Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's Part 33

As the procession, led by Grandpa Ford driving the horses, approached the cabin, a door opened and a man came out.

"Had an accident, did you, Mr. Ford?" he asked.

"Yes," answered the children's grandfather. "My sled upset in a drift and spilled out my six little Bunkers. I also broke a bolt, and I shall have to ride to the blacksmith shop to get another. I was wondering if the children couldn't wait in your house until I came back."

"Of course they may!" exclaimed a motherly-looking woman, coming to the door behind her husband. "Bring them in, every one, and I'll give them some bread and milk. I have cookies, too, for I just baked to-day."

"I'm glad of that!" exclaimed Laddie, and the grown folks laughed at him because he said it so earnestly.

"Come right in!" went on Mrs. Thompson. "Are you cold?"

"Not very, thank you," answered Rose. "We had lots of blankets in the sled, and we didn't get much snow on us."

"Well, sit up by the fire, and I'll get you something to eat," said Mrs.

Thompson.

"I'll put one of your horses in the stable while you ride to the blacksmith shop on the other," said Mr. Thompson, putting on his hat and overcoat, to go out where Grandpa Ford was waiting.

"Now, you'll be all right, little Bunkers!" called their grandfather to them, as he started away on the back of Major, who had been unharnessed.

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

Mr. Thompson took Prince to his stable. There was a small one back of the cabin. I have called it a "cabin," though it really was a small house. But it was built like a log cabin, and was much smaller than the house at Great Hedge. It was clean and neat, and on a table covered with a bright red cloth, in front of a glowing fire in the stove, Mrs.

Thompson set out some cups, some milk, a plate of bread and some cookies.

"Now come and eat," she said to the six little Bunkers.

They were just drawing up their chairs, and Russ was wondering how long his grandfather would be gone, when, all at once, a hollow groan sounded through the cabin.

"Umph! Urr-rumph!"

It was a most sorrowful and sad sound and, hearing it, Rose cried:

"Why, there's the ghost again! Oh, it's come from Great Hedge down to this house! There's the ghost!"

Again the hollow groan sounded.

CHAPTER XXIV

CHRISTMAS JOYS

Russ, who was about to take a bite out of a cookie that Mrs. Thompson had given him, stopped with the piece half-way to his mouth. He looked at Rose with wide-open eyes.

The other little Bunkers also looked at their sister, who had left her chair and was standing in the middle of the room.

"What did you say, my dear?" asked Mrs. Thompson.

Before Rose could answer again came a queer, hollow, groaning noise, that sounded, the children said afterward, "as if a sick bear had hidden down the cellar and couldn't get out."

Just what sort of noise a sick bear makes I don't know, for I never heard one. But this noise at any rate, must have been very strange.

"Umph! Umph! Urr-rumph!" it went.

"There it is!" cried Rose. "That's the ghost! It sounds just like the noise at Great Hedge, doesn't it, Russ?"

"It--it sounds something like it," Russ had to admit. "But there isn't a ghost--Daddy said so."

"A ghost, child! I should say not!" cried Mrs. Thompson. "Of course there is no such thing."

"But what makes the sound?" asked Russ. "Don't you hear it?"

"I hear it!" exclaimed Laddie.

"So do I," said Violet.

Mun Bun and Margy probably heard it, also, but they were too busy finishing their bread and milk to say anything. Probably they knew that Russ and Rose, who always looked after them, would take care of the strange noise.

"Oh, _that_ noise!" exclaimed Mrs. Thompson, as once more the hollow groan sounded, throughout the house. "You weren't afraid of that, were you?" And her eyes began to twinkle, then she laughed.

"A--a little," admitted Rose.

"It sounds like the cur'us noise at Great Hedge," added Russ.

"Well, I didn't know you had a curious noise at your grandfather's place," went on Mrs. Thompson. "First I ever heard of it."

"Oh, yes, there's a ghost there, only it isn't a ghost 'cause there's no such thing! Daddy said so!" exclaimed Rose. "But we got----"

"We've got a funny noise there," said Russ, breaking in on what his sister was saying. "It sounds like your noise, too."

"Well, there's nothing so very curious about this noise," laughed Mrs.

Thompson. "That's only my husband playing on the big horn he used to blow when he was in the band. He hasn't used it much for years, and can't blow it as well as he used to. But that's what the noise is. Every once in a while he takes a notion and goes up into the attic and blows on the horn. I imagine he did it this time to amuse you children. I'll ask him.

"Jabez!" she called up the stairs that led to the small second story of the house. "Jabez! Is that you blowing the old ba.s.s horn?"

"Yes, Sarah, that's me," was the answer.

"Only I can't seem to blow it just right. Something appears to have got stopped up in the horn, or else maybe it's frozen. It doesn't blow like it used to."

"I should think it didn't!" laughed his wife. "Stop your tooting, and bring the horn down where the children can see it. Some of 'em thought it was a ghost, such as they have at Great Hedge. Did you ever hear of a ghost there?"

"Oh, I've heard some talk of it," answered Mr. Thompson, and now the six little Bunkers could hear him coming downstairs. He seemed to be carrying something large and heavy.

"Why didn't you tell me about it?" asked his wife. "I like ghost stories."

"Oh, this isn't really a ghost," quickly explained Rose. "It's just a queer, groaning sound, and it comes in the middle of the night sometimes, and my daddy and grandpa can't find out what it is."