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"We gonna make it. Horse?" somebody shouted to the Cedar Rapids alto sax man at the wheel. Horace, who always hated that equestrian nom de plume, didn't answer.
And then it happened. A hairpin turn, and uncertainty where the road actually lay, sent the bus skittering into the ditch. It came to rest at a 4? -degree angle, but still upright.
"Merry Christmas, boys!" Joe, the piano player, chirped from the rearmost seat, beneath a heap of sax cases, the public address system and the Kid's $550 banjo.
And for the first time it dawned on everybody that it actually was Christmas morning.
Nathan, the first trumpeter, had stuck his foot through a window when the bus slammed into the ditch. He wasn't hurt, but the newly created vent let in a column of snow and cold air.
Up front the kid banjo player looked around like a cornered, frightened little rabbit. The windows were frosting badly and it was getting cold in the bus. "Horse" thought they should sit it out until daylight. Russ Winslow, the drummer, thought so too. But three of the huskiest boys decided to set out in some direction.
Came seven o'clock and with it the first gray streaks of dawn. The door of the bus burst open and in wallowed the three explorers. Icicles clung to Russ's black mustache. The big red-headed trombone player
December, 1943
trembled like a leaf, but he was always grinning, even at that almost terrifying moment.
"There's a filling station down the road about a quarter of a mile. They've got a fire going and said we should come on down."
One by one the boys filed out of the bus, wincing with cold as they set out single file down the road. The bigger fellows went ahead and beat the path. The Kid hesitated in the door, took one look at his precious, $550 banjo, and then turned to go. He was already out of the door, but suddenly wheeled back, dug the banjo from the pile of instrument cases, and set out down the road. The fellows were already three rods ahead.
"Where's the Kid?" Russ asked.
"He's coming."
But the Kid lagged farther and farther behind. The 2 5 -pound in' strument and three feet of snow.