Though she was herself among the blessed, yet the thorns and briers of the earth caught at her garments and pierced her tender feet.

The way ore growne with shrubs and bushes thick, The sharpened thornes your tender feete will pricke, The brambles round about your traine will lappe, The burs and briers about your skirts will wrappe.

And I don't mention the natural vegetation, the precious gum-trees, of which we possess quite a forest; the butter-trees, the flour-trees, the silk-trees, which grow on our ground like briers alongside your roads....

An idea how selfish men will get under such circumstances may be gained by relating that on one occasion when an ox was killed the liver was carried to the brave little Mrs. Brier for herself and children, and she laid it aside for a few moments till she could attend to some other duties before cooking it.

She pretended to be fixing it and slipped out the back door down the furrows and squatted in the briers in a fence corner.

We beat down the briers with our guns, and scrambled through to the other side of the creek in time to see the Yankees run scattering through the woods and away.