The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-09-04
FILLING THE BASS HORN.


taught to hand up apples to the man
on the high seat till the man told him
to stop.
AT the ends the band chariot swept
upward with a great curve. At the
rear end, away up in the air, was the
bass drum; at the forward end. just
under the back of the drivers seat, was
the big bass horn. The man who
played the bass horn in our band could
probably get more thunder out of that
massive instrument than any other man
that ever played one, and he was proud
of ii, of course. But he was too pow
erful to suit the driver of the band
wagon. Bill liked music as well as
anybody, and if anything he liked the
bass horn little better than any other
instrument; but he didn't like quite
so much of it as he got in the band
wagon. He was driving 20-horse
team, and he was just as proud of his
driving as the bass horn player was of
his playing; and he used to say that
the vibrations of the wagon at that end
caused by the heavy blasts of the horn
shook the wagon so much that he
couldn't do his driving justice, and he
asked the bass horn player to let up
little on parades, but of course he never
did.
zone day, late in summer. when
we came to an orchard of beautiful red
apples, the keeper of the giraffe at
once set the animal to work. and when
the band wagon came along Bill halted,
as he always did, to get his share. 1t
was still, drowsy day, the jolting had
been just enough to keep the flies off,
and the whole band was scattered along
the band wagon asleep, from the bass
drummer up at the other end with his
head resting on his arms and the great
drum in front of MIN, down along the
whole length of the wagon to the front
seat, where, with one or two others,
under the overarching rear edge of
the drivers seat, sat the big horn
player the great horn beside him, the
bell opening upward under the edge
of the drivers seat, like rainwater
cask under the caves of house. Driver
Bill leaned over back, and dropped the
first apple that the giraffe handed him
into the mouth of the big horn, and he
kept on dropping them there as fast
as the giraffe handed them up. Alto
gether, he must have dropped into the
big horn about peck of apples, and
the jolting of the wagon after that
wedged 'em in pretty tight. We were
taking long jump that day; no day
show, and no parade that day at alb
,,irr ha
player tried to sound his horn it
wouldn't sound, AMI people missed it,
You can't do\without the oomphah,
oomphah, complain of the big brass
horn any more than you can without
the sharp notes of the E-fat cornet,
and folks began looking over toward
the band to see what was the matter,
and when they saw what the bass horn
player was doing they called the atten-
ton of the others, and pretty soon the
whole audience was looking over that
way. They saw the leader leading,
and everybody but the bass horn player
playing right along as usual. The bass
horn player was trying to play, push
ing in keys and valves and blowing
himself red in the face, but making no
sound at all. But suddenly there shot
out of the mouth of the great instru-
ment, like ball out of n roman candle,
single big red apple. Then all Of a
sudden the big horn began roaring and
rumbling and spouting red apples like
a fireworks.
"Even the clown laughed, and 1t was
IS minutes before the audience got
quieted down enough SO that the show
could go on.
"Of course, the old man had to
know all about it, and the upshot Of
it all was that Driver Bill was sent
back to the tiger cage, and the driver
of the tiger cage was promoted to the
band wagon. And after that the bass
horn player used to play louder than
ever. When he blew complain,
complain, oomphah. now, the forward
end of the heavy band wagon would
surge and sway like a light carriage
does when you jounce on the seat
Alvin Dipperton, in Chicago Inter