ression we-all makes. If we goes to a balk or a
break-down, the "Sni-a-bar Silver Cornet Band's" got to go back an'
play in the woods.

"'It's not needed that I tells you gents, how we-all is on aige. Old
Hickey gets so perturbed he shifts me onto the big drum; an' Catfish
Edwards, yeretofore custodian of that instrooment, is given the snare.
This play comes mighty clost to breakin' my heart; for I'm ambitious,
an' it galls my soul to see myse'f goin' back'ards that a-way. It's
the beginnin' of my bad luck, too. Thar's no chance to duck the play,
however, as old Hickey's word is law, so I sadly buckles on the giant
drum.

"'We're jest turnin' into the picnic ground where this meetin's bein'
held an' I've got thoughts of nothin' but my art--as we moosicians
says--an' elevatin' the local opinion of an' concernin' the meelodious
merits of the band. We're playin' "Number Eighteen" at the time, an'
I've got my eagle eye on the paper that tells me when to welt her; an'
I'm shorely leatherin' away to beat a ace-flush.

"'Bein' I'm new to the big drum, an' onduly eager to succeed, I've got
all my eyes picketed on the notes. It would have been as well if I'd
reeserved at least one for scenery. But I don't; an' so it befalls
that when we-all is in the very heart of the toone, an' at what it's no
exaggeration to call a crisis in our destinies, I walks straddle of a
stump. An' sech is my fatal momentum that the drum rolls up on the
stump, an' I rolls up on the drum. That's the finish; next day the
Silver Cornet Band by edict of the Sni-a-bar pop'lace is re-exiled to
them woods. But I don't go; old Hickey excloodes me, an' my hopes of
moosical eminence rots down right thar.

"'It's mebby two days later when I'm over by the postoffice gettin' the
weekly paper for my old gent. Thar's goin' to be a Gander-Pullin' by
torchlight that evenin' over to Hickman's Mills with a dance at the
heel of the hunt. But I ain't allowin' to be present none. I'm too
deeply chagrined about my failure with that big drum; an' then ag'in,
I'm scared to ask a girl to go. You-all most likely has missed
noticin' it a heap--for I frequent forces myse'f to be gala an' festive
in company--but jest the same, deep down onder my belt, I'm bashful.
An' when I'm younger I'm worse. I'm bashful speshul of girls; for I
soon discovers that it's easier to face a gun than a girl, an' the
glance of her eye is more terrifyin' than the glimmer of a bowie.
T