IN THE BRUSH;

OR,

OLD-TIME SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE SOUTHWEST.

BY

REV. HAMILTON W. PIERSON, D.D.,

EX-PRESIDENT OF CUMBERLAND COLLEGE, KENTUCKY;
AUTHOR OF "JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO";
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W.L. SHEPPARD.

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.

1881.

COPYRIGHT BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

1881.

CONTENTS.

IN THE BRUSH.

CHAPTER I.

WHY I RELATE MY EXPERIENCES IN THE SOUTHWEST.—INTRODUCTORY.

On a visit to New York, many years ago, after the first few months of my ministerial labors in the wilds of the Southwest, I met a warm personal friend, a genial, generous, noble Christian woman, who at once said to me:

"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.

In attending a conference, presbytery, association, or other ecclesiastical meeting in the wilds of the country, as the old veteran and other preachers were pointed out to me by some friend, he would say:

"That is Father A——. He is an old Brush-Breaker"—and all the younger men would press forward to shake his hand and do him honor; or, "That is Brother B——. He has broken a right smart chance of brush"; or, "That is young Brother C——, wonderfully self-satisfied and conceited, as you see. The sisters have flattered him so much that he has got the 'big head' badly. He will be sent to Brush College, to break brush a year or two, and will come back humbled, and will make a laborious and useful man"; or, "That is our devoted and beloved young Brother D——. His soul is all on fire with love for his Master, and he will thank God for the privilege of going anywhere in the Brush to preach and sing of Jesus and his salvation."

This use of the word Brush enters largely into the figures of speech of the people of the Southwest. On one occasion I heard a Methodist bishop preach on a Sabbath morning to a very large congregation, composed of the Conference, the people of the village, and the visitors in attendance. During the first half of his sermon, which was extemporaneous, he did not preach with his accustomed clearness and power. His thoughts were evidently very much confused, and it was rather painful than otherwise to witness his struggle to get the mastery of his mind and subject. But he accomplished this at length, and closed his sermon with great power and effect. In returning from church, a young circuit-rider said to me:

"Didn't you think the Bishop got badly brushed in the first part of his sermon? I sometimes get so brushed in my sermons that I think I will never try to preach again. It's a comfort to a beginner to know that an old preacher sometimes gets brushed."

Figurative language of this kind abounded among the people of the Southwest, and was very expressive. These provincialisms had usually grown out of the peculiar life and habits of the people. Many of them seem to have originated in the perils of early flat-boat navigation—when they were accustomed to float down-stream by daylight, and tie up to some stump or tree for the night! Woe betide the cargo, boat, and crew, if that to which they had "made fast" failed them in the darkness of the night! Hence, as I suppose, this provincialism.

If I made inquiries in regard to the character of a man who had been recommended to me for a Bible distributor, I was not told that he was a reliable or an unreliable man, but, "He'll do to tie to," or "He won't do to tie to"; and if the case was particularly bad, "He won't do to tie to in a calm, let alone a storm." As there were so many perils in this kind of navigation, those were regarded as extremely fortunate who reached their destination in safety, and could send back word that they had made the trip; hence, "to make the trip" was a universal synonym for success. And so, when a novice attempted to make a speech, preach a sermon, address a jury, or engage in any kind of business, the people predicted his success or failure by saying, "He'll make the trip," or "He won't make the trip." They never said of a young man, or an old widower, that he was addressing or courting a lady, but, "He is setting to her," a figure of speech derived from bird-hunting with setter-dogs, as I suppose. When such a suit had been unsuccessful, they did not say the lady rejected or "mittened" her suitor, but, "She kicked him." The first time I ever heard that figure used was at a social gathering in Richmond, Virginia, in 1843, where the belle of the evening was a Miss Burfoot. After being introduced to her by a friend, he told me confidentially that she had recently "kicked" Mr. H——, a gentleman present, to whom he had already introduced me. To be "kicked" by a Burfoot seemed to me a more than usually striking figure. When many persons were striving for the same object, or where there were rival aspirants for the heart and hand of the same lady, they said of the successful one, "The tallest pole takes the persimmon."

I was once present at an ecclesiastical meeting in the Brush, where motions of different kinds were piled upon each other, until the greatest confusion prevailed as to the state of the question before the body, and the moderator was appealed to to give his decision in the matter. I did not fully comprehend his decision, but it was clear and satisfactory to the body over which he was presiding, all of whom, like himself, were old and experienced hunters. Arising to his feet, as became a presiding officer thus appealed to, and lifting his tall, lank form until his head was among the rafters of the low log school-house, he hesitated a moment, and then said, "Brethren, my decision is that you are all ahead of the hounds."

These are but specimens of the figurative language—the provincialisms—that abound among the people of the Southwest.

I do not, therefore, in the pages that follow, speak of my travels in the "wilderness" or "forests" or "hills" or "mountains" of the Southwest, but adopt a more comprehensive term, universally prevalent in the regions explored, and describe some of my experiences in the Brush.

Though I commenced my labors in the South as a general agent and superintendent of the colporteur operations of the American Tract Society in 1843—ten years before my first visit to the Southwest—though I became acquainted with its home-life, as that life could only be learned, by such extended horseback travels, and such religious labors, prosecuted with all the energy and all the enthusiasm of early vigorous manhood, I shall devote this volume to descriptions of home-life in the Southwest. My reasons for this will be obvious and approved at a glance. Very little that would be new can now be written of the old-time home-life in the South. The fascinating and beautiful descriptions of Southern social life given us in the letters of Hon. William Wirt, the distinguished Attorney-General of the United States, in his "British Spy"; the full and minute biographies of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others, so exhaustive of every feature of this life; with the matchless descriptions of the inimitable Thackeray, and other later writers, leave very little to be said in illustration of this theme. But the true, the real old-time social, political, and religious home-life of the people of the Southwest is almost unknown to the great mass of the American people. Comparatively little has been written which is the result of extended personal contact with, and intimate personal knowledge of, the people. They have been largely the subjects of exaggeration and caricature.

In this field I have garnered many rich and golden sheaves, where no other reaper had ever thrust in the sickle. Here I have drawn word-pictures of many scenes in the social life of a generation, and a state of civilization, rapidly passing away, never to reappear, that otherwise would have had no memorial only as perpetuated in the traditions of the people. I will only add that I am indebted to no library, to no book, not even to a newspaper, for a single fact presented in this volume. They were all gathered incidentally while laboriously engaged in the duties of my profession, as a general agent of the American Bible Society, and while traveling for years in the interests of the college over which I was called to preside. They all relate to the ante-bellum period in the history of our country.

CHAPTER II.

MY OUTFIT FOR MY LIFE IN THE BRUSH.

Having received my commission as an agent for the American Bible Society, and completed my preparations for entering upon my work as far as I could do so in New York, I left that city for one of the important cities of the Southwest, which was to be my headquarters. I knew at the outset that I could not reach the wild regions I was to explore by railroad, steamboat, stage, or even with my own private conveyance; I knew that I could climb hills and mountains, follow blind bridle-paths, ford rivers and swollen streams, only on horseback. I had several years before had some two years' experience in constant horseback travel in labors similar to those I was now entering upon, as superintendent of the colporteur operations of the American Tract Society in Virginia. There I had floundered in the marshes and swamps of "Tidewater," and been lost amid the rugged rocks and dense forests high up the sides and in the loftiest summits of the Blue Ridge and other mountains. I knew that I must have a horse. This was indispensable. More than that, I wanted a good horse, a horse broken expressly for the saddle. To be churned for years—bump, bump, bump—upon a hard-trotting horse, that was out of the question with me. I had but a small stock of health and physical strength at best, and none to spare in that way. My old friend Rev. Dr. Sprole, then of Washington, D.C., afterward of West Point, New York, and now of Detroit, Michigan, used to tell me, in Washington, that "Brother Leete," one of my co-workers in the circulation of the publications of the American Tract Society, "was one of the most self-denying Christians he had ever seen—in that he had patience to drive such a miserable old horse in transporting his books over the hills and mountains of Pennsylvania," where he had known him. But I was not anxious to illustrate that particular type of piety. I did not care to let my "light so shine." I wanted not only a good saddle-horse, but a faithful, reliable animal. I wanted one that I could hitch to the limb of a tree, in the midst of scores or hundreds of other horses, and leave there without any concern, while I preached in a log meeting-house, or at a "stand" erected in a grove at some cross-roads, or at a camp-meeting, or wherever else I should be able to meet and address the people. I wanted a hardy horse, that could live on the coarsest food, and stand during the coldest nights in log stables that afforded but a little more protection from the wind and cold than a rail fence. I wanted an easy-going, fleet horse, that would take me, without great personal fatigue or needless waste of time, over a wide extent of country. I wanted a horse that would scare at nothing—that, as I had opportunity, I could lead up a plank or two, on board a noisy stern-wheel or other Western steamer, along the banks of the rivers, across wharf-boats, or wherever I might wish to embark for a hundred miles or more to save a few days of horseback travel.

The "qualities" that I looked for in a horse were numerous and rare. I was so fortunate as to find one that possessed all that I have enumerated and many more. Was I not fortunate? Was I wrong in regarding my good fortune as a special providence? But I did not easily find this treasure. It was after a long search and many failures. Unable to find such a horse as I was willing to purchase at once, I determined to enter upon my work and get along for a time as best I could.

I therefore took stage for a point about fifty miles from headquarters, where, after a conference with the officers of the County Bible Society, I procured a horse for several days in order to plunge into the Brush, make a circuit of the county, and preach at a number of places in accordance with a programme that their familiarity with the country enabled them to make out for me. They arranged to send my appointments ahead to all these points but one, where I was to preach the next day, which was the Sabbath.

I will here state that the great object of my mission to the Brush was to effect a thorough exploration of the field assigned to me, and, either by sale or gift, supply every family with a copy of the Bible, except such as positively declined to receive it. To accomplish this, I wished to gain personal knowledge of each county, to preach at as many points as possible, in order to give information in regard to the character and operations of the American Bible Society and the work to be done, collect as much money as possible to meet the expenses of this work, find and employ suitable men to canvass the counties and visit without fail every family, and then order a supply of Bibles and Testaments from the Society's house in New York, give them their instructions, and set them at work. Such was my mission.

Saturday, after dinner, I mounted my horse for a ride of thirteen miles to a small county-seat village where I was to spend the Sabbath. The country was rough and broken, with light, sandy soil, sparsely covered with small, scrubby oak-trees, called "black-jacks," and the region of country was known as the "Barrens." It was barren enough. The houses were mostly poor and comfortless, the barns small log structures, with no stables, sheds, or covering of any kind for the cattle. They were poor and scrawny, and their backs described a section of a semicircle as they drew themselves into as much of a heap as possible—their only protection against the bleak February winds. The swine were of the original "root-hog-or-die" variety, their long, well-developed snouts being their most prominent feature. Occasionally black, dirty, ragged slaves—"uncles," "aunties," and their children—revealed the whites of their eyes and their shining ivory as they stared earnestly at the rare sight of a passing stranger. No one, with the kindest heart and the most amiable disposition, would be able to pronounce the country attractive or the ride a pleasant one. On arriving at the village, I rode to a very plain house to which I had been directed, and received a most warm and cordial welcome. Large pine-knots were soon blazing and roaring in the ample fireplace to relieve me of the most wretchedly disagreeable of all sensations of cold—those of a damp, clammy, chilly winter day in the Southwest. As soon as it could possibly be prepared, I was seated with the family at a bountiful supper. The aroma of the richest coffee was afloat in the air, and the rarest of fried chicken and hot corn-bread were smoking before me, flanked with a superabundance of other dishes, that showed the perfect country housekeeper.

My host and hostess were Presbyterians, and this was the reception they gladly gave to any minister who visited them in their seclusion, and preached for their little church. The bell was rung, and I preached that (Saturday) night to a very small audience who assembled at this brief notice. The church stood within a very few rods of the spot where Abraham Lincoln was born.

On Sabbath morning a somewhat larger congregation assembled from the village and country around, including some from the homes I had passed the day before, and I made a full exposition of the character and operations of the American Bible Society, explained the work about to be undertaken in their own county, and made as urgent and eloquent an appeal as I was able to, for funds to supply their own poor with the Bible, and meet the expenses of this benevolent and Christian work. To adopt the language universal in all this region, they "lifted a collection" for me which amounted to six dollars and eighty-five cents. At 3 P.M. I heard a sermon preached by the clergyman, my kind friend and host at the other county-seat, who, according to arrangement, came over to spend the Sabbath with me, and fill a regular appointment. At night I preached for them again. Altogether it was to me a very pleasant day.

Monday morning I rode back to the county-seat. There was a hard rain-storm, and I got very wet. Tuesday morning I started on a preaching tour of several days, to fulfill the appointments that had been made for me. I traveled several miles to see an old man who had been recommended for a colporteur to canvass the county; was pleased with him, and he was afterward employed. After dinner he piloted me through rough, broken barrens, such as I have already described, to the place where I was to preach that night. We reached there, but my "appointment" had not. I did not wonder it had lost its way. I lost mine a good many times that week. However, we learned that the next day was the regular appointment for the Methodist preacher who rode that circuit, and I would then have an opportunity to address the people. We spent the night very comfortably with Brother H——, to whom I had been directed, who belonged to the class of farmers or planters known among these people as "not rich, but good livers." In other portions of the country he would have been spoken of as a man "in comfortable circumstances." Wednesday morning we rode to a small Methodist chapel bearing the name of my host. His house had for years been the home where laborious and self-denying itinerant preachers, often hungry, wet, and weary, had found most welcome and needed refreshment and rest. A kind Providence has dotted the wilds of the country with many such hospitable homes—I have often found them and enjoyed their cheer—whose owners, more rich in generous, noble impulses than in worldly goods, have thus laid up treasures in heaven, the exceeding riches and abundance of which they will only fully comprehend and enjoy when they hear the approving—"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." On arriving at the chapel, which was a small, unplastered frame building, I was introduced by my host to Brother M——, the "preacher in charge," and received from him an old itinerant's cordial shake of the hand and welcome to his circuit. After a few moments' conversation he thrust his arm into mine, as though we had been acquainted for years, and we strolled off among the black-jacks to await the arrival of the congregation.

"What church do you belong to, Brother P——?" said he.

"I am a Presbyterian, sir," I responded.

"I am glad to hear it, glad to hear it," said he. "Brother Y——, the last agent of the Bible Society, was a Methodist, and we've had Methodist agents a good while. I am glad there is a change. I heard there would be, at Conference. All our brethren will be glad to see and welcome you."

As Brother M—— was the first real itinerant that I met on his circuit deep in the Brush, I will present him a little more fully to my readers. He wore on his head, drawn well down over his ears and eyes, a cheap cloth cap, badly soiled and faded. I do not now recall the color of his coat. I remember that it was of coarse material and ragged, with a particularly large rent under one of the armholes. His pantaloons were genuine butternut-colored jeans. I have no doubt that the cloth was the gift of some good sister, woven in her own loom, and all that she was able to give in making up his scanty salary. The most of the audience, both men and women, were clothed in the same home-made material. For myself, I was dressed in all respects as I had been the last time I had preached in New York. I did not like the contrast between myself and the congregation; and on my return to the city I laid aside my entire black suit, and procured a second-hand snuff-colored overcoat, costing eight dollars, jean pantaloons, and a soft hat, in which I felt much more at ease on my next return to the Brush. To anticipate a little, I will say that in my desire to carry out the Pauline example in becoming all things to all men, I went a little too far; for I wore my Brush suit to Conference, where I met this same preacher, and scores of his brethren with whom I had become acquainted, dressed in black, and presenting a contrast quite to my disadvantage. I had, however, gone there on horseback, traveling and preaching through the wildest brush country, with only such changes of clothing as I could carry in my saddle-bags. If I was a little mortified at my personal appearance when the presiding elder introduced me to the venerable bishop, and he introduced me to the Conference, and they all arose to their feet to do me honor, and welcome me as the representative of the American Bible Society, I had at least this satisfaction, that with the large audience present my dress would do something to correct the popular impression, very widely prevalent in the Brush, that "Presbyterian ministers preach for good clothes."

One by one the small congregation arrived at the chapel—men, women, and children—on horseback. When they had all assembled, we went in, and I preached, and they "lifted a collection" amounting to three dollars and twenty-five cents. After dining with Brother M——, at a house near by, I mounted my horse for a long ride, to reach my appointment for the night. My kind friends gave me a great many directions, and I started out. There was nothing worthy of the name of a public road. There were wagon-tracks and paths running in all directions among the black-jacks, and crossing each other at all angles. Whenever, for a short distance, there was a fence on both sides of a road, that was called a "lane." One track would lead me to the back side of a tobacco-patch, where it ended; another led me where some rails had been "mauled" and recently hauled away. The roads leading to plantations were more worn, and looked more like the "main traveled road," than those that were intended for public highways. I inquired my way at each plantation that I passed, and every other opportunity; and these were far too rare for my wants. Once I saw, from an elevation, a peach-tree in bloom in the distance. It was like the human footprint in the sand to Robinson Crusoe on his lonely island. I said, "There is a sign of humanity," and started for it. But when I reached it the log-cabin near which it was planted was empty, and I started out again into the labyrinths of paths. Often that afternoon, and oftener in the years that followed, when I have been lost in the Brush, I exclaimed, "Blessed be the man that devised our national system of 'sectional surveys'!" I do not know what man or men devised it, but I do know that the country owes him or them a debt of gratitude it can never pay. Where section-lines are established, there roads are located, roads running at right angles, and school-districts, townships, and larger communities have definite boundaries; and every neighborhood and farm may have the benefit of established and good roads. These barrens, like vast regions of country over which I have traveled, never had the benefit of such a survey. The original settlers had found places where the land, timber, water, etc., suited them, and had measured off, perhaps with a pole or grape-vine, hundreds or thousands of acres in any shape their fancy directed—their surveys often overlapping each other at various points. Hence interminable lawsuits in regard to boundaries, and the greater calamity of having no established lines for a uniform system of roads. A learned author has said, "You may judge the civilization of a country by its roads." If this is a true criterion, there is a vast extent of country over which I have traveled, in the Southwest and South, that will take a very low rank in the scale of civilization. I remember one man in the Brush who told me he had raised that year three hogsheads of tobacco, but the roads were so bad that the transportation of his crop, sixty miles to market, had cost him one hogshead of tobacco—one third of the proceeds of his summer's work! One of the most prominent causes of the development and growth of our Western States is the manner in which they were surveyed, and their system of roads; one of the greatest hindrances to the prosperity of other and large sections of our country is that they have had no such survey, and are not likely to have any such roads.

I reached the house of Mr. R——, to whom I was directed, soon after sundown, and learned that my appointment had reached him, and he was expecting me. He at once gave orders to his boys to get the shellbark-hickory torches that they had provided to light us home, and without dismounting he led my way, on foot, about a mile, to an unpainted, unplastered, barnlike-looking building, known as "Blue Knobs Church." A few tallow-candles shed their glimmering rays upon the upturned faces of the not large audience that listened to my description of the Bible House, its numerous presses, and vast facilities for publishing the Bible; and, in response to my appeal for funds for the noble cause I represented, they "lifted a collection" amounting to ninety-four cents. In the light of the torches thoughtfully provided for me, I climbed up the sides of the knob—the higher elevations of land in this region are called "knobs"—to the home of my host. Supper was now prepared for the family and myself; and I learned that it was the custom of the people to defer supper until this hour, whenever they had meetings at night.

Fairly seated in the house, I saw such a group of little children as I had never seen before, belonging to one family. We had not talked long before the father volunteered an explanation. He told me his wife had died, leaving nine children, one but a few days old. Not many months after, he had married a young widow with three children, as young as his three youngest, and one had been born since their marriage. Of the thirteen present, the majority were under five years old. Subsequently, in my travels, I spent a night with a family where there was a large number of young children, and I asked the mother the age of the eldest and the youngest. The eldest would be six years old the next June; the youngest was six weeks old. She had six healthy children, that had been born in less than six years, and none of them were twins.

On Thursday I started early in the morning and rode through a country that differed but little from that through which I had passed the day before, to the place of my appointment. On going to the hall of the secret society, where I was to preach, I learned that it was the night of their regular weekly meeting, and they could not yield their room to me. Such collisions are not unfrequent in the Brush, and the people describe them by a very striking figure of speech, which gives some idea of their sports and tastes. They say of them that "the appointments locked horns." I did not care to test the strength of my neck, and therefore, as was altogether proper in the circumstances, did not preach. That night I slept in the loft of a log-cabin. It was entirely unceiled, and the roof was so low that I had to stoop to make my way to my bed; and when in it I could easily place my hands upon the roof-boards and rafters. The openings between the logs afforded abundant ventilation. In the morning, I found such conveniences as were afforded for washing, not in my room, but out-of-doors, at the side of the well. Afterward, I slept in hundreds of such cabin-lofts—slept in them until the sight of smoky, dingy roof-boards and rafters was wellnigh as familiar a sight on opening my eyes in the morning, as the sky overhead when I went to the well to wash, sometimes in a basin or dish, but often by having the water poured upon my hands from a gourd. I remember one occasion when, after traveling for weeks in the Brush, I arrived at a small county-seat village, and spent the night in a new building that had recently been erected for a young ladies' seminary. In the morning, as I opened my eyes, they were greeted with the sight of new white-plastered walls above and around me. The sight was so rare that it thrilled me with joy. The smooth, clean plaster seemed absolutely beautiful. I have never since experienced more delightful sensations in gazing upon the most magnificent paintings. I can see now the new, cheap bedstead, the clean sheets, the blue-calico window-curtains, the white walls, and recall the sensations of intense pleasure that they inspired. It was as if I had slept for weeks in a dungeon, and awoke in the most delightful home.

On Friday morning I started early again, and by a most difficult and crooked route through the "barrens," made my way to the residence of "Uncle Billy H——," to whose hospitality I had been commended. Here I found a brick house on a turnpike-road, and "Uncle Billy" was a "good liver." He went with me at night to a small church, located upon a stream, near a grist-mill, and I preached, and "lifted a collection" amounting to four dollars and five cents.

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!"

In my next chapter I shall make good these comments.

CHAPTER III.

THE ITINERANT PIONEER PREACHER'S FAITHFUL HORSE.

I think a good horse is worthy of a niche in the temple of fame. I know that many men have been immortalized in song and eloquence, and had magnificent monuments erected to their memory, who have never done one half as much for the good of the world as the faithful animal I rode so many years, through the wilds of the Southwest, in the service of the American Bible Society. But very few men have done as much to promote the circulation of the Word of God, "without note or comment," as she did in those years of faithful labor.

If there be a paradise where there are purling streams, grateful shade, and fat pastures for horses that have been faithful and true, I am sure that she has a high rank in "the noble army" of horses that in sunshine and in storm, with unflagging devotion, have borne itinerant pioneer preachers through mud and rain, and sleet and snow, as with glowing, burning zeal they have prosecuted their heroic Christian labors. All honor to the itinerant's faithful horse—my own among the number! My very pen seems to catch new inspiration, and dance with delight, as I attempt her eulogy.

In fact, she shrank from no toil in the prosecution of this good work. She never kept me from fulfilling an appointment by refusing to ford a river. She never hesitated to enter any canebrake it was necessary for me to cross, and, though the canes were ever so thick and tangled, and resisted her progress like so many ropes or cords around her breast, yet she pressed carefully and firmly against them, until they yielded to her power, and we emerged safely from the thicket. She never flinched from climbing the steepest mountain-paths, where I had to hold on to her mane with both hands to keep from sliding off behind her; and then she would as kindly perform the more difficult feat of descending such paths, stepping carefully and firmly so as not to stumble or fall, while I kept my position in the saddle by holding on to the crupper with one hand and guiding her with the other. In a word, she never failed or disappointed me at any time, in any place, or in any particular.

She was of medium size, light-sorrel color, white face, and in all respects of admirable form and mold. She had been broken for the saddle to either pace, trot, or gallop, and each gait was about as easy and perfect as possible. In long journeys of weeks, and sometimes of months, her movements were always free and fleet, and by alternating from one gait to another she bore me about as easily and gently as one could well wish to be carried on horseback. But her kind, affectionate disposition was her crowning excellence. I never hitched her and went into a house for a long or short stay, that she did not greet me as soon as I opened the door on my return with her affectionate whinny. She would recognize me among the congregation, as I came out of any church where I had preached, or wherever she could see me in the largest gatherings of people, and always with the same warm salutation. Whenever I went to her stable in the morning, or wherever I approached her after a brief separation, her demonstrations of affection were as strong as they could well be without human powers.

On one occasion I rode up to the bank of a small river, very near its mouth, and hailed the ferryman on the opposite side. While waiting for him to cross, I led her down upon the planks which extended a short distance into the river, that she might drink. Wading into the water, she stepped beyond the planks and instantly sank to her breast in the mud. It was the sediment that had been deposited there by numerous freshets. As she went down the entire depth of her fore-legs in an instant, she made one desperate effort to extricate herself, but in vain. She seemed to comprehend her condition perfectly, turned to me with a beseeching look and groan, and did not make another struggle. I told her to lie still, and started on a run to get some teamsters, whom I had met with their large six-horse teams as I rode up to the river-bank, to help me in getting her out. They kindly came to my aid, and by putting my saddle-girth under her breast, and tying ropes to each end of it, they lifted her out of the mud by main strength. When she was fairly on her feet, her demonstrations of gratitude were most remarkable. She thanked me over and over again as plainly and strongly as horse-language would possibly admit of, danced around me with delight, persisted in rubbing her nose against me in the most affectionate manner, and showed a joy that seemed wellnigh human. It was warm summer weather, and on reaching the hotel on the opposite shore I had her legs and her entire body from the tips of her ears to the end of her tail thoroughly washed and rubbed dry. After dinner I resumed my journey, and she was as well as ever.

Everywhere, during all the years that I traveled in the Brush, my Jenny—for that was the name I gave her—made friends for herself and me. If I rode up to a house upon a plantation, hailed it according to the custom of the country, and was welcomed to its hospitalities by the owner, he would call a negro servant:

"Ho! boy, carry this horse to the stable and take good care of her. D'ye hear?"

When I dismounted, she understood that her long day's journey was ended, and knew where she was going as well as the servant did. When mounted, she would start with a fleet pace that was almost as gentle in its movements as the rocking of a cradle; which would make the rider roll the white of his eyes with the supremest African delight. Very often I have seen them turn their faces, beaming with satisfaction, and cast back furtive glances upon groups of young Africans that were gazing after them with an admiration that was only equaled by their envy of the rider's happy lot. Before reaching the stable a friendship, if not affection, was established that insured the most liberal allowance of "fodder" and corn, and the most thorough currying, brushing, and care. I have no doubt that on many such occasions they promised themselves a pleasant stolen night-ride, to visit friends on some near or remote plantation, and that they did not forget or fail to make good their promises. When I sometimes had occasion to protract my stay for several days, it was amusing to listen to the frequent applications from young Africa to ride her to the brook and water her. They were intensely solicitous that she should not fail to get water—or themselves rides! At all places, whether on cultivated plantations or deep in the Brush, whether she was cared for by black or white, she received the same kind attention. Hence she was always in the best order and condition—always able and ready to take me the longest journeys, through any amount of mud and mire, and over the roughest roads, wherever it was necessary for me to go. I am sure that the people were the more glad to see me on her account. My honored instructor, the venerable President Nott, of Union College, in his lectures on the "Beautiful," used to say:

"Young gentlemen, undoubtedly the two most beautiful objects in nature are a beautiful horse and a beautiful lady. I hope you will not think me ungallant in putting the horse before the lady." I gratified the love of the beautiful in a fine horse, and so won their esteem and love. But I was often as much surprised and gratified at her behavior in her travels with me upon Western steamboats as upon land. On one occasion I took her on board a large New Orleans steamer with a deck-load of mules, horses, sheep, etc., and rode some two hundred miles. I reached the place of my destination about midnight, and was obliged to land at that hour. She was standing immediately back of the wheel-house, and on the side of the boat toward the shore. But the boat was so loaded that I was obliged to lead her a long distance around by the stern, past the heels of braying mules and bellowing cattle, to the point opposite the place from which I had started; then forward, crossing the boat immediately in front of the roaring wood-fires, which were on the same deck, and on to the bow, where I led her down the plank on to a large wharf-boat. I then led her the entire length of this boat, and down a long plank-way to the shore. And all this through the indescribable din and confusion made by mates and deck-hands in landing freight, passengers, and baggage, and the deafening screech of the whistle in blowing off steam. When I took her by the bits and said, "Come, Jenny," she placed her head against my shoulder and followed me all this long, crooked, noisy route, with the confidence of a child. I had led her on and off a great many noisy steamers, but that was the most notable instance of all.

But my Jenny had some other qualities which I should never have discovered had they not been made known to me by others. Elsewhere in this volume I have spoken at length of my visit to a celebrated watering-place, and of the numerous gamblers and other strange characters that I met there. It was in the midst of a very wild region. When I had arrived within a few hours' ride of the springs, I stopped to dine at a house of private entertainment. A large four-horse stage, loaded with passengers bound for the springs, soon drove up and stopped at the same house, which was the regular place of dining for the passengers. After dinner I rode on to the springs, keeping along the most of the way in company with the stage. My Jenny attracted very marked attention from the driver and passengers. The driver especially was profuse in his expressions of admiration. As I rode up to the hotel, the listless, lounging visitors, who were so deep in the Brush that they had very little to attract or interest them, regarded her gait and movements with general attention and delight. When I dismounted, a black boy was soon in my saddle, and my Jenny moved off to the stable with her usual fleetness and grace. I entered the hotel and registered my name, without any prefix or suffix to indicate my employment or profession. The weather was very hot, the roads very dusty, and after the fashion of the country I was at once furnished with water to wash. As I stood wiping myself, the stage-driver rushed into the room and up to me in great excitement and said:

"Mr. Pierson, will you allow your horse to run? The money is up and we'll have a race if you'll only allow her to run"—at the same time holding up and shaking in my face a mass of bills that were drawn through his fingers, after the fashion of gamblers in those parts. I was startled to hear my name pronounced in a strange place, and by a stranger, but in a moment bethought me that he had learned it by looking on the hotel-register. I was more startled by the strangeness of the proposition. As the servant stood with my saddle-bags on his arm, waiting to show me to my room, I answered perhaps a little too abruptly, "No, sir," and followed him to my room, to prepare for supper. When the supper-bell rang, and I stepped out of my room upon the piazza, a portly man of gentlemanly bearing, who had evidently taken his position there to wait for me, approached me pleasantly and said:

"I hope, sir, you will reconsider your decision and allow your mare to run. As soon as you rode up I offered to bet two hundred and fifty dollars that she would outrun anything here, and the money is up. Allow me to say that I am an old Virginian, and a judge of horses, and if you will let her run I am sure to win."

By this time I had entirely recovered my self-possession, and, bowing politely, I looked directly into his eyes and said:

"Do you think, sir, it will do for a Presbyterian clergyman to commence horse-racing so soon after reaching the Springs?"

He was as much startled as I had been—in fact, so startled that he could not say a word, and I left him without any reply, and went in to supper. When I returned from the dining-room I found him at the door, and he approached me in the most subdued and respectful manner and said:

"Allow me to speak to you again, sir. I wish to apologize, sir; I beg your pardon, sir; I assure you, sir, that nothing would induce me knowingly to insult a clergyman."

I responded, very pleasantly:

"I am certain, sir, that no insult was intended, and therefore there is no pardon to be granted."

He thanked me very warmly for my kind construction of his motives, and left me with a lighter step and brighter face. His companions were all greatly pleased with my treatment of the matter; and, as I have elsewhere said, there was a general turnout of all the gamblers—of whom he was one of the most prominent—to hear me preach in the ballroom the next Sabbath. But I need not say, to any one at all familiar with life in the Southwest, that he had to "stand treat" all around among his companions, for being thus, in the vernacular of the country, "picked up" by the preacher.

In passing through another part of this county the following winter, I rode up to a blacksmith-shop to get a shoe tightened. As soon as the blacksmith came out he said:

"Wasn't you at the Springs last summer with this mare?"

I replied in the affirmative, and, on looking at him, recognized the man that kept a little shop there, and had shod her in the summer.

"Well," said he, leaning upon her neck, patting her affectionately, and looking into vacancy with a pleased expression, as if living over some pleasant scene in the past, "they got her out, preacher, and run her, any way." And then, as if to make the matter all right with me, he looked up into my face and said, with the most satisfied smile and emphatic nod: "And, preacher, she beat, she did. He won his money!"

During my vacation-trips to the East, for several summers, I left my horse with some kind, warm friends upon a plantation, for the ladies and children to ride as they might wish. At first it was difficult for me to make satisfactory arrangements to leave her for several weeks. I could not trust her at a livery-stable. There I felt sure she would get a great many stolen rides. I found also that the temptation was too great for the virtue of some professed friends with whom I left her, for on my return I found she had been overridden, and looked worn rather than rested from the vacation I had intended for her as well as myself. But in my travels I found a lady from my native State, New York, who had gone South as a teacher, and married a planter. There was a slight disparity in their ages. I would not take oath as to the exact difference, but I heard a good many times that, when married, she was nineteen and he forty-nine. If that was so, the marriage furnished confirmation of the popular talk and notions concerning "an old man's darling." He was certainly as kind and indulgent as a husband could well be. She was a Presbyterian and he a Baptist. He was kind and genial, and full of vivacity and life, and loved to entertain me as his "wife's preacher," and for her sake, as well as to gratify his own warm social instincts. Here, at each return for years, I ever found the warmest welcome and the kindest home. To her my visits were like those of an old friend, for, when far away from the companions and scenes of early life, the ties that unite those from the same State become strong and endearing. But far stronger than this is the bond that unites members of different churches to their own clergymen, and especially when they but rarely enjoy their ministrations. Gifted, intelligent, and full of energy, and also sympathizing deeply with the object of my Christian toils and labors, she spared no pains to make her house what it ever was to me, a delightful resting-place and home. A large, fine chamber always awaited me, to which they gave my name, and here I spent many delightful hours. I brought to them many tales of my adventures in the Brush, for which my host had the keenest appreciation, and I heard from him many accounts of preachers and preaching he had known and heard that are hard to be surpassed, which I intend to give my readers in another chapter. It was with these friends that for years I left my horse during all my vacation-journeys. Here she became a family pet. Here I was sure she would never be overridden, and always receive the kindest care. Here she came to be regarded with an attachment, if possible, greater than my own; for, when I returned for her, the children would have a hearty cry as I rode her away. When at length I closed my labors in the Southwest and left the region, my kind Baptist friend was more than glad to procure her for his Presbyterian wife, and I left her where I was sure she would have the kindest treatment while serviceable, and enjoy a comfortable and honored old age.

CHAPTER IV.

OLD-TIME HOSPITALITY IN THE SOUTHWEST.

The hospitality extended to ministers of the gospel by the people who lived in the Brush was generous and large-hearted to a degree that I have never known among any other class of people. They obeyed the Scripture injunction, "Use hospitality without grudging." They were "not forgetful to entertain strangers." I found their tables, their beds, their stables, and indeed all the comforts of their rude homes, always open for the rest and refreshment of myself and my indispensable horse. We were as welcome to all these as to the water that bubbled from their springs and "ran among the hills."

At the commencement of my itinerant life, on leaving the families where I had spent a night or taken a meal, I used to propose to pay them, and ask for my bill; but I found this gave offense. Many seemed to regard it as a reflection on their generosity for me to intimate or suppose that they would take pay for entertaining a preacher. I therefore adopted a formula that saved me from all danger of wounding their feelings, and relieved my character from all suspicion of a disposition to avoid the payment of my bills. It was as follows: When about to leave a family, I said to them, "I am indebted to you for a night's entertainment," to which the general response was: "Not at all, sir. Come and stay with us again, whenever you pass this way."

It was a very rare occurrence that I was permitted to cancel my indebtedness by paying for what I had received.

In thanking them for their hospitality, as of course I always did on leaving them, they made me feel that I had conferred a favor rather than incurred an obligation by staying with them.

For years it was my custom to apply for entertainment at any house wherever night overtook me, and I invariably received a cordial welcome. This application for entertainment was always made according to the custom of the people, and in their own vernacular, which I will illustrate by an example.

In my horseback-journeyings I had reached the tall, dense, heavy forests of the bottom-lands of the Mississippi River, about a dozen miles from the Father of Waters. As the sun was about setting, I came upon a large "dead'ning," where the underbrush had been cut out and burned off, the large trees had been girdled and had died, and a crop of corn had been raised among the dead forest-trees, before the new-comer in this wilderness had been able to completely clear a field around his newly-erected log-cabin. Turning off from the corduroy-road upon which I had been traveling, I took a footpath, and, following that, was soon as near the cabin as a high rail-fence would allow me to approach on horseback. A short distance from this log-cabin was a still smaller one occupied by a colored aunty and her family, and used for a kitchen; and not far off still another log-building, used for a barn and stable.

The most of my readers in the older sections of the country will suppose that I had now only to dismount, hitch my horse, climb the fence, rap at the door, and so gain admittance to my resting-place for the night. Far otherwise. Only the most untraveled and inexperienced in the Brush would undertake so rash an experiment.

Sitting upon my horse, I called out in a loud voice, "Hello there!" That call was for the same purpose that the city pastor mounts the stone steps and rings the bell at the door of his parishioner. It was rather more effective.

A large pack of hounds and various other kinds of dogs responded with a barking chorus, a group of black pickaninnies rushed from the adjacent kitchen, followed to the door by their sable mother, with arms a-kimbo and hands fresh from mixing the pone or corn-dodger for the family supper; all, with distended eyes and mouth, and shining ivory, staring at the stranger with excited and pleased curiosity. At almost the same instant, the mistress of the incipient plantation approached the door of her cabin, stockingless and shoeless, with a dress of woolsey woven in her own loom by her own hands, and cut and made by her own skill, with face not less pleased and excited than the others, and her cordial greeting of "How d'y, stranger—how d'y, sir? 'Light, sir! [alight]—'light, sir!"

Remaining upon my horse, I replied: "I am a stranger in these parts, madam. I have ridden about fifty miles since morning and am very tired. Can I get to stay with you to-night, madam?"

"Oh, yes," she replied, promptly, "if you can put up with our rough fare. We never turn anybody away."

I told her I should be very glad to stay with her, and dismounted. The dogs, who would otherwise have resisted my approach to the door by a combined attack, obeyed their instructions not to harm me, and granted me a safe entrance as a recognized friend.

Such was the universal training of the dogs, and such the uniform method of approaching and gaining admittance to the houses of the people in the Brush. My hostess informed me that her husband was at work in the "dead'ning," but that he would soon be at home and take care of my horse.

I told her that I could do that myself, and she sent her little son along with me to the stable, where I bestowed that kind and, I may say, affectionate care that one who journeys for years on horseback learns to bestow upon his faithful horse. I then entered the cabin, and received that warm welcome that awaits the traveler in our Western wilds.

Shall I describe my home for the night? It was a new log-house, less than twenty feet square, and advanced to a state of completeness beyond many in which I had lodged, inasmuch as the large openings between the logs had been filled with "chink and daubing." The chimney, built upon the outside of the house, was made of split sticks, laid up in the proper form, and thoroughly "daubed" with mud, so as to prevent them from taking fire. A large opening cut through the logs communicated with this chimney, and formed the ample fireplace. The roof was made of "shakes"—pieces of timber rived out very much in the form of staves, but not shaved at all. These were laid upon the roof like shingles, except that they were not nailed on, but "weighted on"—kept in their places by small timbers laid across each row of "shakes" over the entire roof. These timbers were kept in their places by shorter ones placed between them, transversely, up and down the roof. In this manner the pioneer constructs a roof for his cabin, by his own labor, without the expenditure of a dime for nails. With wooden hinges and a wooden latch for his door, he needs to purchase little but glass for his windows, to provide a comfortable home for his family. His latch-string, made of hemp or flax that he has raised, or from the skin of the deer which he has pursued and slain in the chase, which, as the old song has it—

"Hangs outside the door,"

symbolizes the cordial welcome and abounding hospitality to be found within.

At the end of the room opposite the fireplace there was a bed in each corner, under one of which there was a "trundle-bed" for the children. There was no chamber-floor or chamber above to obstruct the view of the roof. There was no division into apartments, not even by hanging up blankets, a device I have seen resorted to in less primitive regions. From floor to roof, from wall to wall, all was a single "family" room, which was evidently to be occupied by the family and myself in common. A rough board table, some plain chairs, and a very few other articles completed the inventory of household furniture of the pioneer's home to which I had been welcomed.

Such a home was the birthplace of Lincoln, and many other of the greatest, wisest, and best men that have ever blessed our country. Such homes have been crowned with abundance, and have been the scenes of as much real comfort and joy as any others in our land.

I have found that curiosity is a trait that is not monopolized by any one section of country or class of people. It belongs to all localities, and to all grades and kinds of people. I therefore, in accordance with what a pretty wide experience had taught me was the best course to pursue, proceeded at once to gratify the curiosity of my hostess as to who her guest was, and what business had brought him to this wild region. I told her my name, and that I was a Presbyterian preacher, and an agent of the American Bible Society. This not only satisfied her curiosity, but was very gratifying information to her, and I received a renewed and cordial welcome to her home as a minister of the gospel.

In the course of the ordinary conversation and questions that attend such a meeting of strangers in the Brush, I learned that she and her husband had emigrated from a county some hundreds of miles east, which I had several times visited in the prosecution of my mission, and I was able to give her a great deal of information in regard to her old neighbors and friends. We were in the midst of an earnest conversation in regard to these people, when her husband came in from his labors. On being introduced to me, and informed in regard to my mission, he repeated the welcome his wife had already given me to the hospitality of their cabin.

Our supper was such as is almost universally spread in the wilds of the Southwest. It consisted of an abundance of hot corn-bread, fried bacon, potatoes, and coffee. A hard day's labor and a long day's ride prepared us to do it equal justice.

The evening wore rapidly away in conversation. Such pioneers are not dull, stupid men. Their peculiar life gives activity to mind as well as body. My host was anxious and glad to hear from the great outside active world, with which I had more recently mingled, and had questions to ask and views to give as to what was going on in the political and religious world.

At length our wearied bodies made a plea for rest that could not be refused, and I was invited to conduct their family worship. This invitation was extended in the language and manner peculiar to the Southern and Southwestern sections of the country. This is universally as follows:

The Bible and hymn-book are brought forward by the host, and laid upon the table or stand, when he turns to the preacher and says, "Will you take the books, sir?"

That is the invitation to lead the devotions of the family in singing and prayer. It has been my happy lot to receive and respond to that invitation—as I did that night—in many hundreds of families and in some of the wildest portions of our land.

The method of extending an invitation to "ask a blessing" before a meal is quite as peculiar. Being seated at the table, the host, turning to the preacher, says, "Will you make a beginning, sir?"—all at table reverently bowing their heads as he extends the invitation, and while the blessing is being asked.

So, too, I have "made a beginning" at many a hospitable board in many different States. I did not that night make the mistake that is reported of an inexperienced home-missionary explorer, in similar circumstances, who, laboring under the impression that "to retire" and "to go to bed" were synonymous terms, said, "Madam, I will retire, if you please."

"Retire!" she rejoined; "we never retires, stranger. We just goes to bed."

Sitting with the family before the large fireplace, I said, "Madam, I have ridden a long distance to-day, and am very tired."

"You can go to bed at any time you wish, sir," said she. "Just take the left-hand bed."

I withdrew behind their backs to "lay my garments by," took the left-hand bed, turned my face to the left-hand wall, and slept soundly for the night.

When I awoke in the morning, husband and wife had arisen and left the room, he to feed his team, and she to attend to her household duties in the kitchen. After an early breakfast, and again leading their family devotions, I bade them good-by, with many thanks for their kindness, and with repeated invitations on their part to be sure to spend the night with them should I ever come that way again. But I have never seen them since.

I have very often recalled a hospitable reception in the Brush, of a very different character, the recollection of which has always been exceedingly pleasant to me. Wishing to visit a rough, wild, remote region, at a season of the year when the roads were almost impassable on account of the spring rains and the mud, I concluded to go the greater part of the distance by steamboats, down one river and up another, and then ride about fifty miles in a stage or mail-wagon. The roads would scarcely be called roads at all in most parts of the country, and I shall not be able to give to many of my readers any true idea of the exceeding roughness of that ride. A considerable part of the way was through the bottom-lands of one of the smaller Southwestern rivers that swell the volume of the Mississippi. A recent freshet had left the high-water mark upon the trees several feet higher than the backs of our horses; and as we jolted over the small stumps and great roots of the trees, from which the earth had been washed away by the freshet, I was wearied, exceedingly wearied, by the rough road and comfortless vehicle in which I traveled.

At length we came upon a very pleasant plantation, with a comfortable house and surroundings, where the driver, a boy about fifteen years old, told me he would feed his team, and we would get our dinner. It was not an hotel. Mail-contractors in this region often make such arrangements to procure feed for their horses and meals for the few passengers that they carry, at private houses. As I entered the house I was greeted with one of those calm, mild, sweet faces that one never forgets. I should think that my hostess was between thirty-five and forty years old. I was too weary to engage in much conversation, and she was quiet, and said very little to me. As I observed her movements about the room in preparing the dinner, I thought I had never seen a face that presented a more perfect picture of contentment and peace. I felt perfectly sure that she was a Christian—that her face bespoke "the peace of God that passeth all understanding." When she invited the driver and myself to take seats at the table, I said, "Shall I ask a blessing, madam?"

With a smile she bowed assent, and, as I concluded and looked up, her face was all radiant with joy, and she said excitedly, "You are a preacher, sir!"

I replied, "Yes, madam."

"Well," she responded, "I am glad to see you. I love to see preachers. I love to cook for them, and take care of them. I love to have them in my house."

I told her who I was, explained the character of my mission, and expressed, I trust with becoming warmth, my gratification at the cordiality of her welcome.

"Oh," said she, "if I was a man, I know what I would do. I would do nothing but preach. I'd go, and go, and go; and preach, and preach, and preach. I wouldn't have anything to pester me. I wouldn't marry nary woman in the world. I'd go, and go, and go—and preach, and preach, and preach, until I could preach no longer; and then I'd lie down—close my eyes—and—go on."

Was there ever a more graphic and truthful description of an earnest, apostolic life? Was there ever a more simple, beautiful description of a peaceful Christian death? They recall the statement of Paul, "This one thing I do"; and the story of Stephen, "And when he had said this, he fell asleep."

The people who have spent their lives deep in the Brush, as this good woman had, have no other idea of a preacher of the gospel but one whose duty and mission it is to "go" and "preach." They have been accustomed to hearing but one message, or at most a few messages, from their lips, and then hear their farewell words, listen to their farewell songs, shake hands with them, and see them take their departure to "go" and "preach" to others who, like them, dwell in lone and solitary wilds. Meetings and partings like these have originated and given their peculiar power to such refrains as—

"Say, brothers, will you meet us—
Say, brothers, will you meet us—
Say, brothers, will you meet us
On Canaan's happy shore?
"By the grace of God we'll meet you—
By the grace of God we'll meet you—
By the grace of God we'll meet you
On Canaan's happy shore."

This woman knew little of the great world—had little that it calls culture; her language was that of the people among whom she lived, and was such as she had always been accustomed to hear; but her thoughts were deep and pure, her "peace flowed like a river," and her communion with God lifted her to companionship with the noblest and best of earth. Though I spent but little more than an hour in her presence, and many years have passed since that transient meeting, her picture still hangs in the chamber of my memory, calm, pure, and saintly, and breathing upon my spirit a perpetual benediction.

CHAPTER V.

OLD-TIME BASKET-MEETINGS IN THE BRUSH.

Religious meetings, popularly denominated "basket-meetings," were known and recognized as established institutions in the Brush. They were among the assemblages that had resulted from the sparseness of the population in those regions. Where the country was hilly and mountainous, and the settlers were scattered along the streams in the narrow valleys; or the land was so rough and poor that only occasional patches would reward tillage; or for various other causes, the families were but few, and far distant from each other, it was a very difficult matter for the people to leave their homes day after day to attend a continuous meeting. Hence, among other religious gatherings, they had long been accustomed to hold what were called basket-meetings.

These meetings involved less labor and trouble than camp-meetings, and could often be held where such a meeting would be impossible. They were usually not as large, and did not continue as many days. They were called "basket-meetings" from the fact that those from a distance brought their provisions, already cooked, in large baskets, and in quantities sufficient to last them during the continuance of the meeting. They put up no tents or cabins on the ground. They did not cook or sleep there. They most frequently commenced on Saturday, and continued through the Sabbath. They generally had a prayer-meeting and preaching on Saturday forenoon, and then adjourned for an hour or two. During this intermission the greater part of the people dispersed in groups among the trees, and took their dinner after the manner of a picnic. Those living in the immediate vicinity returned to their homes for dinner, taking with them as many of those in attendance as they could possibly secure. Every stranger was sure of repeated invitations to dine, both with these families and neighborhood groups among the trees, and at the adjacent cabins. After dinner they reassembled and had a repetition of the services of the morning.

Unlike a camp-meeting, they had no services at night. When the afternoon meetings were concluded, the people dispersed and spent the night at the cabins within two or three miles around. All the people in these cabins usually kept open house upon such an occasion. They were present, and, after the benediction was pronounced, they mounted the stumps and logs and extended a general invitation to any present to spend the night with them. Not satisfied with giving this general invitation, they jumped down and went among the rapidly dispersing crowd and followed it with private personal solicitations to accept their proffered hospitality.

On the Sabbath, they reassembled with augmented numbers, and the services of Saturday were reënacted, with such additions and variations as the circumstances might demand.

The first basket-meeting that I ever attended was so new and strange to me in all its incidents, that, though many years have intervened, my recollections of it are as vivid as though it had occurred but yesterday. It was in a very rough, wild region. The country had been settled a long time, so that those in attendance were genuine backwoods people "to the manner born." The place of meeting was in a tall, dense, unbroken forest. The underbrush had been cut and cleared away, a few trees had been so felled that rude planks, made by splitting logs, could be placed across them for seats for the ladies, while the men mostly sat upon the trunks of other fallen trees. The pulpit or "stand" for the preacher was original and truly Gothic in its construction. It was made by cutting horizontal notches immediately opposite to each other, in the sides of two large oak-trees, standing about four feet apart, and inserting into these notches a board about a foot wide, that had been placed across a wagon and used for a seat by some of those present in coming to the meeting. The preacher placed his Bible and hymn-book upon this board, hung the indispensable saddle-bags in which he had brought them across one end of it, and so was ready for the services. I thought I had never seen in any cathedral a pulpit more simple and grand. Those towering, grand old oaks, with their massive, outstretching branches, spoke eloquently of the power and grandeur of the God who made them. And yet, small and puny as the preacher appeared in the contrast, it was a fitting place for him to stand and proclaim his message to the people who worshiped beneath them. Comparatively unlearned and ignorant as he was, he could tell them from that open Bible what they would never learn in the contemplation of grand old forests, or stars, or suns, or all the sublimest works of nature. All these are mute and dumb in regard to the story of the cross. However they may enkindle our rapture, or excite our reverence, they will never tell us how sin may be forgiven—how the soul may be saved.

The indispensable matter in the selection of grounds for a basket-meeting or a camp-meeting in the Southwest was a good spring of clear, running water. This must be so large as to furnish an abundance of water, not only for all the people who would be present, but for all the horses necessary to transport themselves and their provisions to the place of meeting. In hot weather the demands for water were large, and there was need for a "clear spring" like that so beautifully described by the poet Bryant:

"... yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth, and wandering, steeps the roots
Of half the mighty forest."

The sermon on this occasion was plain, sensible, and earnest. The preacher was superior to the people, and yet in all respects one of them. He had been born in the Brush, raised in the Brush, and had spent many years in preaching to the people in the Brush. He dressed as they dressed, talked as they talked, and, unconsciously to himself, used all their provincialisms in his sermons. In his thoughts, feelings, and manner of life he was in full sympathy with them. He had toiled among them long, earnestly, and successfully. He had preached to a great many congregations, scattered over a wide extent of Brush country. He had been associated with his brethren of different denominations in holding a great many union basket-meetings similar to the one now in progress. He was widely known, beloved, and honored. Perhaps the most widely known, honored, and successful pastorate in the country has been that of the late Rev. Dr. Gardner Spring, in New York. But I do not think that Dr. Spring, with all his talents, culture, and learning, could possibly have been as useful, as successful, as honored among these people, as was this preacher. He could not have eaten their coarse food, slept in their wretched beds, mingled with them in their daily life, or been in such complete sympathy with them in their poverty, struggles, temptations, and modes of thought, as to have so won their love and reverence, and led them in such numbers to the cross of Christ. "There are diversity of gifts, but the same spirit," etc. I honor these noble and heroic workers in the Master's vineyard, who thus toil on in the Brush, through scores of years, all unknown to fame. Many of them know nothing of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but they know how to win souls to Christ, and the highest authority has said, "He that winneth souls is wise."

That congregation, when assembled, seated, and engaged in their devotions, presented a scene not to be forgotten. The preacher, small in stature, stood upon a rude platform at the feet of the massive columns of his pulpit. The people were seated among the standing trees, upon seats arranged without any of the usual regularity and order, but lying at all points of the compass just as they had been able to fall, the smaller trees among the larger ones. The voice of prayer and song ascended amid those massive, towering columns, crowned with arches formed by their outstretching branches, and covered with dense foliage. It was the worship of God in his own temple. It carried the thoughts back to many scenes not unlike it, in the lives and labors of Christ and his apostles, when they preached and taught upon the Mount of Olives, by the shores of Gennesaret, and over the hills and valleys of Palestine. It gave new force and beauty to the familiar words of Bryant's grand and noble "Forest Hymn:"

"The groves were God's first temples, ere man learned
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them—ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication....
... Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives."

At the conclusion of the morning sermon the greater part of the congregation dispersed among the trees to take their dinner in the manner I have already described. I was invited to go with the preacher to a cabin about a mile distant, where we were to have our home during the meeting. We mounted our horses and accompanied our host through the woods to his residence. As I looked back, I saw that we were followed by some forty or more other guests. On reaching his home I found three buildings—a log-house, log-kitchen, and log-stable. Our horses were put in the stable and bountifully fed with corn in the ear and fodder. "Fodder" in these regions has a limited signification, and is applied only to the leaves which are stripped from the corn-stalks, tied in small bundles, and generally stacked for preservation. The stalks are not cut, as in the North and East, but the leaves are stripped from them while standing. This is the usual feed for horses in the place of hay.

The house was similar to all log-houses, but, as our company was so numerous, I had the curiosity to ask our host how large it was, and he told me that he cut the logs just twenty feet long. Its single room was, therefore, less than twenty feet square. We, however, received a warm and cordial welcome, and host, hostess, and guests seemed exceedingly happy. With a part of the company, I was soon invited into the adjoining house to dinner. This was much smaller—not more than ten or fifteen feet square. A loom in one corner filled a large part of the room. This was a very important part of their household treasures, as the greater portion of the clothing of the entire family was woven upon it. A long, narrow table, of home construction, occupied the space between the foot of the loom and the wall. There was a large fireplace in front, before which the coffee was smoking. A chair at each end and a bench on each side of the table furnished seats for ten guests. Our bill of fare was cold barbecued shoat, sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes, bread, honey, and coffee. Our honey was from a "bee tree," and our bread was of the Graham variety, from the necessities of the case. The wheat had been ground at a "horse mill" in the neighborhood, where they had no arrangements for separating the bran from the flour. Such a dinner was not to be despised by hungry men. By the way, I have found that over a very wide extent of our country the men, on such occasions, always eat first and alone, the women meanwhile standing around the table and waiting upon them. After we had finished our dinner, the table was rapidly reset by the aid of the "sisters" present, and ten more guests took their seats and dined. The same course was repeated until the table was set five times, and fifty persons had dined bountifully in that little log-cabin.

Having all dined, we returned to the preaching "stand," and the congregation reassembled. I preached to them at 4 P.M., and all the services were conducted to the close in a manner not essentially different from preaching services elsewhere.

The audience was dismissed for the night, and dispersed among the nearest cabins. My clerical friend and myself were joined by a young licentiate, and returned to spend the night at the house at which we had dined. The company was not as large as that at dinner, but to one inexperienced in such life, as I then was, it was beyond my comprehension how they could be entertained for the night. My experience and observation at dinner had shown me how we could get through with our supper. A succession of tables I understood, but how could that be applied to sleeping arrangements? A succession of beds was a kind of "succession" I had never heard or read of in ecclesiastical or any other history. But my perplexities were evidently not felt by any one else in the company, and I dismissed them.

All seemed as happy as they could well be. Conversation was animated. All tongues were loosed. There were stories of former basket and other meetings, of wonderful revivals, and of remarkable conversions. There were reminiscences of eccentric and favorite preachers who had labored among them long years before. There was the greatest variety of real Western and Southwestern religious melodies and songs. These were interspersed with the conversation during the evening, and were the source of great and unfailing interest and joy. So the hours rolled on, and all were happy. It was the occasion to which they had looked forward, and for which they had planned for months—the great occasion of all the year, and it brought no disappointment. For myself, I must say that if I ever drew upon my stores of anecdote, and whatever powers of entertaining I may possess, it was upon this occasion. I was quite in sympathy with the general joy and good feeling. During the evening one and another had called for the singing of different religious songs that were their favorites. On such occasions there was a general appeal to a young lady, who was quite the best singer in the company, to know if she knew the song called for; and if she did it was sung. At length a hymn was called for, and in response to the usual appeal she said she did not know it. I opened a book, found the hymn and tune, handed it to her, and said, "Here is the hymn with the tune. Perhaps you can sing it."

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.

My brief address was followed by a sermon entirely different from those of the preacher I have already described, and deserves notice as a type of thousands that are preached to the people in the Brush. Scarcely a sentence in the sermon was uttered in the usual method of speech. It was drawled out in a sing-song tone from the beginning to the end. The preacher ran his voice up, and sustained it at so high a pitch that he could make but little variation of voice upward. The air in his lungs would become exhausted, and at the conclusion of every sentence he would "catch" his breath with an "ah." As he proceeded with his sermon, and his vocal organs became wearied with this most unnatural exertion, the "ah" was repeated more and more frequently, until, with the most painful contortions of face and form, he would with difficulty articulate, in his sing-song tone:

"Oh, my beloved brethren—ah, and sisters—ah, you have all got to die—ah, and be buried—ah, and go to the judgment—ah, and stand before the great white throne—ah, and receive your rewards—ah, for the deeds—ah, done in the body—ah."

From the beginning to the end of his sermon, which occupied just an hour and ten minutes by my watch, I could not see the slightest evidence that he had any idea what he was going to say from one sentence to another. While "catching his breath," and saying "ah," he seemed to determine what he would say next. There was no more train of thought or connection of ideas than in the harangue of a maniac. And yet many hundreds of such sermons are preached in the Brush, and I am sorry to add that thousands of the people had rather hear these sermons than any others. This "holy tone" has charms for them not possessed by any possible eloquence. As the preacher "warms up" and becomes more animated in the progress of his discourse, the more impressible sisters begin to move their heads and bodies, and soon all the devout brethren and sisters sway their bodies back and forth in perfect unison, keeping time, in some mysterious manner, to his sing-song tone.

It seemed sad to me that such a congregation, gathered from such long distances, should have the morning hour occupied with such a sermon. But it was a union meeting, the preacher was the representative of his denomination, and they would have gone away worse than disappointed—grievously outraged—if they could not have heard this sermon with the "holy tone."

But our basket-meeting was to be signalized by an incident always interesting in all countries, in all grades of society, among the most rustic as well as among the most refined. After the benediction, a part of the congregation who were in the secret remained upon their seats, casting knowing and pleasant glances at each other. My friend W——, who, like a good many other preachers, and some preachers' wives, had faithfully kept a secret that a good many were "just dying to know," took his position in front of the "stand." A trembling, blushing, but happy pair advanced from the crowd, and took their position before him. The groom produced from his pocket the indispensable license. The dispersing crowd, having by some electric influence been apprised of what was going on, came rushing back, and mounted the surrounding stumps and logs, forming a standing background to the sitting circle. All looked on and listened in silence, while the preacher in a strong, clear voice proceeded to solemnize the marriage and pronounce them husband and wife. The scene was strange and strikingly impressive. It seemed a wedding in Nature's own cathedral. The day was perfect. Some rays from the sun penetrated the dense foliage above and fell upon the scene, mingling golden hues with the shadows, as the poet, the recently deceased A.B. Street, has so beautifully described:

"Here showers the sun in golden dots,
Here rests the shade in ebon spots,
So blended that the very air
Seems network as I enter here."

After the usual congratulations and kisses the groom withdrew, and reappeared in a few moments mounted upon a large gray horse. The bride, having gained the top of a stump, mounted his horse behind him, and the two rode away, as happy and satisfied as they could well be.

The larger congregation of the Sabbath made larger demands upon their hospitality; but these demands were fully met. The dinner, both under the trees and at the cabins, was but a reënactment of the scenes of the day before on an enlarged scale.

In the afternoon Mr. W—— preached a sensible and earnest sermon, like that of the day before. In my pocket-diary, written at the time, I have characterized it as a "thundering sermon." His voice was strong, and capable of reaching the largest congregations that he addressed in the open air. This sermon concluded the services of the basket-meeting. As the benediction was pronounced, three gentlemen on horseback arrived upon the ground. They were a presiding elder, a circuit-rider, and a class-leader, on their way to conference. They had preached some fifteen miles away in the morning, and continued their journey to reach this meeting. I knew them all, and had preached with and for them at their homes. As they were strangers to most, if not all, the people, I introduced them to the clergymen and others present. They were some twenty miles from any hotel or public-house, and of course must spend the night with some of these people. My host, to whom I had introduced them, said:

"I should be very glad to have you all stay with me, but I can't take care of your horses. I have a plenty of houseroom, but my stable is full."

From what I have already said of the numbers who dined and lodged with him, it will be seen that he had very enlarged ideas of the capacity of his house. An enthusiastic neighbor, who was about as rough a looking specimen of a backwoodsman as I ever saw, stepped forward and said:

"I have room enough for your horses and you too. I should be glad to have you all go with me."

The presiding elder went with him, but the preacher and the class-leader were claimed by others.

Before leaving the grounds, it was arranged between us that we should all meet at a designated place in the morning, and I would travel with them to the conference, to which I was thus far on my way. Though not an Arminian, but a Calvinist, though not a Methodist, but a Presbyterian, I knew that a cordial welcome awaited me as a representative of the American Bible Society. I knew that, in addition to this official welcome, I should receive the warm greetings of brethren beloved, with whom I had traveled many hundreds of miles over their "circuits," and mingled in all the novel, interesting, and eventful scenes in their wild itinerant life. When I met the elder the next morning, I asked him the nature of the very ample accommodations that were offered him. He said he slept upon the floor, but he did not undertake to count the number who shared it with him.

So ended the various incidents of our basket-meeting; but the recollection of it has been among the pleasant memories of my life in the Brush.

SOME EXPLANATORY WORDS.

Perhaps some statement in explanation of this "rough" but abounding hospitality of the people in the Brush is demanded in justice to those persons and places whose hospitality would seem to suffer in the contrast. I might enumerate many circumstances connected with life in a wild, unsettled country that will occur to most readers as the cause of this abounding hospitality; but it seems to me that the chief reason is the fact that meat, bread, and all their provisions, excepting groceries, cost them so very little. They estimate what they can use scarcely more than the water taken from their springs. Beef, pork, and bread cost them almost nothing. Their cattle run at large, and their free range includes thousands of acres of unoccupied lands. They grow and increase in this manner with but little attention or care. The hogs find their food in the woods the greater part of the year, and in the fall they fatten upon the nuts or "mast." The oak, hickory, beech, and other trees that abound in these extensive forests afford vast quantities of these nuts, which these people claim for their own hogs, whoever may own the land. I knew a man that owned several thousand acres of these lands, who sold the nuts on the ground to a "speculator," who drove his hogs upon the tract of land to eat them. But the residents were incensed at this trespass upon their immemorial privileges, and secretly shot and killed so many of these hogs that their owner was glad to escape with any part of his drove, and leave them possessors of the "mast." The method by which these people retain and recognize their ownership in the hogs that run at large and mingle together in the woods was quite new to me. The owner looks carefully after the young pigs, calls them, and feeds them, for some days or weeks, until they know his voice, and will come at his call. Whatever kind of a hoot, scream, or yell it is, they learn to associate it with their food, and run at the sound. Sometimes the owner merely blows a horn. If a hundred hogs belonging to half a dozen men are feeding together in the woods, and their owners sound their calls from different hills, the hogs will separate and rush in the direction of the sound to which they have been accustomed. In this manner these people secure for their families, with but little trouble, the most abundant supply of bacon. The corn, which furnishes the most of their bread, is raised with but little labor. After it is planted it is plowed or cultivated, and "laid by" without any hoeing at all. If they have enough to feed their hogs a short time before killing them, they do not gather this, but turn the hogs into the corn-fields, and let them help themselves. The drought that caused the famine in Kansas, in the early history of that State, extended over this region. As the breadth of ground planted here was so much greater, the results were not so sad. But there was a scarcity of corn such as the people had never known before. The price advanced from twenty and twenty-five cents a bushel to a dollar and upward, and many were unable to procure enough to make bread for their families. But the "mast" was abundant that fall, and there was no lack of bacon. I visited many families that lived almost entirely on meat. During the winter I met a physician who told me that in his ride among the hills he found whole families afflicted with a disease that was entirely new in his experience. Upon consulting his books, he found it was scurvy, the result of living upon little besides bacon.

With this usually abundant supply of food, which on account of the bad roads and the distance from market has but little pecuniary value; with houses and accommodations such as I have described; with but few books, newspapers, and other kinds of reading; with a dearth of the excitements and amusements of the outside world, it is not so strange or wonderful that they are eager for pleasures and enjoyments that involve these displays of hospitality.

I know that my statements often appear incredible to many of my readers. But I trust that, after these "explanatory words," I shall not tax too largely either the faith of my readers or my own character for veracity.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BAPTISM OF A SCOTCH BABY IN THE WILDS OF THE SOUTHWEST.

I wish to give my readers the details of a very pleasant incident in my experiences, quite incidental to my special work. I visited a small county-seat village in a very rough, wild region, where I had been directed to call upon a Methodist gentleman, who would render me efficient and cheerful aid in the prosecution of my labors. I met with the reception that had been promised, and made arrangements to preach "on the next day, which was the Sabbath." As the agents of the American Bible Society are chosen from the different religious denominations, they very naturally asked me with what church I was connected. When told that I was a Presbyterian, the gentleman and his wife turned at once to each other, a smile of unusual joy overspreading their features, and the lady, who was the first to speak, said:

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Dinwiddie will be gratified at last."

The conversation that followed, and other visits and conversations in the neighborhood, fully explained their joy at seeing me. The gentleman and lady alluded to were Scotch Presbyterians, who had been in this country but a few years, and they were very anxious to have their first-born child baptized by a minister of their own church. They, and a venerable man eighty-four years old, who had recently come from a distant part of the State to spend his declining years in the family of a widowed daughter, were the only persons in the county connected with that church, and they knew not when they might be favored with a visit from one of their own ministers. But, judging from the past history of the county, their prospects were dark indeed. A venerated father in this church, who was alive at the time of my visit, but has since gone to his reward, had preached in this county more than thirty years before on one of his missionary excursions through the State. I met those who had heard him preach and remembered his sermons. As far as could be ascertained, he was the last Presbyterian clergyman who had visited and preached in the county, and they knew not when to expect another. I subsequently saw this venerable preacher, and received from his own lips most interesting details of his explorations of these wild regions so many years before.

A week or two passed before I was able to visit this family, during which time I preached in rude log school-houses, in a ballroom, a court-house, from a "stand" erected for the purpose in the forest, and also standing on terra firma at the foot of an oak-tree, the congregation being seated upon benches, or on the ground, under the shade of surrounding oaks. In the different neighborhoods that I visited, I found the same general interest in behalf of this family and their child. According to a Scottish custom, they would not call their child by the name that had been chosen for it until that name had been given to it in the sacred rite of baptism. When asked by their neighbors the name of their child, they would reply, "Oh, she has no name. She has not been baptized yet. We call her 'Baby,' or some pet name." This seemed very strange to the people, and the dear little child that was growing up without a name became the object of general sympathy and interest throughout the county.

There is quite a celebrated watering-place (where my mare won the two hundred and fifty dollars) some fifteen miles from their forest home, and it was thought that there might be some Presbyterian clergyman among the visitors during the summer season, and a large number of persons had promised this family that they would let them know if any such clergyman arrived at the Springs, that they might send for him to baptize their child.

As soon as I was able to do so, I set out to visit this Scotch family, in whose history I had become very deeply interested. A Christian brother, residing at the county-seat and belonging to another denomination, kindly consented to accompany me, and show me the way to their residence. Our route was not over a road that had been laid out by a compass, but was the most of the way through the woods, winding its zigzag course over hill, and valley, and stream, among the tall monarchs of the forest. It was a hot day in August, but the dense foliage above us, as we rode through the "aisles of the dim woods," protected us from the heat of the sun, and our ride was altogether a pleasant one. After traveling some twelve or fifteen miles, we reached a "dead'ning," and soon were at the door of the log-cabin we were seeking.

I will not attempt to describe the joy of that young mother when my attendant introduced me to her as a Presbyterian clergyman, and explained the object of our visit. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh it is a tree of life." Years had passed since, a young and blooming bride, she had left the heathery hills of Scotland for a home in our Western wilds; but, until that moment, she had not seen a minister of the church of her home and her choice since the day that her loved pastor had solemnized that rite in which she gave herself to another, and sent her forth with the warm blessings of a pastor's heart. The loneliness of their forest home in a land of strangers was at length cheered by the tiny echo of a new and welcome voice in their rude dwelling. For many long months the "joyful mother" had gazed upon the sweet face of her lovely child, and longed, with unutterable longings, to dedicate her first-born to God in his own appointed ordinance. As the months rolled on and swelled to years, the many friends of her home in Scotland mingled their sympathies with hers; and the pastor, who could not forget the lamb that had thus gone forth from his flock, expressed his strong desire to stretch his arms across the broad Atlantic, and baptize this child of the forest into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. At the time of our arrival the husband and father was absent from his house, attending to his flocks. He was a shepherd, and had selected his home here because for a small sum he could purchase a large tract of land over which his flocks might range. As his wife did not know in what direction he had gone, and he could not easily be found, we determined to wait until he should return.

In the mean time we learned that the young mother we had found in the wilds of the Southwest was born in the East Indies, and had been sent to Scotland when eight years old to be educated among her relatives. We listened to the story of the religious privileges they had enjoyed at home; heard of the old pastor who, for more than fifty years, had watched over the same flock, a volume of whose sermons and sacramental addresses made a part of their library, and learned to love the youthful colleague and subsequent pastor. We were shown what was at the same time a certificate of marriage and church-membership, certifying that "William D—— and Mary R—— were lawfully married on ——, and that they immediately thereafter started for America. They were then both in full communion with the Church of Scotland, and entitled to all church privileges." We were also shown that most appropriate of bridal gifts from a pastor—a beautiful Bible, presented as a parting gift to "Mrs. William D——, with best wishes for the temporal and spiritual welfare of herself and her husband. II Chronicles, xv, 2; Psalms, cxxxix, 1-12." How strikingly appropriate these references!

At length the father returned, and added his warm welcome and greeting to that we had already received from the mother. They had both evidently received that thorough religious training so peculiar to their nation, and here, far away from their native heath, in their wild forest home, it was exerting its influence, not only upon them, but upon many around them. That very morning a neighbor had sent them word that a Presbyterian clergyman (the writer) had preached at the Springs a few days before, and at once a younger brother was dispatched with a large farm-wagon, their only conveyance, to bring the stranger to their home, that he might baptize their child. Our route in going, and his in coming for me, were the same, but we failed to meet each other on account of the numerous tracks through the woods. On reaching the county-seat from which we had started in the morning, he learned that, to the joy of the neighborhood, we had already left for the purpose of baptizing the child. He immediately turned back, hastened home, and reached there soon after the arrival of his brother. A neighbor, an old acquaintance from their home in Scotland, and a family domestic, now made our number just that of those to whom Noah, that "preacher of righteousness," undoubtedly ministered after they entered the ark.

The necessary preparations for the baptism were soon made. In the center of that low-roofed cabin a cloth of snowy whiteness was spread upon a table, upon which a bowl of water was placed. That little company then arose, and reverently stood while, after a brief address to the parents, the simple, solemn ordinance of baptism was administered, and parents, child, and friends far away, were commended in prayer to a "covenant-keeping" God. The sacred stillness of that calm evening hour, the associations of a home far away, and the tender memories of the instructions of other years that clustered around these strangers, rendered the simple service most impressive, and pervaded all with solemn awe. We could but feel that he who had said to Abraham, "I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee, in their generations, forever," had "bowed the heavens and come down"; and that he would ratify in heaven what had now been done on earth in the name of the Sacred Trinity. The happy mother pressed her fair-faced, beautiful child to her bosom with unwonted joy, and never did the sweet name Mary sound sweeter than when, with maternal fondness, she gazed into its clear blue eyes, and again and again, with alternate kisses, called her "Sweet Mary," "My Mary."

This was my first baptism; and the privilege of administering this Heaven-ordained rite, in circumstances like these, was compensation for months and years of such toils as they must endure who labor amid the moral desolations of our Western wilds.

CHAPTER VII.

BARBECUES; AND A BARBECUE WEDDING-FEAST IN THE SOUTHWEST.

The barbecue was an established institution in the Southwest. It had in no other part of the country so many devotees. There was a charm in the name that would at any time call together a large concourse of people, on the shortest notice, and for any occasion. And the savory smell of roasted ox, sheep, shoats, turkeys, rabbits, or whatever else was prepared to appease the appetite of a crowd, would keep them together to hear the longest political speeches, listen to the most protracted school examinations, give their attention to the most elaborate expositions of the importance of some projected turnpike or railroad, and secure a patient waiting and an unbroken audience on any occasion when the barbecue feast was to be the agreeable conclusion.

I have a most distinct and vivid recollection of my first view of the process of barbecuing a whole ox. At the close of a long, hot day's ride, I had stopped to spend the night at a small and very inferior country tavern. On the opposite side of the road, immediately in front of it, there was a large forest. As I took my accustomed walk to the stable, to see that my horse was properly fed and cared for, before retiring for the night, I was attracted by the glimmerings of a fire among the tall, large forest-trees in the distance; and then I saw through the darkness the dusky forms of negroes moving among the trees, and hovering around some strangely concealed fire, only the gleams of which I could see. Ordinarily such a light in the woods or at the roadside would not have attracted my attention. The sight was a matter of daily and nightly occurrence. But it was usually wagoners, or movers, or travelers of some kind, camping for the night and cooking their supper. A very large proportion of the people that one met traveling with their own teams in the Southwest were entirely independent of all hotels and houses of entertainment. They had a long, narrow box attached to the hind end of their wagons, that served as a manger in which to feed their horses. When night overtook them, they hitched and fed their horses in the rear of their wagons. They then lighted a fire, and needed little besides a frying-pan and coffee-pot to prepare a supper of bacon, corn-dodgers, and coffee, to which hunger and good digestion gave a relish such as pampered and sated epicures never know. Almost invariably their wagons were covered with coarse brown duck-cloth or canvas, which was stretched over hoops, and, if not provided with tents, they made their beds under this covering. Wagoners who transported goods, flour, and other commodities long distances, as well as movers and others, usually traveled in company, so that whenever they camped for the night, which they usually aimed to do near some spring or brook, they presented a very picturesque and animated scene. The view which attracted my attention had none of these accessories and surroundings, and I strolled into the woods to see what it might be. On arriving at the spot my curiosity was abundantly gratified and rewarded. I saw for the first time an immense ox in the process of being barbecued. And this was the process: A large trench had been dug in the ground, about six or seven feet wide, eight or ten feet long, and four or five feet deep. This trench had been filled with the best quality of beech or maple wood from the body of the trees. This had been set on fire and burned until there was left a bed of burning coals, some two or three feet deep, that did not emit a particle of smoke. The slaughtered ox had been laid completely open, and two large spits, about eight feet long, had been thrust through each fore and hind leg lengthwise, and four negroes or more, taking hold of the ends of these spits, had laid the ox over this trench above this bed of burning coals. There the bovine monarch lay, cooking as beautifully as in my childhood I had seen many a turkey, suspended by a long string, swinging before the large wood-fire that was burning and blazing upon the ample hearth of our family kitchen. And it was upon the same principle—the juices were all cooked in. The negroes were gathered around the ox, with large swabs upon long sticks, with which they incessantly "basted" it, with a liquid prepared for this purpose and standing in large kettles on either side of the trench. From time to time the large bed of coals was stirred, and occasionally they performed the difficult feat of turning over the entire ox, so that each side might be cooked at an equal rate of progress. This work they greatly enjoyed. There was enough of the wild and strange about it to gratify their excitable natures. For the time being they were supremely happy. The stillness of the night, the surrounding darkness, and the gleams of that large and brightly burning bed of coals in the overhanging tree-tops, gave to the whole scene a weird character which awoke all the enthusiasm of their untutored natures. Through the long night they cheerfully plied their task, stirring up from the depths the live burning coals, and "basting" and turning the ox as often as was necessary. Frequently they sang those strange, wild African songs that they are accustomed to improvise while at work and upon all kinds of occasions, and as they echoed among the forest-trees and floated out upon the night-air, the soft, sweet melody was most enchanting. As I left to go to my room for the night, and turned to look back upon them from the darkness, the strange scene seemed not unlike a company of Druid priests offering a sacrificial victim in some grand old English forest. In the morning I made them another visit. Many of the coals had turned to ashes, and the bed was much reduced in depth. But when the negroes put in their long poles, they stirred up an abundance of bright coals from the bottom. The ox, which had been placed over the fire at sundown the night before, was to be cooked until noon, when the grand barbecue dinner was to be eaten. The smaller animals, such as sheep and shoats and the various kinds of poultry, were to be placed over the fire in time to be nicely cooked by this hour. At that time every portion of the ox would be thoroughly done to the bone; not baked and burned and dried, but made more juicy and tender and sweet than any one has ever once dreamed that the best of beef could be who has not eaten it cooked in this manner. I have never, at the most magnificent hotels, or the most luxurious private tables, eaten any kind of meat, poultry, or game that was so rich, tender, and agreeable to the taste as that barbecued in the manner I have described.

This was a political barbecue, at which several distinguished speakers, candidates for various offices, were to address the people. But my engagements for preaching, and other duties connected with my mission the next day, were such that I was compelled to leave immediately after breakfast. I could not hear the speeches, see the long tables, made of rough boards, spread under the forest-trees, participate with the immense throng in their barbecue dinner, and witness and enjoy all the strange and varied scenes and incidents inseparably connected with such a gathering of all the "sovereigns" in the Brush. But what I have said will suffice to give my readers the modus operandi of a barbecue. It will be seen that it is the simplest possible manner of preparing a dinner for a large concourse of people. It requires neither building, stove, oven, range, nor baking-pans. It involves no house-cleaning after the feast. It soils and spoils no carpets or furniture. And in the mild, bountiful region where the ox and all that is eaten are raised with so little care, the cost of feeding hundreds, or even thousands, in this manner is merely nominal. Hence barbecues have been for a long time so common and popular in the Southwest. There have been unnumbered political barbecues, where the eloquence peculiar to that region has been developed, and where vast audiences have been moved by its power, as the trees beneath which they were gathered have been swayed by the winds. In the published life and speeches of Henry Clay are several that were delivered at different barbecues, where he addressed the people on state and national affairs, with an eloquence and power equal to, if not greater than, that with which he enchained the Senate. There have been barbecues in connection with school-examinations, and Sabbath-school celebrations where educational and religious topics have been discussed. There have been barbecues in connection with meetings in favor of turn-pikes, railroads, and all kinds of internal improvements. There have been uncounted barbecue-dances, and barbecues for more occasions than I can name. But of all these I will only describe a large wedding, that was succeeded by a barbecue-supper, that I had the pleasure of attending.

I had spent the Sabbath at a small county-seat village, and on Monday morning my kind friend and hostess said to me: "We are to have a large wedding on Thursday night of this week, and, if possible, you must stay in the county long enough to attend it. Mr. C——'s only daughter is to be married to Mr. R——, our county clerk, and, as Mr. C—— is a widower, I leave home this morning to go and assist them in their preparations."

As I was obliged to visit several persons in different parts of the county, on business connected with my Bible work, I planned my rides so as to reach the neighborhood in which Mr. C—— resided on the day appointed for the wedding. I received a cordial welcome from my lady friend, who was installed as presiding mistress for the occasion, and from the father of the bride, to whom she introduced me. He was an old and highly esteemed citizen of the county, and a warm personal and political friend of her husband. It was on account of these relations between the families, and purely as an act of neighborly kindness, that she had left her own home to take charge of his family, and direct his servants during this, to them, eventful week. He belonged to the dominant party, and had represented his fellow-citizens in the Legislature of the State. Tall in stature, plainly dressed, mostly in home-made jeans, of simple, unstudied manners, his kind face and warm heart bespoke a man to be revered and loved by his neighbors and by all to whom he was known. He was in comfortable but not affluent circumstances—in the vernacular of the region, "a good liver." His house was of the prevailing style of architecture for the better class of plantation-houses in the Southwest and South. It was a two-story frame, with a wide hall or "passage" through the middle of it, and a chimney on each end, built outside of the house. In the rear, and communicating with it, was a log building, which had probably been the home of his early married life, in which the supper-table was to be spread for this occasion. Early in the afternoon the guests began to arrive. A few from adjoining counties, and from the greatest distance, persons of wealth and high social position, came in carriages; but by far the greatest number, both of ladies and gentlemen, arrived on horseback. The ladies almost invariably had a carpet-bag or sachel hung on the horn of their saddles, in which they brought the dresses in which they were to grace the occasion. A horseback-ride over such roads, and through such mud and clay as most of them had come, would not leave the most becoming wedding attire in a very presentable condition. Hence these arrangements to "dress" after their arrival. As they rode up, many of them with calico sun-bonnets and butternut-colored riding-dresses, such as I have elsewhere described, and bespattered with mud, they looked more like bands of wandering gypsies than wedding guests. But the best of colored waiting-maids, from near and remote plantations, were in attendance, who took charge of the sachels, and of their young misses, and conducted them to some capacious dressing-room. Here each maid was anxious that her young "missus" should eclipse all the others, and under the manipulations of these ambitious servants they emerged from the room transformed, if not to wood-nymphs and fairies, at least to a becomingly attired and very bright and happy throng.

It was often very interesting to me to witness the solicitude and pride of these family servants in the appearance made and the attentions received by their young mistresses, and the art which they frequently displayed in aiding or defeating matrimonial alliances that were agreeable or otherwise to them. This was often a very important matter to them, as it involved the question whether they were to have a kind or an unkind master. If the suitor pleased them, they poured into his ears the most extravagant praises of their young "missus," and waited upon him with the most marked attention and delight. But if they knew that his temper and habits were bad, and thought he would make an unkind master, they did not fail to repeat, in ears where it would be most effective, all that they knew to his discredit. In this manner they have aided in making and defeating many matches.

As the sun declined, the arrivals increased until the numbers swelled to scores, to fifties, and, when all had assembled, there were in and around the house more than two hundred. It was a genial, happy throng. All were in the best possible humor. There were pleasant, kindly greetings between the old, and frolic and flirtations among the young. At about nine o'clock the wedding ceremony was announced, and as many of the guests as possible assembled in the largest room. The bride and groom, with bridesmaids and groomsmen becomingly attired, entered the room where we were gathered, and the ceremony was performed by a clergyman of the neighborhood, which was followed by the usual congratulations and greetings.

But there had been barbecuing and cooking of all kinds for days before, and very soon we followed the bride and groom with our ladies to the supper-room. The tables were arranged diagonally across the room from corner to corner, in the form of the letter X, so as to accommodate the largest number. There was the greatest abundance of barbecued meats, and poultry of different kinds, with a variety of cakes, pies, and everything else to make a hearty and bountiful feast. This was enjoyed with the keenest relish by all those who had gained admittance to the supper-room; and, when their appetites were fully satisfied, they retired to give place to others. These in turn gave place to others, and so tableful succeeded tableful for hours. While the feasting was going on, the others were enjoying themselves in conversation and general hilarity. Not a few occupied the large porch, and enjoyed a smoke and social chat. I sat down here and had a long talk with the father of the bride. He told me that, after inviting his particular friends, legislators, members of the bar, and others, from adjoining counties and distant neighborhoods, he had put a negro boy upon a horse and directed him to go to every family, rich and poor, within a circle of a few miles around his home, and invite them all to the wedding. I think that very few that could possibly get there had remained at home. It was a thoroughly promiscuous crowd. It embraced all ages and all grades of people that the region produced, and all seemed equally to enjoy the gathering, as they were free to do in their own way. Some time after midnight I gratified my curiosity by going into the supper-room and asking my lady friend, who was the mistress of ceremonies, if she had any idea how many persons had already taken supper. She replied:

"I had not thought of that, but I can easily tell. The table has been set each time with thirty-two plates, and this is the fifth tableful."

And still others were waiting, and after them all the colored servants were to have their feast—in all, more than two hundred.

Later in the night a gentleman residing in the neighborhood invited me and several other gentlemen to go home and lodge with him. Before leaving, my lady friend came to me, and said:

"You must come back here and get your breakfast in the morning."

I replied:

"Is it possible that you will have anything to eat after feeding this great crowd?"

"Oh, yes," said she, opening a door, and directing me to look into a room where the provisions were stored; "we have five barbecued shoats that have not been touched yet."

We mounted our horses, and rode through the darkness to my lodging-place for the night. Beds were soon divided and scattered over the floor, making pallets enough for each of us. The wife of my hospitable friend, with the most of the ladies in attendance, remained at the house and slept in this same manner, covering the floors of the different rooms. Husbands and wives were generally separated that night, the gentlemen going to the different houses in the neighborhood to sleep, as we had done. When we arose in the morning, my host said:

"We shall all have to go back to get our breakfast. There is not a knife, fork, or dish in the house. They are all at the wedding."

This was the condition of most of the houses in the neighborhood. When we returned, we found a large company and an abundant breakfast. After mingling with the departing guests for a time, I renewed my congratulations and good wishes for the happy pair, and bade good-by to my kind friends, greatly pleased with this entirely new experience at a wedding.

Such is a simple, unadorned narrative of a wedding, with its barbecue feast, at which I was a guest in the Southwest. How unlike those that I have attended in our largest cities! But who shall say at which there was the greatest and most universal happiness, whether where wealth and fashion held high carnival, or at this more simple and primitive gathering and feasting of old neighbors and friends in the Southwest?

CHAPTER VIII.

THE OLD, OLD BOOK AND ITS STORY IN THE WILDS OF THE SOUTHWEST.

I have never known such remarkable and pleasing results follow the reading of the Bible, without any human help, as among the ignorant people I have visited, living in wild and neglected regions in the Brush. I propose in this chapter to give a detailed account of the results that followed its presentation, by Mr. J.G. K——, to families living among the hills upon the head-waters of a stream that I thought was rightly named "Rough Creek." Mr. K—— was a venerable and faithful Bible-distributor, sixty-four years old, and he loved, above everything else, to go from house to house with the Word of God, and strive by simple, earnest exhortation and fervent prayer to lead souls to Christ. While prosecuting his labors in this neglected region, he found in one neighborhood sixteen families out of twenty without a Bible, and supplied the most of them by gift.

This region of country was exceedingly wild, broken, and inaccessible, there being no main public road leading to it. The hills were high and steep, the valleys narrow, and the people were scattered along the creeks and over the hill-sides, with no other roads leading to them than neighborhood paths. Mr. K—— told me that he never could have found all these families had not a young man who was born in the vicinity (who had since become a Methodist preacher) volunteered to accompany him as a guide. He had hunted deer, foxes, wildcats, and other game over these hills until he knew every locality and path. Entering these rude, humble cabins, they explained the nature of their work, supplied the families with the Word of God by sale or gift, and then, after kindly and earnestly urging upon them the worth of the soul and the importance of securing at once an interest in Christ, they bowed with them in prayer, and humbly and earnestly besought God's blessing upon them. There was a strange interest in these visits. The voice of prayer had never before been heard in many of these dwellings. Though their visits were so strange and unusual in their nature, they were everywhere kindly received, the mild, benignant face of the venerable distributor making him everywhere a welcome visitor. Where will not a face full of geniality and sunshine secure a welcome for its possessor?

As he was concluding his prayer at one of these cabins, the old man, who had been absent, returned, and hearing the strange sound in his house, cried out, in astonishment, "Wake, snakes!" But, on going into the house when the prayer was concluded, our visitor received him with a smile, explained to him the nature of his visit, and at once made a personal religious appeal to him. The old man treated his visitor very kindly, though he seemed to be in a very jocular mood, and replied to most of his remarks with some playful speech. But when his visitor left he went out with him, and assisted him in getting on to his horse, and invited him to call again whenever he should pass that way. But generally their exhortations were listened to with deep solemnity and awe, and their visits evidently made a deep religious impression upon the neighborhood.

Not many weeks after these visits of Mr. K——, reports were received that several persons in this neighborhood had been hopefully converted; and for a year or more I was almost constantly hearing from various sources of the wonderful work of grace that was going on there. The statements in regard to the number and character of the conversions were so remarkable that I was unwilling to make them public until I had made a personal visit to the neighborhood, and seen with my own eyes what God had wrought. I subsequently made that visit, and can truly say that the half had not been told me. My powers are not equal to the work of giving an adequate description of the great change that had been wrought through the power of God's Word and Spirit, but I will give some of the main facts.

I arrived at a house to which I had been directed, near this neighborhood, about midday, having traveled for miles in the foot-paths that led from one cabin to that of the next neighbor. Where the path was blind and difficult to follow, the people would often send a little boy or girl along to show me the way. On making myself known as a preacher, and the agent of the American Bible Society, I was at once greeted with the usual question, "Won't you preach for us to-night?"

I gladly assented, as I had made the journey to learn the real condition of things, and I was anxious to see as many of the people as possible. Word was at once sent over the hills in different directions that I would preach that night in a log-house that had been erected since the visit of Mr. K—— for a school and meeting house; and shell-bark-hickory torches were at once prepared to light me and the hospitable family that entertained me to and from the place of meeting. This house was upon a hill in the midst of the woods, and at some distance from any clearing, having been placed there on account of its central position in the neighborhood. Though the notice was short, and the night dark, and all who came had to make their way by torchlight through the forest, the house was well filled, and it was a real pleasure to unfold and enforce the truths of the Gospel, in simple language, to a group whose solemn stillness and attention showed that they listened indeed as to a message from Heaven.

At the close of our services it was a rare and beautiful sight to see the audience disperse from that rude sanctuary, some on foot, and some on horseback—a father, mother, and three children upon a single horse—the oldest child in front of the father, the second behind the mother, and the third in the mother's arms, their flaming torches lighting up the grand old forest, as they set out for their homes with parting words of Christian hope and cheer.

In the prosecution of my inquiries I learned that the first person who had been converted in the neighborhood, after the visit of Mr. K——, was Mr. Jake G——, who had received a Testament in the following manner. When Mr. K—— and his guide were making their visits, they called at a house where there were eight children, and the parents were both gone from home. On inquiring of the children if their parents had a Bible, they said they did not know—meaning, undoubtedly, that they did not know what a Bible was.

Without dismounting, they gave the children a Testament, and told them to give it to their parents when they came home.

Not long after this the guide who accompanied Mr. K—— met the man at whose house they had left the Testament, and he immediately said: "I'm mighty sorry I was not at home when you and old man K—— were around with them books, for I'm mightily pleased with the little book you left at my house. Joe H—— told me you had some bigger ones" (Bibles) "at his house, and if I had been at home I would have got one of them bigger ones sure; for I'm mightily pleased with the little one. I can't read, and my wife and children can't read; but Brother Joe's wife can read, and she comes over to our house, and we get her to read out of that little book; and it's mighty pretty reading. I've heard reading afore, but I never heard any reading afore that I wanted to hear read again. But that little book I do take to mightily. Brother Fred's wife can read, too, and we get her to read out of the little book; and everybody that comes to our house that can read, we get them to read out of that little book; and—I don't know what it is—I never heard any such reading afore; every time they read to me out of that little book it makes me cry, and I can't help it."

I have already said that this man was the first person who was converted in the neighborhood after the visit of the Bible-distributor. They read "that little book" until he and his wife, and those two brothers and their wives, became savingly acquainted with its truths, and they, with many others in the neighborhood, became the humble and devoted followers of Christ. I learned that this Mr. Jake G——, who had received and who now loved his "little book," as I have described, belonged to a family remarkable for their ignorance and irreligion. Though he had eight children, his grandfather was yet alive, more than ninety years old, and still a very hardened sinner. He had come to this neighborhood from southwestern Virginia more than thirty years before. He had had eighteen children, thirteen of whom lived to marry, and nine of whom were settled immediately around him. None of his children could read a word except two of the youngest, who had attended school a little after leaving Virginia, and, though all of them had large families, all of them were without the Bible but two. One son and one daughter had married persons who had a Bible. The two Bibles that had been obtained by marriage were the only Bibles in this large family connection when Mr. K—— visited the neighborhood and supplied them all.

The father of the man who had received the Testament was sixty-two years old; had reared a family of nine children, not one of whom nor himself could read, and all of them had grown up and married but two; and that large family had never owned a Bible. The mother could read, and Mr. K—— gave her a Bible. Now she and her husband and six of their children were numbered with the people of God, and though unable to read were humble learners at the feet of Jesus.

The morning after my sermon, accompanied by a small boy, whom my host kindly sent along as a guide, I rode through the woods and over the hills to the house of Mr. Jake G——, where, several months before, the "little book" had been left by the Bible-distributor and his guide. He was among my hearers the night before, and I had sought an introduction to him, had a short conversation with him, and told him I would come and see him in the morning. I was particularly anxious to spend a few hours with him in his own home, and get the story of the great change that had been wrought in himself and in the neighborhood, from his own lips, and in his own genuine Brush vernacular.

There is to me a strange interest and pleasure in hearing one whose soul has been thoroughly subdued by the power and grace of God, who as yet knows little of the Bible, and less of the set phrases in which religious thoughts are usually communicated, give expression to the warm and glowing emotions of his soul, in language all his own. There is often in these recitals the highest type of simple, natural eloquence in the singularity, the quaintness, and the power of the language used.

As I rode up the hill-side and hitched my horse to the rail-fence in front of his log-cabin, he came out to meet and welcome me. But there was not that warmth of cordiality with which he had shaken my hand the night before. As I entered the house with him and took a seat, he remained standing, and walked about the floor continually, with an uneasy, troubled air. He was a very tall man, was barefooted, and his only dress was a shirt and pantaloons. After some little conversation, he turned to me and said, "How much does that little book sell for?"

I could not imagine why he asked the question, but replied at once, "Only a dime, sir." (The Bibles and Testaments were sold as near the cost-price in New York as possible, but as no pennies were used in any business transactions in all this region, we were obliged to sell this Testament, costing six and a fourth cents, for a dime.)

He did not make any response to my answer, but, after some further conversation, which I tried to keep up, he came and stood directly over me, and said, in a very sad tone of voice, "Well, sir, I have only got half enough to pay for that little book, but if I had the money I'd pay five dollars before I'd give it up."

Understanding at once that he supposed I was on a collecting tour, and that this was the cause of my visit and all his trouble, I said, "Why, sir, did you suppose I had come to get the pay for your little Testament?"

"H'ain't you?" asked his wife eagerly, a slight smile of hope passing over her earnest, expressive face.

"Why, no, indeed," said I; "that book was given to you. The Bible Society gives away a great many Bibles and Testaments, and all they want is to know that people make good use of them."

"Well, I declare!" said she, her face all radiant with joy. "We've been right smartly troubled about it all the morning. I knew we hadn't got money enough to pay for it, and I didn't know what we should do. I wouldn't give it up for nothing. I know none of us can't read any, but we get it read a mighty heap. I love to have it in the house, whether we can read or not. That's the little book we're trying to go by now, and whenever they gets together the first thing is to get out the little book, and it seems like they never get tired of it."

That was one of the most moving and beautiful tributes of affection and love for the Word of God to which I have ever listened. I see her now through the lapse of years, her bright, black eyes and her face all aglow with joy, as she sat at one side of her fireplace in that comfortless cabin. The chimney, made of sticks and mud, and standing on the outside of the house, had leaned away from the opening that had been cut through the logs for the fireplace, and left a large open space through which and the logs the winds blew upon her back about as freely as through a rail-fence. Where the brick or stone hearth should have been, there was only a bed of ashes and a few smoldering fire-brands. Two beds on one side of the room and a few rough articles of household furniture numbered all the comforts of their one apartment. Such were her surroundings, and yet I had made her one of the happiest mortals I have ever seen. As I looked into her black, expressive eyes and her bright face, which must have been beautiful in earlier years, it was hard to believe that she could not read a word—that she had never learned a single letter of the alphabet of her mother-tongue.

"Well," said an old man, who thus far had sat quite mute, "I'm sure my old woman makes good use of hers; she reads it about half the time. I believe she would go crazy if you should take her Bible away."

This old man, with his hair hanging down to his shoulders, his powder-horn, pouch, and other hunting equipments hanging at his side, had entered the house with his gun in hand just as I rode up, having apparently just returned from a morning hunt. I now learned that he was the father of the man at whose house I was—the man in whose family so great a change had been wrought since Mr. K—— had given his wife the Bible. After I had satisfied them that they were not to lose their Testament and Bible, all tongues were unloosed, and I wish it were in my power to give in detail the conversation that followed.

"Can't you stay and preach for us to-night?" said the old man. "We can send word around, and you'll have a house full. I want to hear you mightily. We didn't sleep any last night, hardly. Jake came home from meeting so full, and he was trying to tell us about the sermon. You ought to stay and see the G——s; you ought to hear them sing and pray."

I consented to preach again most gladly, and after full consultation among themselves as to whose house in the neighborhood would hold the most people, and arrangements had been made for circulating the notice, they all sat down and listened intently while I read to them out of the "little book," explaining the portions read as I would attempt to explain them to an infant-class in a Sabbath-school. I remember that the great change wrought in themselves and their neighbors seemed an incomprehensible mystery to them. So, looking out of the open door of their cabin and down the hill-side, I pointed them to the tops of the large forest trees that were swaying to and fro in the wind, and said:

"You see all those trees in motion, but can not see anything moving them. And yet you know what it is. You know that it is the wind. You can not see it, but you can hear its sound."

I then opened their "little book" (for I had preferred to read to them out of their own prized treasure, that they might be sure, after I was gone, that they had in their possession all that I had read and explained to them), and read to them the story of the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus, calling their special attention to the passage: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit."

This passage was apparently new, and made the whole matter wonderfully clear to them, affording them the most intense pleasure and satisfaction. So I read, and they listened to these simple comments, for an hour or more with expressions of the deepest interest, and would evidently have listened thus for hours. We then all bowed upon our knees, and, after I had prayed, Mr. Jake G——, at my request, offered a prayer, such as he offered daily as he assembled his children around that family altar; a prayer so broken, so humble, so sincere, as to move the stoutest heart. I wish I could give the whole of it; but I only remember the first sentence, "O Lord, we bow down to call on thy name as well as we know how."

I spent the rest of the day with the old man, visiting different families, and in his own, reading the Bible to them, praying with them, and listening to their simple details of the wonderful change that had been wrought among them. Their own statements in regard to the exceeding ignorance and irreligion of the community corroborated the accounts I heard of them in all the country around.

"I've known a heap of people," said the old man, as we left the house, and started off through the woods, "but I never did know as bad a set as the G——'s" (his own family). "Every one of my boys played the fiddle, and every one of my children had rather dance than eat the best meal that could be got. Every one of my boys played cards and gambled. Every one of them would go to horse-races and shooting-matches, and get drunk, and fight, and get into all kinds of scrapes. And my boy Dock—that ain't his name, but that's what we all call him—I do wish you could hear Dock pray now—my boy Dock used to get drunk and have fits [delirium tremens], and when he was gone to a shooting-match or a log-rolling, or any such place, I'd go to bed at night, but I couldn't go to sleep. I'd just lie and wait to hear him holler, and I've gone out many a night and brought him into the house out of the most awful places. And Sundays—why, I didn't hear a sermon in fifteen years. Sundays my yard was filled with people who came from all around here, and jumped, and played marbles, and shot at a mark, and frolicked, all day long. And such a thing as a hime" (hymn), continued the old man, "singin' himes or prayin', why, there wa'n't no such thing in all the neighborhood. When they first began to hold meetings around, there wa'n't nobody to raise the tunes. Now they know a heap of himes, and sometimes Jake leads the meetin', and sometimes Dock, and you ought to hear them all sing and pray now."

So the old man talked on, giving his simple narrative of these and a great many other facts, until at length we came to a log-house. This was the place where I was to preach that night, the home of a brother—the old man that had shouted "Wake, snakes!" at hearing Mr. K—— pray. He had since died, and died unconverted, and the account that the old man gave of the death of this brother was most touching. As his case grew more and more hopeless, those of his children and relatives who had been converted felt the deepest interest for him, talked with him as well as they knew how, and prayed with him; but all apparently in vain.

"I watched him from day to day," said the old man, "until I saw there was no hope for him. I knew that he must die, and I knew that he was not prepared. I shook hands with him, bid him good-by, and turned away from him, and thought I had no time to lose. I determined to try and get religion at once, and be prepared for death."

When at length his family and friends had gathered around his bed to see him die, his youngest daughter, that had lately been converted, who was about eighteen years old, but could not read a letter, agonized at the thought of his leaving the world unprepared, rushed forward, knelt at his bedside, and gave vent to her emotions in a prayer such as is rarely offered. Those who heard it were most of them as illiterate as herself, and incompetent to describe it; but from their accounts the scene was solemn, and the effect overpowering to all except the dying man. As she arose from her knees, he opened his eyes, and said, faintly, "I never expected that [to hear a prayer] from one of my children," and in a few moments breathed his last. During my visit here I asked this young lady if she could read. She replied:

"Oh, no, sir; I was always too industrious to take time to learn to read." Her arms were colored to above her elbows, where she had had them in the dye-tub, preparing the "butternut-woolsey" for the family use.

From this place the old man took me to his own house. As we went up to the door, his wife stood with her back to us, washing dishes, and he rapped at the door. She turned her head so as to see us both, but did not move her body or say a word. He then said:

"Old woman, see here!" (pointing to me), "here is a man that has come to get your Bible."

Looking at me a moment, she responded:

"You talk too much," and resumed her work.

We then entered the house, and he informed his wife and daughter who I was and that I was to preach that night. After I had talked with them a while, it was proposed that I should again read and explain the Bible to them. At his son's house, as they had all been so wicked, I had read, among other portions, the account of the persecutions and the conversion of the Apostle Paul, and given them a simple sketch of his subsequent history, and then pointed out the parts of the "little book" that this man who had been so wicked had been inspired to write. This story was almost if not entirely new to them, and they were greatly interested in it. When the family were seated, and I was about to read to them, the old man said to me:

"Can't you read that again that you read up at Jake's? That about—that—that—that what do you call him?"

"Paul," said I.

"Yes, Paul, Saul, Paul. Read that about Paul. If that don't hit the nail on the head better than anything I ever heard afore!"

I, of course, consented, and went over the story again for the benefit of his family, and the facts seemed to lose none of their interest to the old man by their repetition. Having spent all the time desirable in reading and praying with this family, there were still a few hours before the preaching service began. Shall I introduce my readers more fully to this home in the Brush, and tell them how this time was passed? The house contained but a single room. The daughter of whom I have spoken was about eighteen or twenty years old, tall and large, wore a butternut-colored woolsey dress that she had probably spun and woven, and was barefooted. I had not been long in the house before she retired from their only room, in which I sat, and in honor of my arrival reappeared in another dress. I do not know where she made her toilet, only that it was the same ample and magnificent dressing-room first used by Mother Eve. The material of the dress in which she appeared was old-fashioned cheap curtain calico, with waving stripes some two or three inches wide running its entire length. Preferring perfect freedom and the comfort of the cooling breezes to considerations that would have been influential with most of my lady readers, in thus making her toilet she had chosen to remain stockingless and shoeless. A massive head of dark-brown hair, cut squarely off and pushed behind her ears, hung loosely down her neck.

When the dishes were washed and all the after-dinner work accomplished, and she was prepared to sit down and enjoy the conversation, she took from the rude mantle-tree above the fireplace a cob-pipe, and filled it with home-grown and home-cured tobacco from an abundant supply in a large pocket in her dress. Lighting her pipe, she took a seat at the right of her father, while I occupied a chair on his left. Soon large columns of smoke began to rise and roll away above her head as gracefully as I have ever seen them float around the head of the most fashionable smoker with the most costly meerschaum. Bending her right arm so that she could clasp the long stem of her pipe with her forefinger, she rested the elbow in the palm of her left hand. Then, placing her right limb across her left knee, she swung the pendent foot slowly, as if in meditative mood, and yielded herself to the full enjoyment of her pipe and our conversation. Her name I should have said was Barbara. She was of a quiet, taciturn disposition, and rarely said anything, except as she was appealed to on some matter by her proud and happy father.

I have met some people who were so ignorant in regard to rustic manufactures that they did not know what a "cob"-pipe was. For the sake of any that may be similarly uninformed, I will describe one. It is made by taking a section of a common corn-cob some two or three inches in length, and boring or burning out with a hot iron the pith of the cob some two thirds of its length, and then boring or burning a small hole transversely through the cob to the base of the bowl already made, and inserting in this a small hollow reed or cane for a stem. These pipe-stems are long or short, from a few inches to two or three feet, according to the preference of those who are to use them. I have often been told by old smokers that no pipe was as pleasant or sweet as a cob-pipe. The great objection to them is that they have to be renewed so frequently.

Seated as I have already described, the hours passed away to the evident satisfaction of my entertainers. It is not an easy matter to maintain a conversation for several hours with those who have never read a word of their mother-tongue. Their stock of ideas is necessarily rather limited. But a very large experience in mingling with this class of people had given me such facilities that I was evidently already installed as a favorite in the family. I asked a great many questions in regard to the children and grandchildren, which were answered with the interest which always pertains to these inquiries. At length the old man returned the compliment by inquiring very particularly into my own family affairs. When pressed upon this subject, as I almost universally was by families in the Brush, I was compelled to tell them that my family was very small—as small as possible—just that of the Apostle Paul; in plain language, that I was that quite unusual character, a clerical bachelor. The old man was astonished. I think he was gratified. His face glowed with some new emotion. He was evidently willing on our short acquaintance to receive me as a son-in-law. Turning his pleased, animated face to me, and leaning forward in his chair, he lifted his right hand, and, pointing with an emphatic gesture to his daughter, said:

"Well, preacher, my gals is all married but Barbara here, and she is ready, sir."

Miss Barbara retained her hold upon the long stem of her cob-pipe, and smoked on, wellnigh imperturbable at this sudden culmination of affairs, though I think that, like myself, she was somewhat startled and moved, for I could see an evident increase in the swinging movement of her still pendent right foot.

"Well, Preacher, my gals is all married but Barbara here, and she is ready, sir."

But I must pass over other and interesting incidents of the day. Night came, and with it the congregation that had been promised. Temporary seats had been provided, and the log-cabin was closely packed. As the last of the company were arriving, it began to sprinkle, and as our services progressed the rain fell in torrents. There was grandeur in the storm as the wind howled among the trees and the rain beat upon the roof but a few feet above our heads. As the most of the company could not read, and all were very ignorant, my sermon was as simple as I could possibly make it. It was listened to with an eager interest, reminding me of the words of the prophet: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Those simple babes in Christ had as yet no idea of a meeting without special efforts for the conversion of the impenitent; and, in response to my appeal made after the sermon, a little girl, some twelve or fourteen years old, came forward to be prayed for. As she started, the audience were greatly moved. She was the great-grandchild of the hoary-headed and hardened sinner who had raised his large family as I have already described, and who still lived and looked on unmoved at the wonderful work God was doing among his children and his children's children. She was the eldest daughter of Dock G——, and after I had instructed her and pointed her to Christ as best I could in these circumstances, and several prayers had been offered for her, her father knelt by her side and poured forth the yearning desires of his burdened soul in her behalf. It was a prayer of confession of parental unfaithfulness, of thanksgiving for what God had already done, and of earnest, importunate wrestlings for one that was a part of himself and must live for ever. It was a prayer such as I had never heard before. I did not wonder that his father had said to me in the morning, "I do wish you could hear Dock pray now." Though he could not read, his mind was evidently of a superior order, and the language of his prayer was not such as he had acquired by hearing others pray, but was entirely his own. It was deeply affecting to hear such familiar thoughts, uttered in language so strange and unusual.

As the rain continued to pour in torrents and the night was fearfully dark, the meeting was continued to a late hour, and I was gratified in hearing them sing and pray a long time. Their hymns were mostly those that they had learned by hearing them sung by others, and their prayers were the simple, earnest utterances of those who seemed evidently to have been taught of God. At length the meeting closed, and though the rain still poured without abatement, and the night was fearfully dark, several of the company, who had left young children at home, started out in the storm to make their way home through the woods and across swollen streams by following, without torchlight, their winding neighborhood paths. But the most of the congregation remained until near midnight, when the rain abated and it became lighter. Others now started for home, some on foot and some on horseback, to find their way through the forest for two or three miles, up and down hills and across streams, where I had found it a difficult matter to make my way by daylight. With a number so large that I did not undertake to count them, I spent the night in their cabin, and received from the family the kindest treatment it was in their power to bestow.

First of all, at the close of the meeting, the cob, clay, and all other pipes were brought out, and family and guests sat down to enjoy a social smoke and chat. Though I have spent so many years where tobacco is grown and almost universally used, though I have enjoyed the hospitality of a great many families where the mothers and daughters both chewed and "dipped," I have never learned to use the weed. Though I do not smoke, I have very often been most thoroughly smoked. In this company of social smokers, composed of old men and young men, old women and young women, I was more favored than I have often been in the most elegant apartments of the most magnificent dwellings. The fireplace, several feet long, filled with ashes, made an ample spittoon, and the large "stick" chimney, aided by the winds that circulated freely through the cabin, afforded what I have so often wished for—an ample funnel for the escape of the smoke and fumes of the tobacco. Uncultivated as this company was, it was evident that they were gifted with capacities for enjoying the weed equal to those of the most refined circles I have ever met.

Having smoked to their satisfaction, and the hour of midnight being passed, I was pointed to a bed in one corner of the room which I was to occupy. I had not been in it long before some bedfellow got in to share it with me. I soon discovered that it was my would-be father-in-law, and that he slept with his boots on—I suppose to save the trouble of drawing them off and on. How or where the rest of my congregation slept, I do not know, for, on getting into bed, I had turned my face to the log wall, and, being exceedingly wearied with the labors of the day and the night, I was soon oblivious to all around me, and lost in sleep. When I awoke in the morning, my friend, who had shared the bed with me, and who had evidently awaked some time before, greeted me with the friendly salutation:

"How dy, partner?" his boots, at the moment, greeting my vision as they extended beyond our bed blankets or quilts.

After breakfast, I bade good-by to the kind friends whose rough but generous hospitality I had thus enjoyed, with many thanks on their part for my visit, with many regrets at my departure, and with repeated requests that I would visit and preach for them again. But my farewell here, as in thousands of other cases, was a final farewell. I was not to meet them again, except, as is so often sung, in one of their wild, favorite religious songs:

"When the general roll is called."

During this visit I learned that about a hundred persons had been converted in this neighborhood since the visit of the Bible-distributor. Among them were about thirty members of the family to which I have so often alluded, in which this good work had its commencement in the reading of that little Testament. There had formerly been no regular preaching in the immediate neighborhood, but a Cumberland Presbyterian minister had preached once a month in a private house not far from them. It was the house to which I had been directed, and the family who had so kindly entertained me and circulated the appointment for my first sermon in the neighborhood. The preacher was the faithful man of God who had preached and officiated in the marriage at the "basket-meeting in the Brush" which I have already described. He had changed the place of holding his meetings, and preached regularly once a month in the new log-house in which I preached on the night of my arrival. In addition to his regular services, he had held protracted meetings, and his earnest and devoted labors had been greatly blessed in carrying forward this remarkable work of grace. Methodist preachers had also visited the neighborhood at different times, and held meetings at which numbers had been hopefully converted. All who had made a public profession of religion had united with these two denominations, and there was the utmost peace and harmony among them. The dark spirit of sectarianism seemed as yet to have found no place among them, and all who beheld them were compelled to say, as should be said of all those of different names who profess to be the disciples of Christ, "Behold how these brethren love one another."

At the time of my visit and for some months before, the only regular preaching in the neighborhood was that once a month by Mr. W——, the Cumberland Presbyterian minister. But they held a prayer-meeting which was conducted by themselves on all the other Sabbaths, and once during each week. At these meetings they read the Scriptures, and sang and prayed, and with tearful eyes and warm and glowing hearts rehearsed to their friends and neighbors the simple story of the love and grace of God as it had been manifested to them. To those who had been familiar with their former lives, there was a convincing, an almost resistless, power in their services, and they had often been owned of God in the salvation of souls. Many had been induced to come long distances to attend these meetings, and had gone away, saying, "Surely this is the work of God, for only his power could enable such people to offer such prayers." I was told that even the little children had caught the prevailing spirit, and had commenced a "play" that was entirely new in the neighborhood. When their parents were gone to night-meetings, as they often were, the little children who were left at home alone entertained themselves by playing "meeting"—going through with all the services as they had seen them at the meetings they had attended with their parents. I tried to learn of one mother—the one who was so grateful that she was not to lose her "little book"—what her children would say at these meetings, but she could only tell me of one little fellow four or five years old, that she pointed out to me, who would get up and very seriously repeat over and over the words, "Oh, them dear little children in heaven! them dear little children in heaven!"

I was very greatly interested in learning from the remarks that I heard in both this and the surrounding neighborhoods of the uniformity of sentiment in regard to the religious character of this work. In a long conversation with a man who had known these people from his boyhood, and whose Christian heart had been greatly rejoiced at what he had seen and heard, I said:

"There must be a very great change among them?"

"Indeed there is," said he, emphatically. "It's a smart miracle!"

Among all the persons of different classes that I saw, I met no one who seemed to doubt in the least that it was a genuine work of grace. "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."

CHAPTER IX.

CANDIDATING; OR, OLD-TIME METHODS AND HUMORS OF OFFICE-SEEKING IN THE SOUTHWEST.

I have found no class of people in the Southwest so omnipresent as office-seeking politicians. I have visited no neighborhood so remote, no valley so deep, no mountain so high, that the secluded cabins had not been honored by the visits of aspiring politicians, eager to secure the votes of their "sovereign" occupants. In multitudes of such cabins and settlements, their first impressions in regard to me were that I was either a sheriff, collecting the county and State taxes, or a "candidate" soliciting votes. The one vocation was as general and as universally recognized as an honorable employment as the other. If I did not make myself known as a clergyman as soon as I arrived at many of these out-of-the-way cabins, I was frequently greeted with the salutation:

"How dy, sir? I reckon you are a candidate, stranger!"

Some months preceding each election these aspirants for official honors publicly announced themselves as candidates for the particular office that they sought. In those States where the election was held the first Monday in August, these announcements were usually made the preceding spring at the February county or circuit court. On such occasions the court adjourned for the afternoon, and after dinner the crowds in attendance gathered in the court-house, and, one after another, all the aspirants for all the different offices, State and national, came before the assembled people, announced themselves as candidates, and set forth their qualifications for the office sought and their claims upon the suffrages of their fellow-citizens. Sometimes half a dozen or more would announce themselves as candidates for the same office. In listening to their speeches one would be led to think that the chief excellence and glory of our Constitution was that it secured to every citizen the right to be an office-seeker. "My fellow-citizens, I claim the right of an American citizen to come before you and solicit your suffrages," was asserted by a great many of these candidates, and very often by those who could present but a sorry list of other claims for the office sought.

I have often found these gatherings occasions of the rarest interest and sport. On one occasion the candidate's name was Coulter, and the office sought was the county clerkship. The incumbent was a consumptive, in such poor health that he had been compelled to spend the winter in a milder climate, and it was doubtful if he would be able to discharge the duties of his office another term. "My fellow-citizens," said Mr. Coulter, "I am very sorry for Mr. Anderson [who was present], our worthy county clerk, sorry that his health is so poor—sorry that he was obliged to leave us last winter, and go and breathe the balmy breezes of a more genial climate. But as he was gone, and there was some doubt about his coming back, I did not think it would be out of the way to try my Coulter a little. I experimented with it. It worked well. I tried it in several precincts. It ran smooth and cut beautifully. I am so much pleased with the way it works that I am determined to enter it for the race." This play upon his name was received with great favor. His old father sat upon a table immediately under the judge's seat from which he spoke, and gazed up at him with open mouth and the most intense parental pride and joy. The crowd cheered to the echo, and I learned some months afterward that this remarkable (?) display of wit was rewarded by the clerkship sought.

In these public speeches, and on all other occasions, both public and private, this pursuit of office was always spoken of as a "race." The most common remarks and inquiries in regard to any political canvass were such as these:

"I intend to make the 'race.'" "It will be a very close 'race.'" "Do you think Jones will make the 'race?'" "Smith has a strong competitor, but I think he will make the 'race.'" "I will bet you fifty dollars that Peters will make the 'race.'"

To "make the race" was to secure an election.

On another occasion, I heard a speaker who had been a candidate for the same office, and had canvassed his county, making speeches in every neighborhood, for twelve successive years. Though I saw him very often and knew him very well, I never heard him speak but once.

A part of his speech I could not forget. It was as follows: