ut 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. Ness ran out of the room in his night dress
and raised such a yell that he aroused everybody in the house. He got
his shotgun and blazed away at the supposed snake, thereby ruining a
blanket, two sheets, and filling the mattress with shot. When he found
out how he had been hoaxed he was the most foolish looking man to be
imagined.

"You just wait, Master Tom, I'll get square," he said.

"Who said I put a snake in your bed?" demanded Tom. "I never did such a
thing in my life."

"No, but you put that old rubber in, and I know it," grumbled the hired
man, and then went back to bed.

Tom also had his little joke on Aleck Pop. One evening he saw the
colored man dressing up to go out and learned that he was going to call
on a colored widow living at Dexter's Corners, a nearby village.

"We can't allow this," said the fun-loving Rover to his younger
brother. "The next thing you know Aleck will be getting married and
leaving us."

"What do you think of doing?" asked Sam.

"Come on, and I'll show you."

Now, Aleck was rather a good looking and well-formed darkey and he was
proud of his shape. He had a fine black coat, with trousers to match,
and a gorgeous colored vest. This suit Tom was certain he would wear
when calling on the widow.

When in Ithaca on his way home the fun-loving Rover had purchased an
imitation rabbit, made of thin rubber. This rabbit had a small rubber
hose attached, and by blowing into the hose the rabbit could be blown
up to life-size or larger.

Leading the way to Aleck's room, Tom got out the colored man's coat and
placed the rubber rabbit in the middle of the back, between the cloth
and the lining. It was put in flat and the hose was allowed to dangle