After that Mr. Brown took the whole family to "Camp Rest-a-While." It
was a lovely place in the woods and they lived in tents. Uncle Tad went
with them, and ever so many things happened to the children there. Their
dog Splash had good times too.

Camp Rest-a-While was near the edge of the big woods, and in the book
called "Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods," which is just
before this one, you may read of the adventures with Bunny's train of
electric cars, and of the fun Sue had with her electrical Teddy bear, which
could flash its eyes when a button was pressed in his back--or rather,
_her_ back, for Sue had named her Teddy bear Sallie Malinda, insisting
that it was a girl bear.

And now the Brown family was home again from the big woods, ready for
other happenings. And that they were going to have adventures might be
guessed from what Mr. Brown started to say about some news. But just now
he was reading the letter Fred Ward had written to his parents.

"Hum! That is a strange note for a boy to leave," said Mr. Brown slowly.
"He evidently doesn't intend to come home very soon."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Ward, and commenced to weep once more.

"I tell her he may come home soon, for he has no money--or at least very
little to live on," said the missing boy's father. "You see Fred has a
high spirit, and he did not like it when I had to punish him. But I did
it for his good. He must learn the value of money, and he must not spend
when I tell him not to."