Then he stopped and says: “Fellow townsmen, it has been suggested that I give a demonstration of my churn, not to convince you of its merits, because you believe in them, but to show you how your own churn will make butter. Mr. Wade and Captain Winton will occupy the platform as a committee. They will put the cream in the churn, and one of them will operate it. Then he will describe to you the ease of the operation. A child can churn with my device. It will almost churn by itself.” Here he laughed a little, and everybody else laughed, too.
Captain Winton and Mr. Wade got on to the band-stand then and Mr. Wade poured cream into the churn—cream they brought with them. Captain Winton turned the handle, and Kinderhook stood by, talking all the while and being mighty good-natured and enjoying himself like sixty. In almost no time at all the butter was done and they ladled it out on the table where everybody could see it. You should have heard that crowd cheer. It was like they were at a ball game and the home team had knocked a home run with the bases full.
Kinderhook held up his hand and they got quiet. “There,” says he, “your churn works, doesn’t it? Your churn; not mine.”
Captain Winton shook hands with him and the folks hollered some more, and then Kinderhook says: “Is there anybody here that would like to come up and examine this model? Now that it is yours there can be no harm in it.”
Catty nudged his father, and Mr. Atkins pushed up to the stand, carrying the Criterion churn, all wrapped up, in his arms. He went up the steps and stood there waiting.
Kinderhook looked at him and didn’t recognize him, and nobody else recognized him, either. I guess folks was kind of surprised to see a man that looked like a stranger, and such a fine-looking stranger, too, so nobody else went up. They waited to see what was going to happen.
Mr. Kinderhook says: “Do you live here, sir? I don’t recall your face.”
“I live here,” says Mr. Atkins, “and I aim to live here always.”
“Your name.”
“Atkins,” says he. “I calc’late to know consid’able about churns, so I come up to look this one over.”