On the door casing was an electric push button.
"No old-fashioned knocker here," observed Dick as he gave the button a push.
"Well, we are not wanting electric push buttons," said Tom.

"An electric runabout or a good two-seat carriage will fill our bill." The boys waited for fully a minute and then, as nobody came to answer their summons, Dick pushed the button again.
"I don't hear it," said Sam.

"Perhaps it doesn't ring." "Probably it rings in the back of the house," answered his big brother.
Again the boys waited, and while they did so all heard talking at a distance.
"Somebody in the kitchen, I guess," said Tom.

"Maybe we had better go around there.

Some country folks don't use their front doors excepting for funerals and when the minister comes." Leaving their dress-suit cases on the piazza, the Rover boys walked around the side of the farmhouse in the direction of the kitchen.
The building was a low and rambling one and they had to pass a sitting-room.