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 l