covers and launches out with
terrific vim half a beat behind. There is a rally, but it is too late.
You can hear fragments of five different keys, and presently every one
stops except Mahlon Brown, who plays the bass drum and always bangs away
through fire or water until some one turns him off.

Then there is silence--a good deal of it. We all know what is
happening. Sim Askinson, the leader, is making a few well-chosen
remarks, and each player is turning around in his chair and going over
the faults of his neighbor in the most kindly and thorough fashion. Ed
Smith empties out his baritone horn and takes a little practice run, and
then they commence to begin--or begin to start--or start to
commence--whatever it is, all over again. But when they stop at ten
o'clock, they haven't played the "Washington Post March" clear through
in any one heat.

Doesn't sound encouraging for the Fourth, does it? But, pshaw, that's
only practice! When the big day comes and the boys put on their caps and
coats and such trousers as will come nearest to blending with the said
coats and march down the street, do they falter and blow up in the back
stretch? Not much. They canter through that air as if they had been born
whistling it. There's a wonderful inspiration in marching to a band
man--give him a horn, a ragged slip of music, and about four miles of
road, and he will prance down the street, climbing over ruts, wading
through mud, reading at night by the light of a torch carried by a boy
who is twenty feet away fighting with another boy; and he will blow his
immortal soul into his horn for hours at a stretch without missing a
note.

Part of the reason for the difference at home is because we always carry
a few amateurs, who are privileged to come in at practice and do all the
damage they can, but who have to keep mighty quiet on the march. They
can carry their horns, puff out their cheeks and look as grand as they
please, but if they'd presume to cut loose with some real notes and
smear up a piece, they'd be fired in no time.

We have always been mighty proud of our Homeburg band. Nobody knows how
old it is. We think it arrived with the first inhabitants. These are
all dead, but some of the original horns are still doing duty, and the
brass on them is worn thin and almost bright. Our band is much better
than the average band. That's one of the great Homeburg comforts.
Whenever we get blue about the muddy streets and the small stores, a