Steve and the Steam Engine   By: Sara Ware Bassett (1872-1968)

By Sara Ware Bassett

The Invention Series

Paul and the Printing Press Steve and the Steam Engine

[Illustration: "It was the conquering of this multitude of defects that gave to the world the intricate, exquisitely made machine." Frontispiece. See page 103.]

The Invention Series

STEVE AND THE STEAM ENGINE

By Sara Ware Bassett

With Illustrations By A. O. Scott

Boston Little, Brown, And Company 1921

Copyright, 1921, By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved

Published September, 1921

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass U S A

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I An Unpremeditated Folly 1

II A Meeting with an Old Friend 19

III A Second Calamity 34

IV The Story of the First Railroad 51

V Steve Learns a Sad Lesson 67

VI Mr. Tolman's Second Yarn 77

VII A Holiday Journey 94

VIII New York and What Happened There 110

IX An Astounding Calamity 125

X An Evening of Adventure 145

XI The Crossing of the Country 156

XII New Problems 169

XIII Dick Makes His Second Appearance 178

XIV A Steamboat Trip by Rail 192

XV The Romance of the Clipper Ship 205

XVI Again the Magic Door Opens 216

XVII More Steamboating 224

XVIII A Thanksgiving Tragedy 238

XIX The End of the House Party 248

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"It was the conquering of this multitude of defects that gave to the world the intricate, exquisitely made machine" Frontispiece

"You've got your engine nicely warmed up, youngster," he observed casually 9

"I wish you'd tell me about this queer little old fashioned boat" 181

He was fighting to prevent himself from being drawn beneath the jagged, crumbling edge of the hole 244

STEVE AND THE STEAM ENGINE

CHAPTER I

AN UNPREMEDITATED FOLLY

Steve Tolman had done a wrong thing and he knew it.

While his father, mother, and sister Doris had been absent in New York for a week end visit and Havens, the chauffeur, was ill at the hospital, the boy had taken the big six cylinder car from the garage without anybody's permission and carried a crowd of his friends to Torrington to a football game. And that was not the worst of it, either. At the foot of the long hill leading into the village the mighty leviathan so unceremoniously borrowed had come to a halt, refusing to move another inch, and Stephen now sat helplessly in it, awaiting the aid his comrades had promised to send back from the town.