Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's Part 19

All that day and the next the six little Bunkers played around Great Hedge, having fun in the snow. Sometimes Mother and Grandma came out to watch them. Grandpa Ford and Daddy Bunker went to town in a cutter, with the merry jingling bells _on_ the horse, and Daddy went home for a week on business.

Nothing more was said about the ghost for several days, and even Russ and Rose seemed to forget there was such a make-believe chap. They coasted downhill, played, and had fun in the snow and were very glad indeed that they had come to Grandpa Ford's.

Then, about a week after their arrival, there came a cold, bl.u.s.tery day when it was not nice to be out.

"Let's go up to the attic and make something with the old spinning wheels," said Russ to Laddie. "Maybe we can make an airship."

"All right," agreed Laddie. "Only we won't sail up very high in 'em, 'cause we might fall down."

Rose was out in the kitchen, watching Grandma Ford make an apple pie, and Rose was singing away, for she was trying to make a pie also--a little one with pieces left over from her grandmother's crust.

Up to the attic went Russ and Laddie, and Mun Bun followed them.

"I want to come and watch you," he said, shaking his pretty, bobbed hair around his head.

"Shall we let him?" asked Laddie.

"Oh, yes, he can watch us," said Russ, who was always kind to his little brother.

Grandma Ford had said the boys could play with the spinning wheels if they did not break them, and this Russ and Laddie took care not to do.

"First we must make 'em so both wheels will turn around together at the same time alike," said Russ.

"How are you going to do that?" Laddie asked, while Mun Bun sat down in a corner near the big chimney to watch.

"Well, we'll put a belt on 'em, same as the belt on mother's sewing-machine. Don't you know? That has a round leather belt on the big wheel, and when you turn the big wheel the little wheel goes. Same as on our tricycle, only there are chains on those."

"Oh, yes, I know," said Laddie.

They found some string and made a belt of it, putting it around each of the two big spinning wheels. Then, by turning one, the other, at some distance away, could be made to go around.

"This is just like an airship!" cried Laddie. "We'll make believe this is the engine, and we'll go up in it."

This the boys did, even pretending to take Mun Bun up on one trip. Then they played other games with the spinning wheels, making believe they worked in a big factory, and things like that.

By this time Laddie and Russ had forgotten about Mun Bun, and the little fellow had wandered off by himself to the place in the attic where the strings of sleigh bells hung. He had fun jingling these. Then Russ and Laddie found something else with which to play. These were the candle-moulds. Leaving the spinning wheels, with a number of strings and cords still fast to them, the two older boys began to make believe they were soldiers with the candle-moulds for guns.

"I'll be a soldier and you can be an Indian," said Russ to Laddie. "I must live in a log cabin, and you must come in the night and try to get me, and I wake up and yell 'Bang! Bang!' That means you're shot."

"All right, and then I must shoot you, after a while."

"Sure, we'll play that way."

So they did, and had fun. They aimed at one another with the candlestick moulds and shouted so many "bangs!" that the attic echoed with the noise.

Then, suddenly, as they stopped a moment for breath, they heard the voice of Mun Bun crying:

"Oh, stop pulling my hair! Stop pulling my hair! Oh, it hurts!"

Russ and Laddie looked at one another in surprise. Neither of them was near Mun Bun, and yet they could see the little fellow standing close to one of the spinning wheels, and his golden hair stuck straight out behind him, just as if an unseen hand had hold of it and was pulling it hard.

"Oh, stop! Stop! You hurt!" sobbed Mun Bun. "Let go my hair!"

But who had hold of it?

CHAPTER XIV

COASTING FUN

Russ and Laddie said, afterward, that they were much frightened at what happened. They were really more frightened than was Mun Bun, for he was not so much frightened as he was hurt. He thought some one had crept up behind him and was pulling his hair, as often happened when some of the six little Bunkers were not as good as they should be.

"Let go my hair! Stop pulling!" cried Mun Bun.

"We're not touching you," said Laddie.

"Is any one there?" asked Russ, looking to see if any one stood back of his brother.

But he could look right through the spokes of the spinning wheel, near which Mun Bun was standing, and see no one except his little brother.

And the bobbed, golden hair of Mun Bun still stuck straight out behind him, as stiff as if the wind were blowing it, or as if some one had hold of it.

"Make 'em stop pulling my hair!" begged Mun Bun again. And then, as he moved a little to one side, Laddie saw the spinning wheel turn and he cried:

"I know what it is!"

"What?" asked Russ. "Do you see 'em? Is it Margy or Vi?"

"Neither one," answered Laddie. "It isn't anybody."

"n.o.body pulling Mun Bun's hair?" asked Russ. "Then what's he hollering for?"

"'Cause the spinning wheel's pulling it. Look! He's caught in one of the spinning wheels, and his leg is tangled in one of the string belts we left on, and he made the wheel go around himself."

Russ dropped his candle-mould gun and ran over to his little brother.

Surely enough it had happened just as Laddie had said.

The golden hair of the little boy had become tangled in the slender spokes of the spinning wheel, some of which were a bit splintery.

As I told you, when Russ and Laddie finished making believe the wheels were an airship, they left some strings on them. By pulling on these strings the spinning wheels could be made to go around. And that was what Mun Bun had done, though he did not know it.

At first he did not feel it when, leaning up against one of the wheels, his hair got caught. Then his legs became entangled in one of the strings, and, as he stepped out, he pulled on the string and the wheel began to spin.

Of course that stretched his hair tightly, and it felt exactly as if some one were pulling it, which was the case. Only it was the spinning wheel, and not a ghost or any person.

All ghost stories will turn out that way if you wait long enough. Every time it is something real which makes the funny noises or does the funny things. For there are no ghosts.