taken from their springs. Beef, pork, and bread cost them almost nothing. Their cattle run at large, and their free range includes thousands of acres of unoccupied lands. They grow and increase in this manner with but little attention or care. The hogs find their food in the woods the greater part of the year, and in the fall they fatten upon the nuts or "mast." The oak, hickory, beech, and other trees that abound in these extensive forests afford vast quantities of these nuts, which these people claim for their own hogs, whoever may own the land. I knew a man that owned several thousand acres of these lands, who sold the nuts on the ground to a "speculator," who drove his hogs upon the tract of land to eat them. But the residents were incensed at this trespass upon their immemorial privileges, and secretly shot and killed so many of these hogs that their owner was glad to escape with any part of his drove, and leave them possessors of the "mast." The method by which these people retain and recognize their ownership in the hogs that run at large and mingle together in the woods was quite new to me. The owner looks carefully after the young pigs, calls them, and feeds them, for some days or weeks, until they know his voice, and will come at his call. Whatever kind of a hoot, scream, or yell it is, they learn to associate it with their food, and run at the sound. Sometimes the owner merely blows a horn. If a hundred hogs belonging to half a dozen men are feeding together in the woods, and their owners sound their calls from different hills, the hogs will separate and rush in the direction of the sound to which they have been accustomed. In this manner these people secure for their families, with but little trouble, the most abundant supply of bacon. The corn, which furnishes the most of their bread, is raised with but little labor. After it is planted it is plowed or cultivated, and "laid by" without any hoeing at all. If they have enough to feed their hogs a short time before killing them, they do not gather this, but turn the hogs into the corn-fields, and let them help themselves. The drought that caused the famine in Kansas, in the early history of that State, extended over this region. As the breadth of ground planted here was so much greater, the results were not so sad. But there was a scarcity of corn such as the people had never known before. The price advanced from twenty and twenty-five cents a bushel to a dollar and upward, and many were unable to procure enough to make bread for their families. But the "mast" was abundant that fall, and there was no lack of bacon. I visited many families that lived almost entirely on meat. During the winter I met a physician who told me that in his ride among the hills he found whole families afflicted with a disease that was entirely new in his experience. Upon consulting his books, he found it was scurvy, the result of living upon little besides bacon.

With this usually abundant supply of food, which on account of the bad roads and the distance from market has but little pecuniary value; with houses and accommodations such as I have described; with but few books, newspapers, and other kinds of reading; with a dearth of the excitements and amusements of the outside world, it is not so strange or wonderful that they are eager for pleasures and enjoyments that involve these displays of hospitality.

I know that my statements often appear incredible to many of my readers. But I trust that, after these "explanatory words," I shall not tax too largely either the faith of my readers or my own character for veracity.