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.