"Not as far as we could learn," her husband answered. "These tramps said they were never near the Brown place."
"That's too bad. I'm sorry, I mean, that Mrs. Brown won't get back her rings and things," Mother Bunker went on. "But I'm glad these men have been captured. Now we don't need to worry about them, for the children have been a little frightened, I think."
While it may have been true that these particular tramps were not the ones that robbed Mrs. Brown, yet it was some like them, as the Bunkers learned later. For another gang of ragged men were arrested not far from Grand View, and some of these had a few of the trinkets taken from the farmhouse. These were given back to Mrs. Brown, and, later still, more of her jewelry was recovered from other tramps, so that most of her ornaments were restored.
As for Tad, he seemed to have got all over his runaway habits. He admitted he had been a very foolish little boy, and said he never was going to do anything like that again. Often after the tramps had been caught and sent away, Tad came over to play with the six little Bunkers. One day they had quite an adventure.
Back of Captain Ben's bungalow was a barn. That is, it had been a barn at one time, but after Captain Ben bought the place, and had an automobile in place of a horse, he did not use much of the stable, needing only room enough for his car. But the barn made a fine place for the six little Bunkers to play, and one afternoon, when Tad had called, Russ said:
"Let's go out to the barn and have some fun!"
"All right!" Tad agreed.
Rose had gone for a walk with her mother and Margy, but Mun Bun and Laddie remained behind to play with Russ and Tad. Daddy Bunker and Captain Ben had gone fishing in the motor boat, and they went out quite a distance in the bay.
"Let's play hide and go seek!" proposed Tad, and this was agreed to. It was Tad's turn to close his eyes and give the others a chance to slip into various hiding places so Tad could not find them after he had opened his eyes.
"Ready or not I'm coming!" cried Tad, when he had counted up to five hundred, by fives.