FUN ON THE FARM Two days passed and the boys felt once more at home on the farm.

The strain of the recent examinations and the closing exercises at school had gone and as Sam declared, "they were once more themselves," and ready for anything that might turn up.
In those two days came another telegram from Mr.Rover, sent from Philadelphia, in which he stated that he had caught his man, but had lost him again.

He added that he would be home probably on the following Sunday.

This message came in on Monday, so the boys knew they would have to wait nearly a week before seeing their parent.
"I am just dying to know what it is all about," said Tom, and the others said practically the same.
Tom could not keep down his propensities for joking and nearly drove Sarah, the cook, to distraction by putting some barn mice in the bread box in the pantry and by pouring ink over some small stones and then adding them to the coal she was using in the kitchen range.

He also took a piece of old rubber bicycle tire and trimmed it up to resemble a snake and put it in Jack Ness' bed in the barn, thereby nearly scaring the hired man into a fit.