The Purple Pennant

by Ralph Henry Barbour

When they got back there was an encouraging purring sound from the engine and, without disturbing the lantern, Lanny borrowed a match from Morris and read the gauge. “Forty-something,” he muttered as the light flickered out. “We’ll try her, anyway. Sneak back there to the corner, Gordon, and see if you can hear or see anything of the cop. And hurry back. I’ll get her swung around, anyway.”

Gordon scouted off and Lanny, while the other two boys held their breath anxiously, pulled a lever here, pushed something there and turned the wheel. There was a hiss, a jar, a clank and a rumble and the roller slowly moved away from the curbing.

“She starts, she moves, she seems to feel

The thrill of life along her keel!”

murmured Morris poetically as Lanny sought excitedly for the reversing lever in the darkness. The roller stopped suddenly and as suddenly began to back. Way, who had followed close behind, had just time to jump aside with a suppressed yelp before the ponderous machine struck the curb with an alarming jolt.

“Keep her head down!” exclaimed Morris. “Don’t let her throw you, Lanny!”

“Give me that lantern up here,” panted the amateur engineer. “I can’t see what I’m doing.”

Way handed the lantern to him and he hung it on a projection in front of him. After that progress was less erratic. It required much maneuvering to get the roller headed the other way, but Lanny at last accomplished the difficult feat. Gordon returned to report that all was quiet. More coal was put into the furnace and the journey begun. Lanny’s plan to have someone walk ahead with a lantern was abandoned. Instead the light was put out and Lanny trusted to the faint radiance of the moon which was not yet quite above the house-tops. The corner was negotiated without difficulty and the Flying Juggernaut, as Gordon dubbed the machine, swung into a smooth, newly-surfaced street over which she moved easily if not silently. Gordon and Morris strode ahead to watch for obstructions and give warning while Way, as a sort of rear guard, remained behind in case pursuit appeared from that direction.

What each of the four marveled at was why the entire town did not turn out to discover the reason for the appalling noise! Perhaps the sound of the steam roller’s passage was not as deafening as they imagined, but to them it seemed that the thumping and rattling and groaning could easily be heard on the other side of town! If it was, though, nothing came of it. Slowly but with a sort of blind inexorability quite awesome the Juggernaut proceeded on her way. Lanny, his hand on the lever that would bring her to a stop, stood at his post like a hero, ready, however, to cut and run at the first alarm. It seemed the better part of an hour to him before the two blocks were traversed and Morris came back to announce that Common Street was reached. Over went the wheel and the Flying Juggernaut, grazing the curbing with a nerve-destroying rasp of steel against stone, turned toward the side entrance of the field. On the left now were several houses. Lights shone from windows. The boys held their breath as the last leg of the journey began. Suppose that, hearing the noise and viewing the unusual sight of a steam roller parading through the street at half-past ten o’clock, some busy-body should telephone to the police station! Morris didn’t like to think of it, and so, naturally, he mentioned it to Gordon. Gordon assured him that the contingency had already occurred to him and that if he saw a front door open he meant to disappear from the scene with unprecedented celerity, or words to that effect!

But the suspense ended at last, for there, on the right, a break in the shadowed darkness of the high fence, was the open gate. Lanny swung the roller far to the left and turned toward the entrance. Then, however, a problem confronted them, which was how to get it over the curbing! They hadn’t planned for that. The sidewalk was a good six inches above the street level, and, bringing the Juggernaut to a stop—the sudden silence was absolutely uncanny!—Lanny invited ideas. Morris offered the desperate plan of backing the roller to the far side of the street and putting on all steam. “Sort of lift her over, Lanny,” he urged. Lanny told him he was an idiot; that this thing was a steam roller and not a horse. In the end Morris, Way and Gordon went inside to look for planks or beams to lay along the curb, while Lanny, not too contented with his task, remained to guard the roller. They were gone a long time, or so, at least, it seemed to the engineer, but returned at last with enough lumber of varying lengths and thicknesses to answer the purpose. In the light of the inquiring moon, which was now sailing well above the tree-tops, they snuggled the planks and joists against the curbing, forming an abrupt but practical runway, and, giving the Juggernaut all the steam there was, Lanny persuaded her to take the incline and to roll majestically through the gate and into the field. No sooner was she inside than Gordon swung the gate shut and secured it, and four boys, with one accord, drew four long, deep-drawn breaths of relief!