him feel somewhat better, and he was more like the resourceful Tom Swift of old when he went to get his motor-cycle in shape for the ride back to Shopton.
"Well, I hope you find those criminals," said Mr. Blackford, as he watched Tom oiling the machine. "If you're ever out this way again, stop off and see us."
"Yes, do," urged Mrs. Blackford, who was getting ready to churn. Her husband looked at the old-fashioned barrel and dasher arrangement, which she was filling with cream.
"What's the matter with the new churn?" he asked in some surprise.
"It's broken," she replied. "It's always the way with those new-fangled things. It works ever so much nicer than this old one, though," she went on to Tom, "but it gets out of order easy."
"Let me look at it," suggested the young inventor. "I know something about machinery." The churn, which worked by a system of cogs and a handle, was brought from the woodshed. Tom soon saw what the trouble was. One of the cogs had become displaced. It did not take him five minutes, with the tools he carried on his motor-cycle, to put it back, and the churn was ready to use.
