Lassie's and Pokey's affinity for a fossil leg bone that Lassie uncovered while the boys were digging for diamonds creates difficulty for the university archaeological team putting together a complete skeleton.
When Ellen gives Jeff a cheap watch to earn his late father's watch by being more punctual, Jeff's autocratic insistence that he and everybody follow a strict schedule grows wearisome for all.
During a trout derby for which the prize is a rod and reel, Lassie helps Jeff land a big fish which help calls for an unforeseen interpretation of the rules by Doc Weaver.
When dog hater Perkins conducts a last minute write-in campaign for Teal's office, Jeff and Porky conduct an impromptu campaign for Teal and make a hurried trip to get Gramps, Weaver and Teal from a fishing trip so that they might vote.
Jim Teal's nephew Pete who has come to live Teal after finishing college at Chatsburg jokes with Jeff that he has just been let out and, because there is a prison in that town, a dreadful rumor spreads that Pete Teal is a convict.
Restaurant owners illegally and recklessly over fish the Miller's pond which has been stocked by the state because it is one of few with a quantity of water during a drought period.
Woody's dares putting Jeff in danger causes Ellen to get from Jeff a promise not to take dares which causes Jeff ridicule and diminished self esteem that forces Jeff into a near disaster causing Jeff to realize the foolishness of dares.
Gramps is both too habituated to his old ways and too fearful to use the new tractor he has won in a raffle until he must use it to rescue Jeff when the pickup with a load of timber is about to go over a cliff.
Jeff, after he agrees to watch Jim Teal's pesky goat herd pending a goat fence to earn money to buy a motor for his bike, develops an ingenious rope and stake method to avoid overnight duty but then buys presents for all at Teal's chiding.
Ellen teaches Lassie to have Jeff who has grown careless put away his belongings but Lassie carries the training too far putting away Ellen's cleaning supplies and Gramp's tools while still in use.
People of Calverton are upset with Jenny for not relaying or relaying wrong messages until Jeff finds it is her birthday and only her far away brother remembered and makes others aware of the situation so they may remember Jenny.
Jeff is influenced by Porky's excessive belief in superstition to heed them after a number of events occur until he is corrected by a couple events that should have been bad luck are the opposite.
While trying to persuade Porky to go home, Jeff resists pressure to tell the whereabouts of Porky who has left home after an unwarranted licking because Jeff has made a promise not to tell.
After Lassie is professionally groomed for a family photo that Ellen won through a radio program, Lassie resists messy tasks and the surrender of her adornments.
When each of the boys boasts that the shooting ability of his father will win the turkey shoot, Jeff says Gramps, once a crack shot, will enter and win but Gramps has aged since he put the gun away ten years ago and comes a little short.
Jimmy Travis whose father is continually relocated gets his first dog but must shortly leave it behind so he has Jeff promise to care for the dog but the dog mourns and shuns food while waiting for Jimmy's return at the train station.
Jeff and Porky order two hamsters but receive by a mistake due to its misbehavior a chimpanzee from the same shipment which chimp must be kept over the weekend until it can be retrieved and it saves Gramps from a fall from the barn roof.
While the gang is at a wedding, Lassie runs after a bakery truck to a delivery, is taken on a hitchhike by transient worker at a delivery, given by the worker to a little girl from whom she flees and helped by campers before coming home.
Jeff and Porky fight because Jeff is more interested in the geode Lassie has found than finding Porky's lost new baseball and Jeff thinks Porky has said he is not interested in the geode that was to be entered in a class exhibit together.
A reclusive woman with a mongrel dog who rents an area home for the summer takes a dislike to the boys and Lassie so the boys make a trade of gifts between the woman and Gramps unknown to them attempting to change the woman's attitude.
Jeff and Porky while on a camping trip to practice survival skills are endangered by a forest fire started by a hunter who has carelessly managed a campfire.
On a bird watching assignment, Jeff an Porky witness a sitting Mallard duck killed by a ferret and, unable to find a brooding hen, have Lassie sit on the eggs until they hatch which causes the ducklings to adopt Lassie as their mother.
Gramps insists that Lassie stay outside in a dog house to catch a fox that is raiding the hen house but Lassie does not feel welcome back inside after she kills the fox.
While having a bad day, Gramps leaves the farm thinking Lassie is more valued than he but later needs Lassie's help when pinned against his pickup by a tree that falls during a storm.
Ellen's and Gramps' talk diminishes Jeff's passion that Jeff and Porky will be Calverton constable and deputy constable on boys' day so Gramps arranges a fake bank robbery with his friends.
Jeff is embarrassed by his humble circumstances when the son of a wealthy banker and family take residence nearby while the rich boy is envious of Jeff's country lifestyle.
When Jeff accepts a dare to enter a rumored haunted house, Jeff and Porky become trapped in a cellar by the actions of a secret society initiation, the members of which the boys believe to be ghost because of their colonial dress.
Jeff and Porky vow to protect a pair of band-tailed pigeons rare to the area that have nested in the farm mower but Gramps might have to disrupt the pair to cut the alfalfa in advance of a fast approaching hail storm.
When fatherless Jeff shuns the 4H meetings because each father is in turn teaching a task, Ellen attempts to engage with Jeff in physical fatherly activities thinking Jeff is lonely but this behavior causes Jeff to think the same of Ellen.
When a peddler relates to Jeff and Porky a lie told to him by Gramps about going broke, Jeff starts taking drastic action such giving Lassie to Porky to feed, selling his things and readying to leave school to get a job.
Lassie finds a wild Gravenstein apple tree that Jeff and Gramps can use to graft the trees in the orchard after rabbits have girdled them so the orchard and farm can be saved.
While Jeff helps the boy with his education and Gramps tries to arrange a lease for the father, belligerent Jud Perkins wants the 'foreigner' squatters on an area farm removed by any means necessary.
Jeff's belief that he is growing facial hair, not obvious to anyone else, causes him to aspire to manhood but he both finds it difficult to forgo some of the pleasures of childhood and to accept adult duties per Gramps accounting.
