The kids passed through the train station parking lot adjacent to Miller Mansion. Evening had been coming sooner with each autumn day. Lights around the outside of the mansion made the proud house glow. The town's founder was an inventor named Eldon Miller whom built the house in the late 1800's. Years later it was turned into a retirement home. Eventually it was abandoned. In order to save the old house a historical club was formed. Miller Mansion was rebuilt to its original grandeur. Tours were given during the summer months. While looking at the house Dale remembered he still held the folded piece of paper in his hand. Mathematical equations were scribbled around the margins of the paper. In the center was a drawing of a machine. At the bottom of the paper were the words, "Miller's Time Transporter."

"It is a time machine!" Hal exclaimed.

"I bet the pieces for it are stored back in the warehouse," Dale added.

The two boys waited until the mansion's caretaker finished his work. Then they went into the warehouse to collect parts. After many days the time machine was finished. Dale and Hal set the controls from 2003 to 1942; the first year their favorite comic Major Smith O' Reens was published. Lights and sounds flashed around them. When the transporter stopped they found the barber shop was now a heating company. A locomotive had just delivered coal through the open sliding door. Its boxcars labored slowly away from the warehouse. The boys pulled a canvas cover over the time machine to blend with the rest of the stoves in storage. The two explorers walked by the mansion. At this time it was a rest home. They entered the corner variety store. The prized comic book sat in a magazine rack. They put the origin issue on the counter with coins they had carefully collected from the year 1942. The young clerk behind the counter was a tall, red-haired teenager who would become the mansion's caretaker in the future. He began to ring up the comic when suddenly sirens rang out signaling an air raid test. Everyone rushed to their shelters. The young man hurried the boys out of the store.

"What about the comic?" the boys asked.

"No time for that nonsense," barked the clerk.

Dale and Hal returned to the heating company building. When they tried to come to the present they discovered the controls were stuck. They could not go forward in time. The boys decided they had to go farther back in time to ask Eldon Miller for help in returning to the future. They went back to the year 1901. The building that would become the heating company and then the barber shop did not exist in this time. Now the twelve-year-olds were inside a barn filled with swine. A steam engine chugged on the nearby rails.