In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

On Saturday morning, my appointments for the week being all fulfilled, I took the turnpike and started for the county-seat. I was never so grateful for a good road, and never so willing and glad to pay toll.

At various points along the "pike," as it was universally called, I saw tracks leading off into the woods, and was told that they were known as "shunpikes," and that some people in traveling would take these and go through the woods around the toll-gates, in order to avoid paying toll. I had not the slightest disposition to perpetrate that immorality and meanness. I stuck to the pike as one would to an old friend and guide, after having been bewildered and lost in the most perilous ways. It was comfortable not to be asking and getting "directions" that were a good deal more incomprehensible and past finding out than the blind roads and paths I was trying to follow. I was most happy to be freed from the disagreeable feelings of uncertainty and anxiety as to whether or not I was in the right road or path, and was making progress in the right direction, or I should be obliged to retrace my steps. As I rode on thus, dark clouds rolled up the sky and it began to rain. I unstrapped my umbrella from my saddle, and, as I spread it, my horse, that had seemed as gentle as any horse could be, shot from under me with a movement so sudden and swift, that I struck but once on his rump, rolled off behind him, and he went tearing into the woods at the side of the "pike." I never could understand how my feet were disentangled from the stirrups, and how I fell upon the hard turnpike-road without being hurt at all. But I know that that kind Protector was with me who has preserved me through so many years of travel upon oceans, lakes, rivers, and during unnumbered thousands of miles of travel by railroad, stage, and on horseback, over the roughest and wildest portions of the land, without ever suffering a more serious accident than this. I followed my horse into the woods, but could not find him, and walked about four miles to the village in the rain.

After dinner, my kind clerical friend and host rode with me several miles to find my horse, and my saddle-bags that he had carried into the woods with him, but our search was in vain. At night, after our return, a black boy—a slave—who had found my horse in the woods, brought him to me, and received his reward. The saddle-bags I never found. More than all else I regretted the loss of my small Bible, that had been my constant companion during all my school-days, and in all my travels by sea and by land for many years before.

Sunday was a cold, rainy, cheerless day. I preached to a very small congregation that assembled in the morning, and "lifted a collection" amounting to nine dollars and five cents. In the afternoon and at night it rained so hard that there were no public services.

Monday, I spent the forenoon with the officers of the county Bible Society, instructing them in their duties and aiding them in writing their reports. In the afternoon I attended a funeral that was less like a funeral than any I had ever witnessed, and seemed more strange to me than anything I had yet seen. The clergyman invited me to go with him to the graveyard, where he had engaged to be present at the burial. The funeral party was from the country. The coffin was conveyed in a large farm-wagon drawn by six mules. The mud was very deep and very red. The family and neighbors followed on horseback, a straggling company, attempting to maintain no semblance of a procession or any kind of order. The women were dressed as I have since seen thousands of Brush-women dressed. They had long riding-skirts made of coarse cotton-factory cloth, dyed the inevitable butternut-color. Their bonnets were of the simplest possible construction, made of any kind of calico, stiffened and bent over the top of the head in such form as to protect the neck, and project a long distance beyond the face, and usually called "sun-bonnets." The company all rode as near the grave as they conveniently could, and with the exception of those who officiated in lowering the coffin into the grave, they all sat upon their horses while the clergyman performed his brief religious services. There were no sable mourning-weeds. The contrast in colors and dress from those usually seen at a funeral, as well as in all the forms generally observed on such an occasion, impressed me very strangely. On another occasion I attended a funeral where the company followed after the corpse in the same straggling manner, though the most of them were on foot, and on their way to the graveyard they climbed the fences and went across-lots by a shorter route, leaving the hearse to go around the road, and they were at the grave to receive and bury the corpse when the hearse arrived. This was not from any want of respect, for the person buried was a college graduate and lawyer. It was simply their way of doing things.

On Tuesday, having completed all my arrangements for the exploration and supply of the county with Bibles, I took stage and returned to headquarters. As from time to time I received the reports of the Bible-distributor, and learned of the amount sold, and of the large number of families destitute who gladly received as a gift this inestimable treasure, I felt that in all my toils and personal privations in thus exploring the Brush, I had not labored in vain nor spent my strength for naught. In the great day, when all the good results of these labors shall be revealed, I know that there will be no cause for regret, but much for joy.

I was now better prepared than ever before to understand just what I needed and all that I needed to complete my outfit for the Brush. My experience in horseback-riding had been particularly instructive on this subject. After somewhat extended but fruitless search and inquiry for a horse, such as I needed in that vicinity, I took steamer for a great horse-market a hundred and fifty miles distant. Here I found great droves of horses, in vast stables, attended by scores of jockeys, all wide awake and eager to show me the very article that I wanted. I went from stable to stable, looked at a good many, heard the most satisfactory statements from their voluble owners in regard to the qualities of those that were brought out and submitted to my special inspection, mounted some of them and rode a short distance to test their qualities, but did not purchase. Indeed, I became entirely satisfied that I was not as verdant in regard to horse-flesh as from my pale looks and clerical appearance they generally took me to be. Though a clergyman, and the son of a clergyman, my father had penetrated the wilderness of Western New York, purchased a farm, and erected his log-cabin west of the Genesee River in 1807, when there was but a single log-house where Rochester now stands. Hence, from my childhood I had enjoyed the invaluable advantages of farm-life and labors. I had ridden colts, driven and worked horses, and learned what is hardly worth less in the future battle of life than all that is acquired in college and professional schools.

While looking through these large stables I heard of a horse that had been sent to a stable to be sold on account of some changes in the family of the owner. I went and looked at her, and was greatly pleased. I mounted her, rode a few miles, and returned perfectly satisfied and delighted. In a short time I paid the price asked, and was her happy owner. It was love at first sight, love that never failed, but grew stronger and stronger through all the years that we journeyed together. I took her on board the steamer with me, and returned to headquarters. Next I procured saddle, bridle, halter, spurs, leggins, and saddle-bags. For leggins I bought a yard and a half of butternut jean, which was cut into two equal parts, and the buttons and button-holes so arranged that I could wrap them tightly around my legs from a short distance above my knees, and button them on. They were secured from slipping down by a pair of strings which were wound about the legs both above and below the knees, in such a manner as not to interfere with their free movement in either riding or walking. A good deal of skill, as well as a good deal of awkwardness, may be displayed in putting on and tying on a pair of leggins; and when a man displays unusual facility and skill in this matter in his travels through the Brush, he is at once taken to be either an itinerant preacher—or a horse-thief. In long horseback journeys these leggins are invaluable as a protection against mud, rain, and cold. I have traveled over the muddiest roads, many days and weeks, when, on arriving at the house of some hospitable friend, I was so completely bespattered and covered with mud that I looked very much like the roads through which I had been traveling; but, on taking off my leggins and overcoat, I laid aside the most of the mud with them, and so presented a very respectable appearance.

But the saddle-bags were indispensable. In them I carried all the changes in my wardrobe, and all such articles for my personal comfort as one can have whose home is on horseback; together with such reports, documents, and papers, as were indispensable to me in the prosecution of my labors. With a large blanket-shawl rolled compactly together, and strapped with my umbrella behind my saddle upon a pad attached to it for this purpose, I was prepared to travel without any regard to rain or weather.

Behold me, then, with my new and complete outfit, mounted and starting for the Brush, in a broad-brimmed white hat, snuff-colored overcoat, butternut-dyed pantaloons, leggins, heavy boots, and spurs. My saddle-bags were thrown across the saddle, and my blanket-shawl and umbrella strapped behind it. As I rode out of the city into the country, I met a countryman on his way to town, who greeted me with a pleasant "How d'y, sir?" and, as he scanned with a pleasant face my outfit, he added, "Traveling, sir?" A countryman, and to the "manner born," that was his quick recognition and approval of the perfection and completeness of my outfit for the Brush. Two negroes, who were felling a huge tree in the dense forest at the roadside, paused in their labor, and manifested their approval with a broad African grin, and "Mighty nice hoss, dat, massa!"