In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

"My fellow-citizens, I came before you at the opening of this campaign and announced myself as a candidate for sheriff of the county. I now appear before you to withdraw from the race. I have a great many friends, strong friends. They stand up to me nobly. Nobody could wish for better friends. There is only this one trouble in my case—I haven't got quite enough of them.

"I have already gone so far in this race that I don't know myself. I have lost myself entirely. When I go into the different precincts and hear all the tales that they have got afloat about me, and the character that they give me, it is somebody that I don't know anything about—somebody that I never heard of before. Fellow-citizens, it isn't me, I assure you, that they are talking about. They have mistaken the man. If any of you should want to know anything about me, just ask the boys in my precinct. They know me. They will tell you. They all stand up for me."

I will relate but one more veritable incident to illustrate political life in the Brush, and to show the expedients sometimes resorted to by able and eloquent men to make sure of an election to an important office. I had spent a Sabbath and preached in behalf of the American Bible Society at a small county-seat town upon one of the large rivers in the Southwest. While at breakfast on Monday morning, the circuit judge of that judicial district, who was a resident of the village, sent his colored boy to the house where I was staying, with the message that he had heard that I was going to Big Spring that day, and he wished to know whether I was going in the morning or afternoon. He said that he had expected to go there in the morning, but if he could have my company he would defer his ride. As I had an appointment to meet the officers of the county Bible Society, and attend to the appointment of a Bible-distributor, and order Bibles from New York for the supply of the county, I sent back word to him that I could not close up my business so as to leave until afternoon.

After dinner we mounted our horses and started upon our pleasant ride of about twenty miles. The day was pleasant, the distance not great, the Judge was intelligent and a very fine talker, and I enjoyed the ride greatly. In former visits to the village I had been a guest in his family, when he had been absent from home, holding his courts in distant parts of his district, so that I had not before become as well acquainted with him as I was with his family.

I had been greatly interested and delighted with my long conversations with his venerable mother, and on her account I was very happy to enjoy this long horseback-ride and pleasant talk with her distinguished son. She was one of the most interesting and remarkable women I have ever met in any part of our country. She was one among the first white children born west of the Alleghanies. Her father had participated in the early Indian wars, and her recollections and rehearsals of the thrilling scenes of early border life and warfare, were the most vivid and interesting of any to which I have ever listened. Born in a frontier cabin, with but few neighbors, surrounded by wild beasts and Indians, the toils, hardships, and excitements of their pioneer life gave little opportunity for education, and she told me that her entire school-life was less than nine months. And yet I have rarely conversed with any one whose language was more smooth, correct, and elevated. The secret of this seemed to lie in the fact that she had read and reread the writings of Sir Walter Scott until not only all his sentiments and characters, but his very style, had become her own. She would repeat his poetry by the hour with wonderful taste and beauty. Scotch blood flowed in her veins, and the warmest love of the fatherland glowed in her heart. With a wonderful command of language, with an easy, elevated, and flowing style, she would for hours together relate the thrilling scenes of her childhood, and the varied incidents of her early border life. Her admiration of her father, and especially of his bravery, was unbounded. I remember the pride with which she told me of a visit she once received from a veteran hunter and Indian fighter, who had been a companion of her father in those early struggles and conflicts, and of the fervor of his parting benediction; "Jenny, God bless you, you are the child of a HERO, as brave as ever shouldered a rifle!"

Kind and genial, as full of sunshine as of stories of the olden time, beloved by old and young, the evening of her life was truly beautiful. Many years have passed since I saw the dear old lady, and I do not know that she is now alive, but I do know that she has not been forgotten. Her measured, flowing periods still roll on in my memory, her quiet, sunny smile beams on me now, as when I sat at her hospitable hearth and board.

I was very happy to have an otherwise lonely afternoon's ride beguiled with the company of the son of such a mother. I had never heard the Judge speak, either in court or upon the stump; but he had an established reputation as an able lawyer and eloquent speaker. I soon found that he had inherited the conversational powers of his mother, and the time wore pleasantly away as we rode on. At length our conversation turned upon the present method of attaining judicial and all other offices, and he gave me the following chapter in his own experience, which I reproduce from memory. In justice to my friend the Judge, I should say that he expressed himself as entirely opposed in principle to an elective judiciary, and gave this chapter in his own experience as an illustration of the way in which even a judicial election could be carried.

"I made," said the Judge, "a very thorough canvass of the district with my opponent. We closed our public discussions, and I returned home a few days before the election, which was to come off on the first Monday in August. My opponent was Judge K——, whom you know as a very worthy man, a perfect gentleman, and a superior judge. He was honored by the bar, popular with the people, and a very hard man to defeat. He had held the office several years. I wanted it, had worked very hard for it, and was determined to gain it if possible. I looked over the district very carefully, made the closest estimate I could, and found I should be defeated unless I could make very heavy gains in some precinct. It was a desperate case, and I could in honor only electioneer on the 'still hunt.' I concluded to mount my horse and ride to C—— F——, which you have visited, and know is about the most ignorant and uncivilized region in the State. I thought it more than probable that I would find a barbecue-dance in progress there on Saturday afternoon, at which all the people in the precinct would be present. When I arrived I found a dance in full progress in the open air under the trees, and an ox roasting over the fire near by. It was the last of July, and very hot and very dry. A perfect cone of dust arose above the crowd, in which all the dancers were enveloped. It was a strange, wild scene—a scene to be witnessed nowhere else but in the wildest portions of our southwestern wilds. There were old men and old grizzly-headed women, young men and young women, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, all mingling together and dancing with backwoods energy and wild delight. As I dismounted, hitched my horse, and went up and joined those that were looking on, one and another saluted me, very respectfully, with

"'How dy, Broadcloth?'

"As the weather was very warm, I had worn from home a black alpaca sack-coat. This was the only deviation from home-made butternut-colored jeans in the entire crowd. My black coat, therefore, distinguished me from everybody else; and as I walked about among the people the invariable salutation was,