Part 7

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.

UNTIL DEATH DO US PART

The man who earns by the sweat of his brow or the cunning of his mind a comfortable living for those dependent upon him should not complain but consider the mean lot of others, less fortunate, and rejoice at his good fate. There is not a day of my life that I do not see some wretch faring worse than I; some poor person struggling desperately to keep body and soul together.

Let us thank God for a sound mind and a sound body: that we do not think side-whiskers are pretty and that we have not hair-lips.

One day not long ago, while hurrying from my work, I passed a Greek peanut roaster, and wondered about his lot. Day after day I had seen him with his little push-cart, but rarely had I observed any customers.

“How fares it to-day?” said I, as I hurried by.

“Fine, thank you: little mon, good book, good health, and heap of joy!”

“There is a philosopher,” thought I to myself. “He is a happy man. His life seems to be sweet, although he has but little of the goods of this world.”

That very day John, that son of Athens, had sold less than fifty cents worth of truck, yet he was rejoicing as he sat on the curbing, reading the life of Thomas Jefferson in Greek.

On a fine afternoon, in the spring of 1898, I walked from the Hotel LaFayette, at Fayetteville, to the Cape Fear river. I had a purpose in making the trip; I had been threatened with a fit of melancholia and was trying to stave it off. I strolled down to the water’s edge, where fishermen were wont to tie their boats at night, and stood there looking, looking, studying the topography of the country and the people in their labor for bread and meat.

I tarried on a pretty little hill, just above the river, where I had a good view of the water and surrounding fields. The territory for a hundred yards square in my immediate vicinity was bald and smooth from the constant tread of fishermen’s feet. Back of that, early vegetables and succulent grasses were springing up. Along the shore a dozen or more batteaus, or small fishing boats, were chained to stakes, or anchored to each other.

Far up and down the river I could see men in boats, gliding noiselessly along the banks, setting hooks for the evening bite. It was past the middle of the afternoon and the big fish, cats, carp and red horse, were beginning to run. This the fishermen knew and were hurrying to place their hooks, baited with mussels. At nine o’clock at night and early the next morning the hooks were looked.

While standing there, gazing here and there, I saw a party of small negro boys, wading to their waists in the water, graveling in the sand, for mussels to sell to the fishermen. Silently and doggedly, the little fellows hunted the slimy, shell-covered creatures, gathering them by the hundred.

The longer I remained there on that knoll, in the midst of that peculiarly fascinating life, the more interested I became. Every man, every woman and every boy or girl appealed to me. Between five-thirty and six o’clock the men who baited and placed the hooks came ashore, fastened their boats, and went to their respective homes for supper and a moment with their wives and children before starting out for the night fish. I saw them go and come with their nets. From dark until about ten o’clock they fished for shad, the most valuable fish in the Cape Fear at that season of the year.

It is intensely fascinating to watch the movements and study the habits and manners of the people who get their living from the water. They belong to a certain class and are of a certain type, differing from their brothers and sisters who till the soil. Loving the water and having become so used to it, they would not quit it for the land.

As a rule, river people are strong and ruddy. Their faces are hard and sunburned and their muscles well-knit and tough.

It is a wholesome life.

These be the sort of men I saw that afternoon. On the ground they were awkward, ill at ease, and grouchy, but in their boats graceful, sturdy and merry.

Soon after I went down to the river and settled myself, to look on and learn what I could of the ways of the living things about me, I heard a shuffling noise behind me, and when I turned to ascertain the cause, my eyes fell upon the most pitiful creature it had ever been my fortune to see. A woman, yes, a woman, one of God’s noblest creatures, stood and gazed in wonderment at me. She had approached within a few feet of me before she realized that I was a living being; I was hid from the view of the path that leads from the town to the river by a thicket of weeds and grass.