Our readers have no doubt noticed in the papers that the Goodrich
Transportation Company had secured a band from Waupun to make music on
the boats of that line between Milwaukee and Chicago this summer. Well,
there is trouble going on in consequence. Mr. Hurson, of the Goodrich
line, entrusted the organization of the band to Mr. Nick Jarvis, of
Waupun, a gentleman whose reputation as a scientific pounder of the
bass drum has received encomiums from the crowned heads of Oshkosh and
Hazen's cheese factory.
Having such confidence in Mr. Jarvis, Mr. Hurson gave him a roving
commission, with authority to secure the best talent in the known world.
He organized the band, and then it occurred to Mr. Jarvis that the
musicians had always been accustomed to playing on land, and they
might be sick on the water, so he took measures to accustom them to a
sea-faring life before leaving Waupun. He got them to practicing in
a building, and hired some boys to throw water up on the side of the
house, to see if they would be seasick. The band fellows would have
stood the sea first-rate, only the villains who had been hired to throw
the water used a lot of dirty stuff they found back of a hotel, which
smelled powerful.
A number of the band members felt the swash of the waves against the
bulwarks of the house, and smelled what they supposed to be salt sea
air, and they leaned out of the windows and wanted to throw up their
situations, but a German in the party had a lemon and some cheese, which
was given around to taste and smell, and they came out of it all right.
Mr. Jarvis' next idea, to accustom the prairie sailors to the vasty
deep, was to take them out on the mill pond at Waupun in a skiff. They
got out in the middle of the pond, and were playing a selection from the
opera of “Solid Muldoon,” when a boy who had slipped into the boat with
a fish-pole, got a bite from a bull-head, which caused the vessel to
roll, and the utmost confusion prevailed. Ordering the snare drum player
to “cut away the main bob-stay, and belay the cornet,” Mr. Jarvis took
the bass drum between his teeth and jumped overboard, followed by the
band, and they waded ashore.
On Monday last the band arrived in Milwaukee and reported on board the
Goodrich steamer, in the river, ready for business. They were told to
go as they pleased until evening, when they would be expected to play
before the boat started, and also on the trip to Chicago. The men sat
around on deck all the afternoon, and smelled of the river. It smelled
different from any salt water they ever snuffed, and they wanted to go
home.
At seven o'clock the band played a few tunes as the boat lay in the
river, and finally she let go her ropes and steamed down toward the
lake, the band whooping it up to the “Blue Danube.” As the boat struck
blue water, and her bow raised out about sixteen feet and began to
jump, the cornet player stopped to pour water out of his horn, and lean
against a post. He was as pale as death, and the tuba player stopped to
see what ailed the cornet player, and to lean over the railing to see
a man down stairs. The baritone had eaten something that did not agree
with him, and he stopped playing and laid down in a life boat, the alto
became cold around the extremities and quit playing and went to the
smoke stack to warm himself, the b-flat began to perspire and quit
playing and fanned himself with the cymbals, and all of the horn blowers
were e-flat and b-flat on the deck in less than two minutes.
The captain noticed that there was some discrepancy in the music and
came on deck to see about it. Wading through the brass horns he came up
to where the band had been, and found Nick Jarvis beating blazes out of
the bass drum and Harve Hill carving the Blue Danube out of the snare
drum, and that was all the music there was. The captain asked Jarvis
what kind of a riot that was, and he told him it was the best they could
do under the circumstances.
Restoratives were applied to the members, and they braced up enough to
start in on “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” but they couldn't play
it through, owing to dyspepsia. The captain got them into the cabin to
play for the young folks to dance, but the only thing they could play
without getting sick was “Home Again, from a Foreign Shore,” and the
bass drum had to do it all. The horn blowers were out looking at the
starlight, leaning over the railing, as the stars were reflected in the
water.
At Racine it took some time to load, owing to rough water, and in the
midst of it all a pale man, with a snare drum on his arm, rolled up
against the captain. It was Harve Hill. He held his hand over his mouth
and in a voice choked with emotion and fried potatoes he said:
“Captain, I am a poor man, but if you will land this boat and save me, I
will give you nine dollars.”
The captain decided to dispense with the music the rest of the night,
and let the band get on its sea legs.
At Chicago, the next morning, Jarvis, who had got a little sick, too,
tried to induce the captain to allow the band to walk back to Milwaukee
on the shore, beside the boat. He said they could play any tune that
ever was played, on land, and the passengers could hear it just as well,
if the boat kept alongside of the band. The captain wouldn't let them
off, and they have been kept on the boat all the week, so that now they
are old sailors, and can play all right. But it was pretty tough the
first night. Waupun is organizing a reception for the band when it comes
home.