In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

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.