When Tom was about a mile away from his house he saw in the road ahead of him a rickety old wagon, and a second glance at it told him the outfit belonged to Eradicate Sampson, for the animal drawing the vehicle was none other than the mule, Boomerang.

“But what in the world is Rad up to?” mused Tom, for the colored man was out of the wagon and was going up and down in the grass at the side of the highway in a curious fashion.  “I guess he’s lost something,” decided Tom.

When he got nearer he saw what Eradicate was doing.  The colored man was pushing a lawn-mower slowly to and fro in the tall, rank grass that grew beside the thoroughfare, and at the sound of Tom’s motor-cycle the negro looked up.  There was such a woe-begone expression on his face that Tom at once stopped his machine and got off.

“What’s the matter, Rad?” Tom asked.

“Mattah, Mistah Swift?  Why, dere’s a pow’ful lot de mattah, an’ dat’s de truff.  I’se been swindled, dat’s what I has.”

“Swindled?  How?”

“Well, it’s dis-a-way.  Yo’ see dis yeah lawn-moah?”

“Yes; it doesn’t seem to work,” and Tom glanced critically at it.  As Eradicate pushed it slowly to and fro, the blades did not revolve, and the wheels slipped along on the grass.

“No, sah, it doan’t work, an’ dat’s how I’ve been swindled, Mistah Swift.  Yo’ see, I done traded mah ole grindstone off for dis yeah lawn-moah, an’ I got stuck.”

“What, that old grindstone that was broken in two, and that you fastened together with concrete?” asked Tom, for he had seen the outfit with which Eradicate, in spare times between cleaning and whitewashing, had gone about the country, sharpening knives and scissors.  “You don’t mean that old, broken one?”

“Dat’s what I mean, Mistah Swift.  Why, it was all right.  I mended it so dat de break wouldn’t show, an’ it would sharpen things if yo’ run it slow.  But dis yeah lawn-moah won’t wuk slow ner fast.”

“I guess it was an even exchange, then,” went on Tom.  “You didn’t get bitten any worse than the other fellow did.”

“Yo’ doan’t s’pose yo’ kin fix dis yeah moah so’s I kin use it, does yo’, Mistah Swift?” asked Eradicate, not bothering to go into the ethics of the matter.  “I reckon now with summah comin’ on I kin make mo’ with a lawn-moah than I kin with a grindstone—­dat is, ef I kin git it to wuk.  I jest got it a while ago an’ decided to try it, but it won’t cut no grass.”

“I haven’t much time,” said Tom, “for I’m anxious to get home, but I’ll take a look at it.”

Tom leaned his motor-cycle against the fence.  He could no more pass a bit of broken machinery, which he thought he could mend, than some men and boys can pass by a baseball game without stopping to watch it, no matter how pressed they are for time.  It was Tom’s hobby, and he delighted in nothing so much as tinkering with machines, from lawn-mowers to steam engines.