About the middle of August, the village was honored by repeated visits from the little ragged population of "Barlow's Settlement," on the "Barrens," with quantities of whortleberries for sale. "Want any huckleberries to-day?" was heard all over. You couldn't stir abroad without some urchin with a smirched face—a tattered coat, whose skirts swept the dust, showing, evidently, its paternal descent, and pantaloons patched in the most conspicuous places, more picturesque than decent—thrusting a basket of the rich fruit into your very face, with an impudent yell of "huckleberries, sir?" or some little girl, the edges of whose scanty frock were irregularly scalloped, making a timid courtesy, saying meekly, "Don't you want some berries to-day, sir? nice berries, sir, just picked!"
At length Bill Brattle, who is a resident of the settlement, came into the village, and said in Wilson's bar-room, "that he'd lived on the Barrens nigh on six years, and he'd never in all that 'ere time seed sich an allfired grist of huckleberries. Why there was acres on acres on 'em, and he didn't tell no lie when he said that the airth was parfectly blue with 'em."
This soon got about, and the consequence was a whortleberry party the very next day. A number of the young people, of both sexes, started in several conveyances, and about noon found themselves, after rumbling through the covered bridge on the Neversink River, climbing slowly up the steep winding hill that ascends from the east bank of the stream, and whence was a beautiful view of the valley below.
Now there are many fine views in Sullivan. It is an exceedingly picturesque county. It has all the charms of precipitous hills, winding valleys, dark wooded gorges, lovely river-flats, and meandering streams. It is sufficiently cultivated to have the beauty of rural landscape softening the forest scenery, without disturbing to any great degree its wildness and grandeur.
This Neversink valley river, although not among the finest, is nevertheless a very lovely one—
Beneath—the clear placid stream comes coursing from the north, through narrow but beautiful flats, in all the pomp of rural wealth, wrinkled with corn-fields, bearded with rye, and whitened with buckwheat, imaging old age rejoicing amongst its blessings. Opposite, rise steep hills in all the stages of cultivation—the black logging—the grain waving amidst stumps—and the smooth grassy meadow—whilst at the south, where the little river makes a bold turn, the sweet landscape is lost in the deep mantle of the aboriginal forest.
Mastering the hill, the whole cavalcade was soon turning into a stony, root-tangled, miry road, leading from the turnpike into the heart of the "Barrens," the territory of the desired fruit. After sinking and jolting for some little distance, we came to a part of the track which had been laid over with small parallel logs, close to each other, and forming what is called in country parlance "a corduroy road". We "bumped along" (as Jim Stokes, one of our party, a plain young farmer, expressed it) over this railway of the woods, until our bones seemed so loose we thought we could hear them rattle at every jolt; and at last stopped at a large log cabin which had been fitted up as a tavern.
A fierce eagle, with his head nearly all eye, one striped claw grasping a bundle of arrows, and the other the American flag, served for the sign, and was elevated upon a tall hickory sapling, with the ambitious legend of "Eagle Hotel; by A. Pritchard," flaunting in a scroll from the ferocious bird's mouth.
A smaller log structure, with one large door, and a square opening over it, through which a haymow seemed thrusting its brown head, as if to look abroad, with a warm glow of sunshine upon it, told plainly that our horses at all events would not suffer.
In a short time we scattered ourselves over the ground in the vicinity, in search of our fruit. The appearance of things around was quite characteristic of the region generally. The principal growth were a dwarf species of oak, called in the language of the country "scrub-oak"—low shaggy spruces—stunted gnarled pines, and here and there, particularly in low places, tall hemlocks. The earth was perfectly bestrewed with loose stones, between which, however, the moss showed itself, thick and green, with immense quantities of that beautiful creeping plant called the "ground pine," winding and twining its rich emerald branching fingers in every direction. Scores of cattle-paths were twisting and interlacing all around us, giving, in fact, to the scene, notwithstanding its barrenness, a picturesque appearance. There were stone-fences also intersecting each other every where, erected for no earthly purpose, as I could perceive, but to make way with some part of the vast quantities of stone scattered about; for as to cultivating the lots, that was entirely out of the question.