In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

"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.