He and I always seem to get into
trouble when we meet." Tom was not destined to meet Andy again that
day, but the time was to come when the red-haired bully was to cause
Tom Swift no little trouble, and get him into danger besides. So Tom
rode along, thinking over what his father had said to him about the
letter he carried.
Mr. Barton Swift was a natural inventor. From a boy he had been
interested in things mechanical, and one of his first efforts had
been to arrange a system of pulleys, belts and gears so that the
windmill would operate the churn in the old farmhouse where he was
born. The fact that the mill went so fast that it broke the churn
all to pieces did not discourage him, and he at once set to work,
changing the gears. His father had to buy a new churn, but the young
inventor made his plan work on the second trial, and thereafter his
mother found butter-making easy.
From then on Barton Swift lived in a world of inventions. People
used to say he would never amount to anything, that inventors never
did, but Mr. Swift proved them all wrong by amassing a considerable
fortune out of his many patents. He grew up, married and had one
son, Tom. Mrs. Barton died when Tom was three years old, and since
then he had lived with his father and a succession of nurses and
housekeepers.
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