MY STORY

This Gaar Scott I ran in 1929 I could talk on and on about! It
was the quietest, smoothest running engine of them all! The
eccentric was built sort of double and made no noise at all. I used
to sit on the spring seat on the water tank and listen to it run.
The big smoke box and the tin stack made a very pleasing exhaust
sound. The only thing I could hear besides the exhaust was the
governor gears do you suppose I never oiled ’em? It was also
the easiest engine to fire I ever run. You only used one shovel of
coal at a time, where my other engines I used two. This Gaar Scott
was bought new in 1912 by about 12 farmers. The engine only had one
injector and it was not a Penberthy don’t know what it was. One
day it wouldn’t work and I asked the man who run it the year
before (he was hauling bundles) what could be the matter. He took
one look at the steam gauge and said it won’t work on less than
105 lbs. of steam – so that didn’t happen again.

Next was the Avery … I bought it and moved it 35 miles, which
was no fun! I like ’em better in the belt! This machine was
bought new in 1910. I kinda liked that little engine – guess
because it was mine. One day a man stopped in, visited a while and
sold me 5 gal. of boiler compound. Said to dump a couple gallons of
it into a barrel of water and inject it into the boiler about 5
p.m. Said when I washed the boiler next morning I would have to
break some of the scales in two to get them through a hand-hole. I
used it like he said and – he was right a wash tub full! That day
when we went out after dinner I could hear steam before we got
there. The steam was down to 60 lbs., water even less! In the front
end was a little crown sheet with a soft plug in it, but just below
that on left side two stay bolts had let go probably years before
and had limed over. They were just flush with boiler, the compound
had eaten the lime, and that was the end of the Avery engine.

The next year I bought the Reeves and moved it 20 miles. This
Reeves was a pleasure to run. If you had a lapse of memory and
discovered that your water and steam were both down you could catch
up as it would burn the coal, didn’t have to be babied. It had
2 injectors, both always worked and one of them would work down to
55 lbs. before it quit. I extended the platform and built larger
tool box and coal bunker. That made it much better as more people
could get up there in your way. I also put a Garden City Feeder
with a 14 ft. drag on the separator and that enabled the bundle
haulers to get more bundles under it. I took pride in keeping my
engines clean and also myself. No woman ever put a newspaper under
my plate – in fact I was cleaner than the bundle haulers as I very
seldom got out of the shade – so no sweat.

Well, folks, that’s enough – probably all this won’t be
printed (maybe none).