Pulling and Ploughing!

"I'm sorry I teased you, Terence. You'd make a really useful engine, pulling me along like that!" "The way you ploughed up the field, you'd make a fine tractor!"

- Percy and Terence

Pulling and Ploughing! is a magazine story.

Plot
Terence is chugging up and down a field near a station, pulling a plough. Percy pulls up and asks what Terence is pulling, to which Terence tells him what it is and what it is for. Percy, however, thinks pulling trucks is much more important than pulling a silly plough (which leaves Terence unhappy) and when the signal drops, Percy shunts his trucks into a siding and is uncoupled.

Percy then has to switch tracks to get onto the through line again. He puffs over the points before they are changed and his brakes fail. Luckily, the little saddle-tank engine is not going very fast, but he crashes through some buffers and derails. He continues to roll through a fence and into the muddy field that Terence is ploughing. Poor Percy wobbles around so much that he thinks he is going to topple over, but he eventually comes to a halt, his wheels sinking into the mud.

Eventually, a breakdown truck and crane arrive, but it cannot reach Percy in the field. Percy is worried that he will be stuck there forever when Terence is unhitched from his plough and is chained to Percy. Terence pulls with all his strength, the mud is no trouble for his caterpillar treads.

At last, Terence heaves Percy close enough to the crane that it can lift Percy back onto the track. Percy is sorry for teasing Terence and says that he would make a fine engine being able to pull like that. Terence smiles and tells Percy that the way he ploughed up the field, he would make a fine tractor.

Characters

 * Percy
 * Terence