Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's Part 23

The next day the children all went up to the attic and saw the string where one of them had left it tied to the bells. Daddy Bunker had taken off the apple.

"I wish we could see the rat!" exclaimed Laddie.

"I don't," said Rose. "I don't like rats."

"I guess I've a riddle about a rat," said Laddie after a pause.

"What is it?" asked Russ. "I can guess it, easy."

"No, you can't!" declared his brother.

"I can so!"

"You can not!"

"Well, let's hear it," demanded Russ.

"It's when is a rat not a rat?" asked Laddie. "That's the riddle. When is a rat not a rat?"

"It's always a rat," said Rose.

"Do you mean when a cat is after him?" asked Russ, trying to guess the riddle.

"No," answered Laddie. "That isn't it. I'll give you another guess."

Russ tried to think of several other reasons why a rat was sometimes not a rat, but at last he gave up.

"This is it," said Laddie. "A rat isn't a rat when he's a bell-ringer; like the one in the attic was last night."

"Yes, that's a pretty good riddle," agreed Russ, after a bit. "Some day I'm going to make a riddle. Now I'm going to make snowshoes."

"How do you make them?" asked Laddie.

Russ was going to tell his brother, and take him out to the barn to show him, when Mother Bunker called up:

"Who wants to go for a ride with Grandpa?"

"I do! I! Take me! I want to go!" came in a chorus.

"Well, he has room for all of you, so come along. He's going to Tarrington to get some friends to come out to the Thanksgiving dinner, and you six may all go along," said Mother Bunker.

So the six little Bunkers had another fine sleigh ride, and came back to Great Hedge with fine appet.i.tes. They also brought back in the sled with them Mr. and Mrs. Burton, old friends of Grandpa Ford, who generally spent the Thanksgiving holiday with him.

For the next few days there were so many things going on at Great Hedge that if I only told about them I'd fill this book. But, as I have other happenings to relate to you, and the ghost to tell about, I will just skip over this part by saying that every one, even down to Mun Bun, helped get ready for the Thanksgiving dinner.

Such goings-on as there were in Grandma Ford's kitchen! Such delicious smells of cake and pie and pudding! Such baking, roasting, boiling, frying and stewing! Such heaps of good things in the pantry!

And then the dinner! The big roast turkey, and celery, and a big dish of red cranberries, and other good things!

"I got the wish-bone!" cried Rose, as she finished her plate.

"Let me help pull it with you, when it gets dry!" begged Russ, and then, in a whisper, he said: "If I get the wish I'll wish we could find the ghost."

"So'll I," said Rose.

After dinner the children played games in the house, as it blew up cold and bl.u.s.tery and was not nice to go out in the snow. Rose had put the wish-bone over the kitchen stove to dry, and, late in the afternoon, she and Russ went out to get it to break, and wish over it. The one who held the larger part could make a wish.

"Snap!" went the wish-bone.

"Oh, I have it!" cried Rose. "I'm going to wish!"

And just then, all of a sudden, a loud, hollow groan sounded throughout the house.

CHAPTER XVII

RUSS MAKES SNOWSHOES

"There it goes! There it goes again!" cried Rose, and, forgetting all about having gotten the larger end of the bone, so that she had the right to make a wish, she dropped it and ran toward the sitting-room.

The rest of the six little Bunkers and the father and mother, with Grandma and Grandpa Ford and their guests, were gathered in the sitting-room after the Thanksgiving dinner.

There was no doubt that they all heard the noise. It was so loud, and it sounded through the whole house in such a way that every one heard it.

Only Mun Bun and Margy and Violet and Laddie did not pay much heed to it. They were playing a game in one corner of the room.

"Did you hear it?" asked Russ, as Rose ran over and crouched down beside her mother.

"I heard a noise, yes," answered Mrs. Bunker quietly.

"We all heard it--and there it goes again!" exclaimed Grandpa Ford.

"O-u-g-h-m!" came the awful sound.

"It's the wind," said Grandma Ford.

"The wind isn't blowing," said Daddy Bunker. "It must be something else.

There is no wind."

There was a little, but not enough to blow the snow about. It had been bl.u.s.tery--so cold and blowy, in fact, that the six little Bunkers could not go out to play. But now the sun had gone down, and, as often happens, the wind died down with it. The night was going to be still and cold.

"No, I don't believe it was the wind," said Grandpa Ford. "It's the same noise we heard before. We must try to find out what it is, Charles," and he turned to Daddy Bunker.

"It's the ghost! That's what it is!" exclaimed Russ. "We tried to find it, Rose and I did--but we couldn't. It's the ghost!"

"Nonsense! What do you know about ghosts?" said Mother Bunker, and she tried to laugh, but it did not sound very jolly. "There aren't any such things as ghosts," she went on.