THE OLD SPINNING WHEEL
For a moment there was no answer to the cry Rose gave when she saw her
sister disappear from sight. The other children, frightened by Rose's
scream, gathered about.
"What's the matter?" asked Russ, who was whirling one of the spinning
wheels, while Laddie spun the other.
"Margy's gone!" exclaimed Rose. "She's gone, and maybe----"
"Where'd she go?" asked Russ. "Come on, Laddie, we'll find her."
Before Rose could answer Margy spoke for herself by uttering loud cries
and sobs. They seemed to come from a dark hole in the attic, but the
little girl herself could not be seen by her brothers and sisters.
"Oh, get me out! Get me out!" screamed Margy. "I don't like it here!
It's dark!"
The five little Bunkers were puzzled. It was worse than some of Laddie's
riddles. They could hear Margy, but they could not see her. She had gone
into a dark corner and that seemed to be the last of her.
"Oh, what shall we do?" asked Rose.
"We better go for Daddy or Mother or Grandpa," said Russ.
"I'll go," offered Laddie.
But there was no need, for just then up the attic stairs came Mrs.
Bunker and Grandma Ford. They knew right away that something was the
matter.
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bunker.
"Margy's gone, and we can't find her, but we can hear her," explained
Rose.
She need not have said the last, for Margy was still screaming:
"I want to get out! Take me out! It's terrible dark here!"
"Oh, the poor child's in the nut cubby-hole!" cried Grandma Ford. "Of
course it's dark there! Wait a minute, my dear, and I'll get you out,"
she said.
Grandma Ford quickly crossed the attic. Then she stooped over in the
dark corner, reached down, and lifted something up and there
was--Margy!
The little girl was carried into the light, crying and sobbing; but, as
soon as she found out there was nothing the matter with her, and that
she was with her mother and grandmother and brothers and sisters, she
stopped crying.
"What happened to you, Margy?" asked Russ.
"I--I don't know," she answered. "I just slipped like once when I rolled
downhill."
"She fell into the nut cubby-hole," explained Grandma Ford. "There are
many nut trees on Great Hedge Estate, and the Ripley family used to
gather the nuts and store them here in the attic to dry. But the rats
and mice used to take a great many of the nuts, so they built a sort of
big box down in a hole in the floor. The hole was there anyhow, being
part of the attic. But it was lined with tin, so the mice could not gnaw
through, and the nuts were stored in it.
"I meant to tell you children to look out for it, as it is like a hole
in the floor, though it is not very deep, and one end slopes down, like
a hill, so you slide into it instead of falling.
"But I forgot about it, and I forgot that the cover has been off the nut
cubby-hole for some time. So Margy, walking in the dark corner, slid
into this hole."
"That's what I did," said the little girl. "I slid just like going
downhill."
"That's why she disappeared so suddenly," went on Grandma Ford. "The
tin, being smooth, didn't hurt her a bit, as she slid. And it is very
dark in there. But after this I'll keep the cover on, so no more of my
little Bunkers will get into trouble."
By the gleam of a candle which she lighted, Grandma Ford showed the
children the nut cubby-hole into which Margy had fallen. Then the cover
was put on so there was no more danger.
"And now you may go out and play in the snow," said Mrs. Bunker. "I have
unpacked your rubber boots and old, warm coats, so run out and have some
fun."
Laughing, shouting, and whooping, the six little Bunkers ran out to
play. It was their first sight of Great Hedge in winter by daylight,
and Russ and Rose paused for a moment after getting out of doors to look
at the big house, on all sides of which was the tall hedge.
"It's a terribly big house," said Russ to his sister as they tramped on
through the white snow. "I wonder what part the ghost lives in, don't
you?"
"I thought he was up in the attic, and took Margy," said Rose.
"So did I, at first," admitted Russ. "But I don't guess he stays there.
I guess the ghost lives down cellar. We'll hunt for him after a while,
and Grandpa Ford will be glad we found him."
But it was now such a fine, sunny day outside, after the storm, that the
six little Bunkers thought of nothing but having fun. They raced about
in the snow, threw soft balls of it at one another, and then went out to
the barn.
Dick, the hired man, was there feeding the horses, and the children saw
the animals that had pulled them over the snow from the railroad station
the night before.
There were several small sleds in the barn--some that Grandma Ford had
bought when it was decided that the six little Bunkers would visit Great
Hedge Estate--and they were just the proper toys for the six little
children. Soon they were coasting down a small hill which Dick showed
them and also helped trample down smooth for them. For snow on a hill
has to be packed hard and made smooth before one can coast well.
"Let's have a race!" cried Russ, as he and Laddie had their turn riding
down the slope.
"All right, I can beat you!" Laddie shouted. And he would have done so,
too, only he guided wrong, and his sled went into a bank of snow,
upsetting and tumbling him off.
"But I like it!" he shouted as he got up and shook the snow from him.
"When are you going to make the snow man?" asked Vi. "I want to see a
snow man. And are you going to put a phonograph inside him, Russ, and
make him talk?"
"I am if I can find a phonograph little enough," said Russ.
But Russ did not wait for that. With Laddie to help him, he rolled two
or three balls of snow. It was soft, for the sun was now warm, and the
snow packed well. The snowballs were put together, and thus the snow man
was started. The six little Bunkers then made arms and legs for him,
stuck pieces of coal in for buttons on his coat and for his eyes and
nose and mouth, and then Dick gave them an old hat to put on the snow
man's head.
"Now he won't catch cold," said Dick, when the hat had been stuck on.
"Could he catch cold?" asked Vi. "I don't see how he could, 'cause he's
cold already. He makes my hands cold," and she showed her little red
fingers.
"Well, if you hear him sneeze come in and tell me," said Dick with a
smile. "If a snow man sneezes that's a sure sign he's catching cold. So
listen if you hear this one go 'a-ker-choo!' That means we'll have to
get the doctor."
"I guess that's only a joke, like some of Laddie's riddles," remarked
Russ, when Dick had gone back to the barn.
"I'm going to make up a riddle about a snow man, but I haven't got it
thought out yet," said Laddie. "Come on, Russ, let's make a snow fort."
The snow man being finished, the two older Bunker boys let the smaller
children play with it, and throw snowballs at it, trying to knock off
the old hat, and Laddie and Russ started work on the fort.
They had great fun at this, and made quite a big fort, getting inside it
and throwing snowballs at a make-believe enemy on the outside.
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, blustery 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?