The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1917-09-29

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the surplus from one side Of the high
way to q ditch on the other, anu IRON
pipes have to be found. They do not
grow on the bushes by the side OF the
road They are stacked perhaps miles
away on a dump, and they have to be
brought up. Then, and not till then,
the work can be done, and the route
released for traffic again.
Even steam rollers have to be con-
sldered, for q steam roller has a soul,
and has to be humored. The first
steam roller / saw in France came
| from q London suburb, and she was
resting In ditch. The next saw was
one from the county council of south
ern county. She was In a ditch, too.
| Both were got out, Of course, but the
edge of a road In France has an I'M
| canny habit of breaking away, ana
then the trouble begins.
One roller knew was the most per-
verse creature | ever met. She maze
| a start by blowing out the plug of her
boiler and had to be assisted from
small river twice by means of couple
Of caterpillar" tractors. Then, sud-
denly. she appeared to change her
mind. and when l heard of her last
was working as though she were at
home. She had to be kept ut work,
too. and her repairs had also to be
rushed When the plug blew out, for
instance, an officer who happened to
come along took Il couple of men round
to q French blacksmith's shop, found
some lead, made the repairs there ana
then, paid half franc out Of his own
pocket and wasted only few hours
over the task instead Of couple OF
days. Economy of time means every
thing, and an hour saved means an
hour gained.
Real Rush Repair.
J Somewhere In France" there Is
little river about the width OF canal
and with the water confined between
banks some feet higher than the sur
rounding country. The Hun naturally
shelled these banks, with the inten
ton Of letting all the stream into the
fields. Now and again he got home
on his objective. But In few
minutes, with sheets Of corrugated
, iron, posts, wire bindings, rolls O
r brlshwood-in fact, anything that wa:
Mt hand-the gap was filled in ant
the damage repaired. This was
> real rush repair, and it went on at IN
, tervals, day and night, for week o
I ten days. Then Tommy showed TN
, Hun back, and he had something els
;. to occupy his attention.
y Getting I'D material for these re
, nairs by means of motor lorries Is
r too, not q task for children. Whel
Won walk across a field or through
!. wood there isn't usually much DANCE
s In it. But the Huns know where IN
! roads are, and he also knows there
q transport coming up or down pract
y cally all the time. SO, suddenly, n
n starts Smelling, and then you have [
n get a real move on. You are also'
r may add, Just as likely to run lht
v anything as to run away from A.
d Once q lorry was going down
,. fetch some stuff from dump abor
|. twelve miles back. Then the shell
g began to pop over That meant pu
e ting on speed, and for five or six mile
!, # was q race between the shells, In
q lorry and a motor car. The trio tra'
e. eled "some," but the car couldn't gal
le ward on the lorry, and eventuall
IL both ran out Of range.
When the lorry came back, loade'
A couple of hours later, it was foun
lie that four shell craters had been bio"
he in the road but that the engineers ma
lie already been on the spot and repalre
IF oil tho damage done