Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-07-31
Hard Time Finding Prayer Book.

South Dakota.
Hard Time Finding Prayer Book.
The committee met and completed the
arrangements for the funeral. but was
seriously embarrassed because it was
unable to find any clergyman or other
person of experience to read the burial
service: Therefore, after a long and anx-
ious discussion it concluded that it would
have to do 1t itself, and the members
agreed to draw lots to determine which
should assume the responsibility. Seth
Bullock drew the short straw and. as he
says. went up against the most desper-
ate emergency of my life
1--WE went to Doc Carter's gambling
HE'LL said Bullock. which was then the
bureau Of intelligence and center of So
cial activity in Deadwood. and made a
public inquiry if anybody knew of d
prayerbook in the camp. Doc answered
promptly:
I've got one of my own. My mother
gave 1t to me when / left home to go to
California in 81. It's in my trunk and I'll
get it,
when Carter returned with the prayer
book the committee of arrangements sat
down on row of beer kegs and looked
it over for something appropriate for the
occasion. They found prayers for men
who are lost al sea. for women in child
bed, for persons who are about to depart
upon journey and for various other oc-
casions in human experience, but nothing
for the funeral of a Methodist parson
who has been killed by the Indians. So
we selected the Lords PRAYER which,
YOU know, fits every emergency, and two
or three others that we thought appro-
pirate, and we put slips of paper be-
tween the leaves. SO that l shouldn't
lose the place
drawn by pair of mules and started
for the cemetery, followed by every soul
in town. Business was entirely sus-
pended.
we went to the old cemetery. which
had eleven graves in a at that time,
all of them occupied by men who had
died with their boots on. except one
which was occupied by woman who
died of smallpox.
after the coffin had been solemnly
lowered into the grave by the pallbearers.
l backed up against a tree. got out the
prayer book and was just about to begin
reading the service. when a carpenter
named f. j. Hawley. who was notorious
for being contrary and for butting in on
all occasions, stepped forward and said:
All Sang "Old Hundred"
I'm not a religious man myself. but
my wife was. She was Methodist and
she was good woman; and she thought
the Methodist religion was the best re-
lgion that there was. and as Mr.. Smith
was Methodist | think he should be
buried by that kind of religion instead
of some foreign Episcopal kind of a re-
ligion, which he didn't know nothing
about. When l was boy. and went to
Methodist funerals, they always begun
EN- by singing hymn. and let's jine in
Nearer, My God, to Thee
Hawley led off in a high. trembling
tone, and the committee, seeing that they
were relieved of an awful responsibility.
stepped into the background and joined
in to the best of their ability. Every
body sang, whether we knew the tune or
the words not for it was the most
solemn occasion and the most serious
business that ever happened in the Hills,
a lot of wicked, illiterate miners burying
a mniSter-a man of God.
1T was a scene worthy of the brush of
a great artist. | do not know that 1t
has a parallel in human history There
wasn't man in that camp who had the
religious sentiment there wasn't
a man there who had ever uttered a
prayer: at least not since he knelt at his
knee in childhood: yet, with
that instinct, that reverence for sacred
things which the Almighty has implanted
in the souls of all His creatures we were
trying to do what was right and proper
and show our respect to the dead and our
esteem for the man who had come out
into that perilous country to teach us the
way Of salvation. AS he had performed
that same service for many a poor devil
who had died by accident or violence in
the many mining camps that We're sea alter
ed over the Hills. we thought it was our
duty to do the same by him. and we did
1t to the best of our knowledge and abili-
ty. Each of us felt the same personal
responsibility for the observance of the
proprieties and the success OF the cere-
mony, and, therefore, whether he could
sing or not, every man jack made bluff
at Nearer, My God, to Thee.
Then Hawley Prayed.
when the hymn was done. Hawley,
to the establishment of everybody, step
ped forward and handed out a very fair
brand of prayer. 1t was short and COM
plicated. He got mixed pretty bad sew
eral times, but came in head and tail up
on the homestretch and everybody said
Amen