Across the parking lot and a short distance down the street the boys passed in front of Miller Mansion. It was autumn and sunlight was getting shorter each day. Lights around the outside of the mansion made the proud house glow. The town's founder was an inventor named Eldon Miller who built the house in the late 1800's. Years later it was turned into a retirement home and then eventually abandoned. In order to save the old house a historical club was formed. Miller Mansion was rebuilt to its original grandeur and 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!" Matthew exclaimed.

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

When the mansion's caretaker left the warehouse the boys snuck back inside and began to collect all the parts for the machine. After many days the time machine was finished. Dale and Matthew set the controls from 2003 to 1942; the first year their favorite comic Major Smith O' Reens was published. Lights and sounds flashed by them. When the transporter stopped they found the barbershop was now a heating company filled with stoves and coal. The boys pulled a canvas cover over the time machine. The two explorers walked by the mansion and saw at that time it was a rest home. They entered the corner store and found the comic book on the magazine rack. They put it on the counter and laid out 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. "What about the comic?" the boys asked.

The young man hurried the boys out of the store. "No time for that nonsense." Dale and Matthew returned to the heating company building. When they tried to return to the present they discovered the controls were stuck and 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 barbershop was gone. Now the twelve-year-olds were inside a barn filled with pigs.