The burial of Uncle Billy Malone, of Jackson county, by his intimate
friends and boon companions, was one of the strangest funerals ever held
in North Carolina, or anywhere else; it was a clear case of birds of a
feather flocking together even unto the grave.
Everybody in Jackson knew or knew of Uncle Billy Malone, the
blacksmith-horse-trader; he was one of the few very interesting
characters of the county. His chief end in life seemed to be a burning
desire to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for strong drink. He was a
confirmed toper, and all of his personal friends were of the same
persuasion.
Uncle Billy and his associates made it a rule for years to assemble at
Washington, the county seat of Jackson, every off day--every Saturday,
every wet day, every holiday, in fact, every day they could, and drink
the health of each other, the state and the nation. It was a jolly lot
and Uncle Billy, the dean, was the oldest of them all; his son Sid, the
youngest, and Col. William LaFayette, the wisest. The little circle
numbered eight, and it was a close corporation while the cup passed
around. Whiskey was the besetting sin of each and every one of them, who
drank whenever he could, and wherever he could.
Col. LaFayette was a tenant farmer--a typical tenant farmer of a class
that lived in the cotton-producing section of the South after the
civil war. During the days of slavery he served as overseer for small
slave-owning landlords. Most of his kind moved to the towns of the
Piedmont counties of the Southern States when cotton mills began to
flourish and put their children at work at the spindle and the loom. The
sorrier ones became vampires.
In appearance Col. LaFayette was a freak, but in manner, a sort of
shabby-genteel Chesterfield. He was a cadaverous-looking fellow, with
long body, long legs, and long arms, and thin, sharp, pointed face.
The oldest citizen of his county did not remember to have seen him in
well-fitting clothes. His shirt sleeves were too short, and his trousers
never reached the top of his shoes. He habitually wore a slouch hat, with
one side up and the other down, and went with his shirt front open and
his shoes loosely laced.
Picture him in your mind, trudging his way to town to join his chums
at The Merry Bowl, Jim Roediger’s saloon! Any excuse took him in, for
he was always certain that his friends, all of whom, save Uncle Billy,
were fellow tillers of the soil, would meet him there. No particular day
was set but the little band of drinking cronies came together like iron
filings to a magnet. If any one failed to appear something serious had
happened to prevent his coming. Jim Boggs, Pete Blue, Sam Helms, Mike
Broom and Bob Sink belonged to the coterie.
Such were the running mates of Uncle Bill Malone; all good fellows, and
harmless, except to their own constitutions. They stood in their own
light but no one could say aught against any of them, barring the fact
that he drank to excess, and that was a common complaint at that time.
They had lived together so long, and enjoyed one another’s society to
such an extent that, up to the time of Uncle Billy’s death, with the
exception of a few business associations, they shunned the rest of
mankind, not that they were ashamed but that ordinary men bored them.
Their circle was complete.
On a cold--bitter cold--night in December, 18--, the angel of death
knocked at the cabin door of Uncle Billy Malone. Without warning, and
suddenly, the call came. The old man had not been feeling well for
several days, but he had not complained to his companions. The facts
concerning his last moments are not known to the outside world. The
curtain is down and no one can say how Uncle Billy passed from life to
eternity. But the charitable must believe that he was sober and clothed
in his right mind.
The day before the summons came De Ate, as the party was known,
foregathered at The Merry Bowl and drank until late. Sid and his father
got home just before dark. The next morning, when the son went to arouse
his father, he found his body cold in death.
But, let us turn to the funeral!
Sid Malone behaved like a child in the presence of death. The very
thought of being alone and face to face with a dead kinsman seemed to
unnerve him. There was but one definite idea in his head and that was
that his father had to be buried.
“Who is to do it?” he asked himself.
“Why, his friends!” was the natural answer.
“Who, Col. LaFayette, and the others of De Ate?”
Those were the only friends he knew. He had not been to church in forty
years, and no preacher had ever put foot in his home.
“Is there no woman or minister of the gospel?” asked Sid.
“Not one,” echo answered.
With these thoughts running through his mind Sid mounted his mule and
started to the several homes of his friends to announce the sad news. He
had not gone far when he met Col. LaFayette and others, riding through
eight inches of snow, on their way to Washington for a drinking frolic.
Thinking of nothing but the exhilarating glass that awaited them at The
Merry Bowl, they did not recognize Sid Malone as he came riding down the
road.
The death of his father had softened Sid, and his heart was sore. When
his companions came in sight he was thinking of the uncertainty of life
and the certainty of death, a subject he had never considered before.
The turning place for him, he argued, had come. But alas! he met his old
cronies, and the flow of serious thought was diverted.
“Turn back, boys, don’t go to town to-day,” said Sid, as he recognized
his pals. “Turn back, my daddy’s daid!”
“Oh, Sid, don’t tell me that your daddy air daid,” cried Col. LaFayette,
throwing up his hands at the unexpected and shocking announcement. “How
kin it be?”
“It shore is the truth, and I want you fellers to help me give him a
decent burial.”
“Well, Sid, there ain’t nothin’ that I wouldn’t do for Uncle Billy
Malone, daid or alive, and as quick as I go up town and tend to a little
bizness I’ll be wid you.”
Col. LaFayette had his mind fatally fixed on The Merry Bowl, and he felt
compelled to have a drink before he could do anything else, but, be it
said to his credit, that although his tongue was dry and his head set on
the saloon, his heart--a large, warm one--was with his dead comrade. He
was loyal and true to his friends, and Uncle Billy stood at the head of
the list.
He went to The Merry Bowl--he and all of his associates except Sid, who
went to the church to have a grave prepared--took a round or two of
drinks and bought several bottles to carry away with them. Having thus
fortified against the cold and the dreary hours ahead the six companions
of the Malones repaired to the little home on the outskirts of the town,
and began the watch over Uncle Billy’s remains.
Sid Malone and his father lived in a two-roomed log house, which had been
built two generations before. They had been the sole occupants since the
death of Mrs. Malone, mother and wife, twenty years prior to that time.
It was a wretched, poverty-stricken place, unkept and dilapidated.
Here, on the day of the funeral, the friends of the late lord and master
of the hut sat in silence, doing what they deemed to be the right thing
toward their departed comrade. The six, with solemn faces, sat looking
in the fire that crackled away on the hearth. Deep down they were
sorrow-stricken but, withal, the thirst that never dies tugged at them.
At first, when one felt that it was impossible to do without a drink any
longer, he would rise and steal quietly out, step aside, and touch his
flask. This was out of respect to the memory of Uncle Billy. However,
this formality did not continue long for, inside of two hours, the boys
were drinking in the good old way, and in the presence of the corpse.
Sid returned about noon, broken and dejected, and was prevailed upon to
take a cup or two for his nerves.
“It’s mighty hard, fellers,” said Col. LaFayette, “but we can not undo
what has been done. The Father of All intended that we should go just
like Uncle Billy went. I hope that my takin’ off will be as sudden and as
unlooked-for as his. I have my thoughts about the hereafter, but I hope
to be with my friends. Let us drink one glass in honor of our old friend
who has gone on before!”
The frequent drinks of whiskey had lifted the sorrow from the hearts of
the little band of associates.
After dinner, while a heavy snow fell, the friends of Uncle Billy Malone
put the body in a pine coffin, one made for the purpose by the dead man,
and bore it to its last resting place. A hand-car, which was operated on
a spur of a trunk-line road, was used in place of a hearse. The mourners
staggered by the car and shoved it along the rails. On the way the casket
fell off but was soon replaced. The drinking begun early in the morning,
had been kept up all day, and Col. LaFayette and his friends were pretty
rocky.
When the funeral party reached the church, Bellevue Chapel, there was
no one to greet it. Simp Syder, the colored grave digger, was the only
living creature in sight. The trees, the church top, and the tombstones
were covered with snow, and everything seemed dead and cold.
The corpse was carried to the open grave and let down. After the ropes
were pulled out the associates of the late Uncle Billy Malone stood and
looked at each other, inquiring in a mute way: “Is it possible that no
one can say a word--a last word--for the old man?”
Col. William LaFayette, big-hearted fellow that he was, arose to the
emergency. Looking in the grave, at the coffin, and then passing his eyes
from man to man, he knew that the task had fallen on him. He read in the
faces of the others that he was expected to perform the last rites and
ceremonies over the body of their departed friend. On realizing this, he
said: “Stand ’round the grave, boys, and pull off your hats. Git as close
as you can.
“There air nobudy here--no preacher, nor weemens, or the like of that--to
say nuthing, and it just won’t do to bury a man like Uncle Billy Malone
without something being said; if nobudy else will say it, I will.
“Here air the body of Uncle Billy Malone, and he air daid. He was as
good-er man as ever lived, and you all know it. And we air every one
drunk, and I would go further to remark, and to say, that if Uncle Billy
were here, he’d be drunk, too.
“Let’s all hope that he’s gone to the Good Place, for he was a mighty
good man. That’s all.
“If any of the rest of you have got anything to say, say it now, for it
will be too late to-morrow.”
That closed the ceremonies. The grave was filled in, and the more
tender-hearted ones of the party dropped tears on the red clay that
covered the old fellow’s body. It was a solemn scene, there in the
snow-covered grove, near the church. Uncle Billy’s friends had remained
faithful to the last. They had done the best they knew how.
“RED BUCK”: WHERE I CAME BY IT
This is a story of North Carolina Fusion days, two years before the
Constitutional amendment, disfranchising the negro, was adopted. In 1896
the Populists, managed by Senator Marion Butler, of Sampson, and the
Republicans by Senator Jeter C. Pritchard, of Buncombe, were standing
together in the State for mutual benefit--for pelf and pie--what most all
active politicians stand together for. The Democrats were down and out.
Ex-Judge Daniel L. Russell, of Wilmington, and Hon. Oliver H. Dockery,
of Mangum, both of the sixth congressional district, were the candidates
for the Republican nomination for Governor, which, at that time, meant
an election. Charlotte, Union, Anson, Richmond, Robeson, New Hanover and
other counties were in the Shoestring district.
The Republicans were very busy.
That being before the negro was disfranchised, the Republican party
in this immediate section of the State was largely composed of
Afro-Americans. A county convention was held in Charlotte, and it was as
black as Africa. Of course there was a sprinkling of white men in it, but
nine out of ten of the delegates were colored. The Dockeryites and the
Russellites came close to blows. There were rumors of wars, but no blood
was shed.
Every county in the district had had a similar convention and named
delegates to the Maxton meeting.
The all-absorbing question was: “Are you for Dockery or Russell?”
Mr. Dockery was known as the “Great Warhorse of the Pee Dee,” and Mr.
Russell as “The Mighty Dan of New Hanover.”
The Maxton convention promised a live newspaper story. Unless the hand
writing on the wall had been misread there was blood on the moon. Some
sort of a fight seemed certain if the delegates of the Shoestring
district ever got together.
It was at Maxton, as a common reporter, that I got my nickname, Red Buck,
now a nom de plume. When the fight became warm I bolted without waiting
ceremonies.
We, the Mecklenburg delegates to the district convention, and I, my
paper’s reliance for the story of the day, left Charlotte on the early
train, a bright spring morning, and journeyed eastward.
At Monroe the Union delegation got aboard, and at Wadesboro the Anson,
and at Rockingham and Laurinburg, the Richmond.
The train was literally filled with negroes. I had a dull time with that
crowd until we got to Rockingham, where Claude Dockery, whom I had met at
the State University at Chapel Hill several years prior to that, joined
the party and introduced me to the most interesting character in the
Dockery contingent, Rich Lilly, a tall, wiry, limber negro, with juicy
mouth and knappy, dusty head. Rich was going to do what he could toward
the nomination of his old friend, Col. Oliver Dockery. Somewhere between
Rockingham and Maxton Rich and I were thrown together, when no one else
was near. Rich beckoned to me and dodged behind a freight car and, in
order to see what he wanted, I followed.
“Boss, is you gwine to Maxton?” asked Rich, holding his right hand under
his coat tail as if to draw his gun.
“Yes, sir. That is where I am bound for.”
“Well, say, boss, here’s des’ a little uv Duckery’s best, won’t you have
er drink?”
“No, thank you, I don’t drink,” said I.
“Looker here, boss, you mus’ not be no delegate?”
“No, I am not.”
“Well, is yer gwine to de convention?”
“Yes.”
The train started and we got aboard. Rich could not understand; my
attitude toward his elixir of life astonished him.
About 12 o’clock the convention met in a large hall, provided with a
rostrum, over a store on Main street. The hall, having been used for a
buggy warehouse, had a tramway that led from the sidewalk to the floor.
Up this broad and slanting way the delegates and spectators traveled. I
was one among the first to arrive, with a chair that I borrowed, a small
lapboard and a tablet, and took my seat on the rostrum, in the north
corner, against the rear wall, near a window that looked out on a back
lot, believing that I had selected the best place in the house for my
purpose.
At the appointed hour the hall was well filled with people, principally
negroes. Seeing Mr. Claude Dockery talking and laughing with me, Rich
Lilly became curious again, and, when no one was about, he came up,
looked me in the eye and asked: “Boss, for Gawd’s sake, whut is you gwine
ter do ef you ain’t no deligate.”
“I am going to sit here and watch you Republicans, take notes and write
you up in the paper if you don’t behave yourselves,” was my reply.
“O, you’s er writer fur de paper?”
“Yes.”
“I sees.”
I do not recall any but the more violent incidents of the convention.
As I sat there and watched the various delegations take their seats, a
looker-on in Vienna pointed out some of the celebrities.
“That man with the long beard and long fig-stemmed pipe, is Dr. R. M.
Norment, of Lumberton,” said my coach. “The man with the cripple hand is
Col. B. Bill Terry. The long-armed man with abbreviated trousers and coat
sleeves, is Speaking Henry Covington.”
Many others were named, but I have forgotten most of them. Later Big
Bill Sutton, of Bladen, came in. He did not belong to the convention,
but it was understood that he was there to lead the Russell forces in a
rough-house affair if his services were needed.
No one would have imagined that the quiet, lifeless body of men of the
first half hour of the convention would become the mob that it did before
the day was over.
The trouble began when the convention voted on a permanent chairman,
each side claiming the majority when the balloting was over. The god
of peace had quit the meeting and the devil taken possession. Mr. A. M.
Long, of Rockingham, a handsome man, with good face, was put up by the
Dockeryites, and a Wilmington negro by the Russellites. Both Mr. Long and
the darkey tried to take the seat, each mounting the rostrum and seizing
a chair.
This was the signal for a general fight, which began on the stage.
Knowing the power of Speaking Henry’s lungs the Dockery delegates began
to yell “Covington,” “Covington,” “speech,” but in the meantime the
Wilmington negro, the Russell chairman, had been deprived of his seat by
force. Mr. Long held his with a brace of Colts.
I want the reader to understand that the fight then in progress was none
of my affair. To tell the whole truth I did look on with considerable
satisfaction until I saw two or three men produce pistols; from that
time I had one eye on the convention and the other looking for a way to
escape.
Every fighting man was coming to the rostrum, throwing nervous delegates
out of the way as he advanced.
Rich Lilly brought first blood. The calls for Henry Covington, the supple
man with the oily tongue, were heeded by that gentleman, who was just as
fearless as wordy, and while others glared and swore at each other he
was making the welkin ring with Dockery thunder. No man ever made more
gestures and took longer strides than did Speaking Henry that afternoon.
With a quart of mean liquor in his stomach and a cigarette in his
mouth, Rich Lilly, the warmest Dockeryite of them all, pranced behind
Mr. Covington, following him with his hands and feet as far as he could
without injuring himself.
Seeing this double-barreled performance I lost sight of the free-for-all
fight on the opposite side of the stage. It wasn’t what Mr. Covington
said but the way he said it that attracted. Except for the difference in
color one would have taken Speaking Henry and Rich Lilly for the Gold
Dust twins.
“Tell it to ’em!” shouted Rich, every time he hit the floor.
“Yes, Lawd, let ’em have it. Dere ain’t no candi-date but Col. Duckery!”
Tiring of this, a Russell man in the back section of the hall roared out:
“Five dollars for the man who will pull that long-legged devil down from
there.”
No sooner had the offer been made than did a short, stocky, big-headed
negro, with a Van Dyke beard, start from the fifth row of seats toward
the stand to catch Covington by the leg.
I mounted my chair to see. Having the advantage of the pedestal I could
take in everything.
Speaking Henry had charged and jumped and squatted and bounced until his
trousers, all too short, had climbed nearly to his knees and his heavy
home-knit socks had fallen over his shoe tops. He was about ready to fly
when the designing negro reached out for his thin, bare shank.
But there came a turn; Rich Lilly, who had heard the offer and seen the
negro start and wend his way to the stage, was guarding the speaker.
Just as the Wilmington delegate made a pass at the Dockery speaker, Rich
bowed his back, like a Thomas cat, ducked, shot forward and gave him a
blow between the eyes and floored him. Speaking Henry never let up. In
fact, he never knew what had happened until the convention was over. Rich
resumed his antics until he recalled the fact that I was taking notes and
then rushed back to where I had dropped into my seat, put his hands on my
knees, looked me in the face and asked, seriously: “Say, boss, did I act
lak er delegate?”
“Yes, indeed, do it again.”
To my certain knowledge Rich hammered five other delegates after that and
came to see if I approved of the manner in which he did it.
But I was forced to forget Speaking Henry and Rich Lilly. Other
incidents, more exciting and more strenuous, were in progress. Big
Bill Sutton had come upon the rostrum and was throwing delegates east
and west. Having the advantage of a tremendous frame and a notorious
reputation as a scrapper he walked roughshod over less fortunate ones.
But there was one man, with a keen eye, an iron face and frosted hair,
that was not afraid to face him, and that was Mr. Dan Morrison, of
Rockingham, a Republican leader at that time.
As old man Bill surged on the rostrum his son, Dave, screamed back at
Henry Covington from the hall. I saw Mr. Morrison climb on the rostrum,
and knew that he was mad. He and Big Bill glowered at each other for an
instant at twenty paces. Two seconds later they were rushing at each
other, like vicious dogs. They did not have a head-on collision, but
side-swiped. The Rockingham man got the best of the first round; he tore
Sutton’s collar and tie from his neck and held it between the thumb and
forefinger, so that all might see. Friends interfered and prevented an
ugly affair.
“Clear the rostrum!” shouted some one from the hall.
That is what the chairmen and their friends had been trying to do for
some minutes. But the delegates crowded around the edge until they were
fifteen or twenty deep and the rostrum was alive with opposing factions.
After the Morrison-Sutton mix-up the fighting became general. Some fellow
in the house knocked Dr. Norment over a seat, jamming his pipe stem
halfway down his throat.
Times were beginning to look squally for me, and I had no way out. To my
left was a window, but if I went out that it meant a fall of 20 feet to
the ground; to my right, an anteroom, with a small, thin wall; going out,
down the steps from the rostrum, the way I came in, seemed at that time
an impossibility. While considering the advisability of going into the
anteroom and closing the door I saw an upheaval across from me and before
I could catch my breath an old darkey sailed into the room and slammed
the door and I was cut off there.
All the while the mob on the rostrum became blacker and more like a negro
festival. The old cornfield negroes were just beginning to catch the
spirit of the meeting. As the colored delegates increased the white ones
stole away, imagining that something would be doing soon.
Seeing the change in color and temperament of the stage crowd I began to
have serious concern about my own welfare. Had the fight been among my
own people I might have taken a hand, but to sit idly by and be punctured
with a pistol or a knife was not to my liking. I was slow in making up my
mind. But there came a time when I had to act before thinking it over. As
I sat there and wondered what injuries I would receive if I jumped out
the window, a big negro, perhaps a ditcher, clad in overalls and wearing
a cap and high-top boots, broke through the mob in the hall, jumped up on
the stand immediately in front of me, and began to finger in his boot and
swear. I heard him mumble to himself: “I’ll be d--d ef I don’t clar dis
hall when I get ole Sallie.”
I had an idea that “Ole Sallie” was a weapon of some sort, and I was
right, for a half a second later the big nigger rose to his full height,
threw open a razor, turned around three times (coming close to me as
he wheeled) and yelled, “Git off uv dis stage, don’t I’ll cut yo’
throats--every one uv you.”
I was the first to leave, going over the heads of the mob that had
collected about the edge of the stage. My notebook flew to the right
and my lapboard to the left, while I continued my flight straight ahead
down the tramway. As I struck the street, old man B. B. Terry, whom I
knew very well, stood behind the wall of the brick building, and peeping
up the exit, said: “I gad, that’s no place for a well man, much less a
cripple.” I did not argue the point.
I was followed by many hundreds. In fact, the entire Russell delegation
bolted, some going through the windows and others down the tramway.
The Dockery men remained and passed a few resolutions, but there was no
more fighting.
Late that afternoon, when the westbound delegates were waiting at the
station to take the train, some one discovered that Uncle Hampton, a very
ancient colored delegate from Monroe, was missing. I heard the talking
and inquired as to his appearance.
“Why,” said I, “that is the old fellow that went in the anteroom when the
fight began.”
A party of us visited the hall and knocked on the locked door, but did
not get a response. Finally we broke in and there sat old man Hampton,
jouked down in the corner, afraid to move.
Claude Dockery, who sat on the roof and saw me make the famous leap, went
to Raleigh and told Tom Pence, the city editor of _The Times-Visitor_,
that “Red Buck had bolted the convention.” I was the butt of papers and
politicians for weeks. The Old Man said, in an editorial, that “Red Buck”
would have to explain why he bolted and he did as best he could. Mr.
Caldwell had dubbed me “Brick Top,” “Strawberry Blond,” and “Red Buck,”
and the last name stuck because of the Maxton convention and Claude
Dockery’s interview.