“’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.  That’s the way I feels.  It’s a fact; I remembers a time when my mother, gettin’ plumb desp’rate over my hoomility, offers me a runnin’ hoss if I’d go co’t a girl; on which o’casion I feebly urges that I’d rather walk.

“‘On the evenin’ of this yer dance an’ Gander-Pullin’ I’m pirootin’ about the Center when I meets up with Jule James;—­Jule bein’ the village belle.  “Goin’ to the dance?” says Jule.  “No,” says I.  “Why ever don’t you go?” asks Jule.  “Thar ain’t no girl weak-minded enough to go with me,” I replies; “I makes a bid for two or three but gets the mitten.”  This yere last is a bluff.  “Which I reckons now,” says Jule, givin’ me a look, “if you’d asked me, I’d been fool enough to go.”  Of course, with that I’m treed; I couldn’t flicker, so I allows that if Jule’ll caper back to the house with me I’ll take her yet.