River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1901-04-11
SAILORS HAVE PIANOS NOW.
Musical Performances Frequently
Heard on Coastins Steamers
ON The Atlantic.

What struck the visitor as odd was
that an upright piano stood along
the port side of the cabin. He could
not suppress a short whistle of as
constituent which the skipper was
quick to notice, says the New York
Sun. A piano on 300-ton schooner
engaged in the understanding trade
when there was a big hole in the
cabin tablecloth seemed to the visitor
to be peculiar. Stifl he stifled his de-
sire to laugh as his host said, with
wave of the hand:
"Sit down aud I'll play YOU a tune"
First ii was Brahms, then came
Beethoven, Schubert and Sehumann.
Then all was still. The master of the
schooner was the first to break the
silence as he said:
after all, | like Brahms best.
Schubert seems to-"
The visitor could not contain him
self any longer, and stammered: ~
never knew that sailormen went In
for this sort of thing. Are there
many instruments aboard ship"
Sew pianos like that, ! warrant
you. ] picked that one up in the
Pacific. 1t came out of the wreck of
an English bark that struck near Val
paraiso. Got il for a song from the
underwriters. Better now than when
| first launched into the sea of music"
| But you do not understand me. |
mean is ii not strange to find q pi-
ano on board a sailing vessel like
this?"
"Not at all, not at all" replied the
master mariner. 'tIt is all the fash
ion these days There was a time
when the cabin of the average coast
ing schooner looked as desolatc as
the rear end of Maine barn. They
are now got up with some idea of
comfort. | know at least % schoon-
ers in the trade between south Of
Hatteras and east of Sandy Hook that
have fine pianos in their cabins. One
of them. the new six-master, George
w. Wells, has a grand, but then she
has plenty of beam.
81 do not know how the idea Of
placing pianos aboard vessels in the
coastwise trade originated, but inn
agine that some skipper who had
taken his family to sea with him de-
cidcd to lug along the pet dog and
maybe the piano. Anyhow, there is
nothing strange about the sound of
a piano aboard the schooner type Of
craft these days The big lines can't
have a monopoly, you know.
].
ters shoal lightship one calm even
ing last August in the company Of II
schooncrs all bound north. IT was
just after supper, and the crew had
gathered about the forecastle to
smoke their turning-in pipe of to-
bacco, when somebody on the nearest
schooner to as began TO pound away
on an organ that was in the cabin.
He was mutilating one of the comic
operas, and ! just turned to and gave
him piece of my mind over the key
board. That was the signal for
general row, and in less time than it
takes to tell it seven Of the II
schooners were battering away at
naturals, sharps and fats. Those who
hadn't any pianos came up into the
quiet Of the evening with banjos, har-
monicas or concertinas, and it was
the grandest vaudeville performance
that old Neptune ever heard.
"There is nothing really surpris-
ing about seeing a piano on board
vessel Of good tonnage these days, if
she happens to have a good owner
I was down in the Erie basin the 9TH
err day and heard the chords of a tip
top piano coming from a canal boat
living mp there for the winter"