he two rival blacksmiths, and the city marshal can't lug their
horns down-town once a week in the evening and soar sweetly off into
melody at band practice--that is, if they can get off on the same beat
during the evening.

I can hear our home band now--up over McMuggins' Drug Store on a summer
evening. It's hot--not hot enough to ignite the woodwork, but plenty
warm enough to fry eggs on the sidewalks--and the whole town is out on
the porches and lawns chasing a breeze, except the band. It is up in the
super-heated lodge room of the Modern Woodmen, huddled around two oil
lamps, because the less light it has the less heat will be generated,
and it is getting ready to practice the "Washington Post March" for the
Fourth of July parade. Our band has practiced the "Washington Post
March" for over twenty years, but while the band has altered greatly,
the grand old piece shows no sign of wear and is as fresh and
unconquerable as ever.

Querulous, complaining sounds come from the lodge room. The tenor horns
are crooning, and the bass horn blatting gently, while the clarionet
players are chasing each other up and down the scale, like squirrels
running round and round in a cage. The warming-up exercises are on. They
will continue until Frank Sundell shaves his last customer and gets up
to the hall with his trombone. You can tell when he comes. He pulls the
slide in and out a couple of times with an unearthly chromatic grunt,
and then there is a deep, pregnant silence. They are going to begin.

Usually they begin several times. It is as hard to get a band off
together in practice as it is to send a dozen horses from the wire. But
finally the bass catches up with the cornets, and the others sprint or
put on the brakes, and they land on the fourth or fifth beat together.

For a few minutes it's great. They go over the first four bars in a
bunch, and old Dobbs gets the half note and change of key in the bass,
which usually floors him, like a professional. It is a proud and happy
moment for the leader. But it doesn't last. It's too good to be true. Ad
Smith strikes a falsetto with his cornet and stops for wind; this
rattles his partner, who can't carry the air alone to save him. Dobbs
sits down on the wrong key in the bass. The tenors weaken, discouraged
by the cornet, and everybody hesitates. A couple of clarionets lose the
place and get to wandering around at random, creating terrible havoc.
The altos stop, being in doubt. Ad re