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.