Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's Part 16

"Shall we get up and hunt for the ghost when the others are asleep?"

"I don't guess we'd better do it to-night," he answered. "I'm too sleepy. Besides we don't know our way around the house in the dark.

We'll wait until to-morrow."

"All right," agreed Rose. This suited her. She, too, was ready for bed.

Daddy Bunker and Grandpa Ford did not, of course, go to bed as early as did the children. And Mother Bunker was going downstairs to talk to Grandma Ford as soon as Margy and Mun Bun were sound asleep.

One after another the six little Bunkers got into bed and, though the two smallest were asleep almost at once, the others turned and twisted a little, as almost every one does in a strange bed. But, finally, even Rose and Russ, in their rooms, were in Slumberland, lulled by the whistle of the wind and the rattle of the snow against the windows.

Russ thought it must be the middle of the night when he was suddenly awakened by a loud noise. It was a banging sound, as though something heavy had fallen to the floor. Then came a rattle of tin and a splash of water, and the voice of one of the little Bunkers cried:

"Oh, I fell in! I fell in! Somebody get me out!"

CHAPTER XII

UP IN THE ATTIC

Russ leaped out of bed and ran into the hall, where a light was burning.

The Bunkers always burned one, turned low.

"Mother! Daddy!" cried Russ. "Come on, quick! The ghost has got one of us! Come quick!"

For a moment no one answered his call, and then he heard, from the room where Mun Bun had been put to sleep, the sound of crying.

"What's the matter?" asked Russ, trying to make his voice sound brave.

"Are you hurt, Mun Bun? Or Margy?"

"I--I fell in and I'm all wet," sobbed Mun Bun.

"Oh, Daddy! Come quick!" fairly shouted Russ. "The ghost pushed Mun Bun in, and he can't get out!"

Feet were heard coming upstairs. Then a voice asked:

"What is the matter? What has happened now, Russ? Are you hurt?"

"No, Mother!" answered the oldest Bunker boy. "But I guess it's Mun Bun.

It sounds like him, and I guess the ghost has him!"

"Nonsense! There are no ghosts! Don't cry, Mun Bun," Mrs. Bunker went on, as she hurried up the stairs. "I'm coming, and so is Daddy Bunker!

You'll be all right."

"But I'm all wet!" sobbed Mun Bun. "I--I guess I fell in the ocean, and I can't get out!"

"You're dreaming that you're back at Cousin Tom's," laughed Mrs. Bunker, as she turned up the light and went into the room where Mun Bun and Margy slept. "You're dreaming, and--Oh, you poor little dear!" she cried, as she saw what had happened. "You have fallen out of bed!"

And that is just what happened. Mun Bun, being in a strange bed, had rolled too near one edge, and had fallen out. That was the b.u.mping, banging noise Russ heard.

"But what made the splash?" Russ asked as he came in to see his mother lift Mun Bun from the floor, and put him back in bed.

"That was when he upset a tin cup of water I had put in a chair near his bed, so it would be handy when I wanted to give him a drink in the night," said Mrs. Bunker. "It splashed all over Mun Bun, and that made him think, I guess, that he had fallen into the water. Did it, Mun Bun?"

she asked.

"I--I guess so," he murmured. "I thought I fell into the water, 'cause I was all wet. I didn't like it."

"I don't blame you," said Mrs. Bunker. "Now I'll put a dry nightgown on you, and you can go to sleep again. I'll put a chair by the bed so you won't roll out again, and I'll set the water on the bureau.

"Now, don't make any more noise, Russ, or Mun Bun, and wake up Margy,"

went on Mrs. Bunker. "She is sleeping too nicely to be awakened." Mun Bun's little sister, though in the same bed with him, had not heard him fall out, knock over the tin cup of water, and call out that he had fallen in. She slept through it all.

Mun Bun was soon dressed in a dry garment, the water on the floor was mopped up, and the light turned down again.

Then the six little Bunkers at Great Hedge quieted down and slept all the way through until morning.

But that same night, when Mother Bunker went downstairs, after having put Mun Bun back to bed, she said to her husband and Grandpa and Grandma Ford:

"What do you suppose has got into Russ to be talking about a ghost?"

"Is that what he said?" asked Grandpa Ford.

"Yes. When he was awakened by Mun's falling out of bed the first thing he called to me was that the ghost had got Mun. I don't understand where the children heard anything about such a thing."

"Nor I," said Daddy Bunker.

"We mustn't let them get the idea that anything is wrong here at Great Hedge," went on Grandpa Ford. "It might frighten them, though, of course, it is nothing like a ghost. I can't imagine where they got the idea, but we must not speak of it again in front of them.

"I do wish we could find out what it is that makes such a queer noise.

Your mother and I," he said to Daddy Bunker, "have heard it many times, and now, the first night you are here, it sounds again."

"But only once," said Mr. Bunker, "and that may have been the wind, as we said it was."

"No, it wasn't the wind," declared Grandpa Ford. "For I have heard the same moaning sound when there was hardly any wind. The wind has died down now. It is quieter. I think the storm has stopped, or soon will."

He went to the window to look out, and, as he did so, there sounded through the house a deep, dull groan. It seemed to fill many rooms, and for a moment Daddy and Mother Bunker and Grandpa and Grandma Ford looked at one another. Then they listened to see if any of the children were awake. But upstairs all was quiet.

"There it goes again," said Grandpa Ford.

"I heard it," answered Daddy Bunker. "I wonder what it could have been?"

"The wind," said Mrs. Bunker in a low voice.

"But the wind has stopped blowing," remarked Grandma Ford.

"Oh, well, we'll find out what it is soon," said Daddy Bunker. "Don't let it worry you. We came here, Mother dear, to help you hunt for the queer noise, and that's what we'll do."