Special to The News-Sentinel
Kingston, Tenn., April 30
     White-bearded Bush Breazeale looked at the polished walnut coffin which he had made for himself and then glanced over at his 17-year-old lop-eared mule.
     He smiled, pleased. They meant much in his solitary life.
     On Sunday, June 26, he will climb up into the coffin and the faithful old mule will pull it to the little Baptist Church at Cave Creek.
     There he will hear the preacher and see his "funeral" conducted. Only it will just be a rehearsal. Mr. Breazeale wants to see what it will be like when he dies.
     He believes he hasn't many more days to live. Just three days after his "funeral", he will be 74 years old.

Editor Tells of It      A. Summers, editor of the Roane County Banner at Kingston, busy making arrangements, explained it all like this:
     "Mr. Breazeale wants to have his funeral preached in the proper way when he comes to die and so has arranged the rehearsal for June 26, so that all the facts of his life may be properly chronicled. He feels that his remaining days are numbered. He wants his neighbors and friends to know the true story of his life and hit upon the idea of a rehearsal of his funeral as the proper way of presenting the facts.
     "He made his own coffin from solid walnut planks, cut from trees growing on his place."
     The Rev. Charles E. Jackson, pastor of First Christian Church of Paris, Ill., agreed to conduct the "funeral." Mr. Jackson is a former Rockwood minister.

His Eventful Life      Mr. Jackson will comment on Mr. Breazeale's eventful life.
     Mr. Breazeale has never married and has lived alone most of his 74 years. In 1892, he was arrested and charged with the ambush slaying of Brack Smith, who was shot and killed after getting out of a buggy at his home near Cave Creek. Mr. Breazeale was acquitted. He says the charges were based on suspicion and circumstantial evidence and he wants the true facts given at his "funeral."
     He is an uncle of the late Martin Littleton, famous New York lawyer, and of Mrs. Rachel Vanderbilt Morgan. His father, D. W. Breazeale, married Sarah Littleton.
     Seventeen years ago he bought a mule colt and it has been his almost constant companion since. "Mule," as he calls her, seems to know what Mr. Breazeale says to her.


Mule Can Do Stunts      "We asked him to demonstrate," says Mr. Summers, "and he turned Mule loose in the barnyard and put her through her stunts. He did not use a whip, as circus men do, but spoke to her in a low, soft voice. At his command, she laid down, got up and laid down on the other side, walked away, stopped, turned around, went and got a drink and, at a different command, ran in a circle around him. Again at his low command she stopped still and when he said, 'Come here,' she walked straight to him. Finally when he told her to go in her stall, she obeyed at once."
     Mr. Breazeale ekes out an existence by tending a garden and small truck patch with the help of "Mule".