The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-06-14
Frontier Funeral.
From the Brooklyn Eagle.

dts all very well to talk about your Brook
lyn funerals" said a Dakota man, as the
mourners crowded up to the bar, 'but you
don't put the life and spirit into a plant that
we do in our parts" and the western gentle
man shook his head lugubriously. 81 watch
ed this yere racket to-day, but | wasn't salts
fed. You throw lots o weeds and the pason
cut it fat, but the whole thing was tame
compared with the time when we drove Peter
Mullins in the turf.
"Did you have a superior article of funeral
on that occaslQnw asked one of the bereaved.
you called tho turf, pardner," replied the
Dakota mait. ~"Compared with that game,
your little play to night was deuce box. l
was living in Bismarck City then, and Pm
languaging when l say that your style to-day
wasn't a seven spot to that lay out"
ssWould you OBJECT to giving us the partic-
ulars of hat sad affair ?" asked one Of the la
menting.
The Bismarck man called for refreshment
and braced himself for the relation.
"Pete had some trouble WITH seven or eight
soldiers, and when they'd all played their
hands we laid out to lock up shop and slide
him under in shape. Pete wasn't no summer
coon. He wore meat and hair all the year
round, and as he was the first man that had
turned down in the settlement, we agreed to
start a bone yard and plant him for a crop.
Their wasn't any pa'son there them days, but
Lounsberry, the postmaster, know'd a hymn,
and John Mclean, the mayor, was a dog fight
ON a speech. SO we got out the engine for a
hearse and built a box for the stiff and t.
ed in. We'd staked out a claim on the u
fold road for a grave, and Tom Fortune d
drilled a hole to put Pete in. Everything was
in gay shape for business, and the boys S
braced for a time that would do credit to e
lamented. You bet your life! Well, sir, We
held the funeral in Keno hall. The corpse
was stretched on the faro table, all fixed up
with dandelions and cactus, and the boys sat
around in rows. You can bet a blue stack it
was stylish, stranger The mills was all
closed, and we had a niger fiddler for the
orchestra, and Mclean had boughg a white
shirt to give tone to the racket.
"Lcunsberry announced that the game was
opened and commenced with a hymn play
about dearest Petty, thou hast left lis aud thy
loss is deeply feel'd, but no bean eater could
bereatt US if thou had>'t have just been
heeled.' He said he made it up himself, but
| reckon he heard it somewhere in the States.
Then John Mclean started in on the Decla-
ration of Independence, and whenever lie
throwed up his baud, the boys howled
'Amenr You can smile, stranger, but Pm
remarking you dom often light into a high
toneder spread than the send-otr we gave
Pete. When Jack got through with the Dec
l~aration we liquored up, and jim Emmons
took hold. He'd found an act of the Illinois
Legislature somewhere, aud he read that so
you could hear the stove raft e. Then LOuns-
berry sang Marching Though Georgia. and
by that time we were all feeling pretty good.
You never seen a better shake up in a.! your
life. Jack Richards was keeping cases and
he proposed three cheers ftr the stiff and
,-.,. i1,l 4 ,,N,,, -.- Il. H. ,i t,x. W.
was just warming up to the work when
dog goudest best Grafton that was played in
that kind Of a game. George is a humorous
cuss, and he got off the best conundrums you
ever listened to. Fun! Wei, now rardner,
you may blush!
"Well, sir, after that part of the exercises
Was over We hammered the lid down on Pete
and histed him up on the nglne Me and
Richard steadied him and the gang laid hold
of the rope. George Peoples was foreman,
and the Niger fiddler straddleA the coffin
playing 'We Won't Go Home till morning"
We stopped twice on the way to brace, and
we made the last mile in something like five
minutes. Talk about your steam machines!
h was the best fire engine company in
eight territories.
"When we got to the grave we found that
Tor lad built a tole seven feet deep and j Ist
the size of the box. He bad to put him in
standing up, but that Edidnt hurt him my.
Lounsberry then started up 'Good-b ye,S Sweet
heart, and Mclean read a poem about a boy
on a ship who wouldn't go home for fear his
dad would warm him. Jim Emmons started
on a prayer, and then things grew lively.
We didn't want no airs over the funeral, ard
we told him he could lay no political pipe
that way. But he allowed that he'd cash the
prayer i'll or there'd be a row. That settled
it" and the Dakota man paused.
"HeW did you come out?" asked one of the
visitors.
81 was dragged out" replied the Dakota
man, simply. "Leastwise, | was found some
distance off when they looked for me. l did
not see the turn called, and 1 didn't know
nothing about the next deal. I didn't get out
TO a month";
SIS that the kind of funeral you have in
Bismarck" asked a mourner.
"The same, str niger. Many'a one since
then but I'll never forget Pete. The coy
otes is singing above his grave now, and in
the summer the little boys shoot Jack rabbits
near his plant. We put in a few asparagus to
make a shade for him: but I'll tell you, gen.
tlemen.. the billiards never howled over a
squarer boy than Pete, and no man was
ever put to root in better shape than we laid
ont for that lad. Let's beef. I'm hoarse.'
And they liquidated, the mourners won
dering, perhaps, at the ''spirited'' style of a
frontier funeral, but recognizing at the same
time that the Dakota man had spoken his
last lines with an obvious humidity of utter
ance.
u