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
blustery--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.
"Well, I got the big end of the wish-bone," said Rose, "and I was just
going to wish that I'd find the ghost when, all of a sudden, I heard
it!"
"Now see here, you two!" exclaimed Daddy Bunker, speaking to Russ and
Rose, while Laddie and Vi, with Mun Bun and Margy, were still at their
game. "You mustn't be talking about such things as ghosts. There isn't
any such thing, and you may scare the younger children."
"How did you hear about a ghost at Great Hedge?" asked Grandpa Ford
curiously.
Russ and Rose looked at each other. The time had come to tell of their
listening under the window, and they felt a little ashamed of it. But
they had been taught to tell the truth, no matter how much it hurt, and
they must do it now.
"How did you know about a ghost?" asked Mother Bunker.
"We--we heard you and Grandpa Ford talking about it--the time he came
to our house," confessed Russ. He felt that he, being the oldest, must
speak first.
"We listened under the window," added Rose. She wanted to do her share
of the telling.
"That was very wrong to do," said her mother. "But, of course, I know
you didn't mean to do wrong. Still, as it happened, no great harm was
done, but you should have told me about it at the time. It was not right
to be so mysterious about it, nor to have it as a secret. You two
children are too small to have secrets away from Father and Mother,
unless they are little ones, like birthday surprises and the like. Now,
don't listen under windows again."
"We won't," promised Russ and Rose, who then told the whole story.
"But is there a ghost?" asked Russ, as the strange noise sounded again.
"No, of course not," said Daddy Bunker. "But, since you have heard part
of the story, you may as well hear all of it."
Seeing that the four smaller children were busy at their play, and would
not listen to what he said, Daddy Bunker drew Russ and Rose up on his
lap and began:
"You remember when Grandpa Ford came to see us, he said he wanted to
take us back with him, and, if we could, have us help him find out
something queer about Great Hedge, which he had bought from Mr. Ripley.
The 'something queer' was that, every now and then, noises, such as you
heard just now, sound through the house. Grandpa Ford and Grandma Ford
couldn't find out where they came from, and neither Mr. Ripley nor his
daughter knew what made them.
"Of course," went on Daddy Bunker, "some people, when they hear a
strange sound or see a strange sight, think it is a ghost. But there is
no such thing."
"We thought it was a ghost made Mun Bun's hair stick out and be pulled,"
confessed Rose, "but it was only the spinning wheel."
"Now, to go on with my story. As the queer noises kept up, Grandpa Ford
came to get me, to see if I could help him. I am in the real estate
business, you know--I buy and sell houses--and he thought I might know
something about the queer noise in his house. I have bought and sold
houses that people said were haunted--that is, which were supposed to
have ghosts in," laughed Daddy Bunker. "But I never saw nor heard of any
spirits."
"Did you find out what made this noise?" asked Russ.
"No, we haven't yet, but we take a look every time we hear it," said his
father. "That is what we are going to do now. So, after this, don't be
afraid when you hear it. It is something in the house that makes it--not
a ghost or anything like that. We'll find it sooner or later, Grandpa
Ford and I."
"May we help?" asked Russ.
"Please, Daddy?" cried Rose.
"Well, yes, I guess so, if you want to," answered his father slowly. "If
you hear the noise, and it sounds anywhere near you, look around and see
if you can find out what makes it. Don't cry 'ghost!' and scare the
others."
"We won't," promised Rose. "And maybe we'll be lucky and find it."
"I hope you will," put in Grandma Ford.
"It sounded like a cow mooing," remarked Russ.
"Yes, it did," agreed Grandpa Ford. "At first I thought it was a cow
that had got into the cellar. But I couldn't find one. Then I thought it
was boys playing a trick on us, but I heard the noise in the middle of
the night, when no boys would be out. I don't know what makes it, but
I'd like to find the ghost, as I call it, though I'm not going to after
this. That isn't a good name. We'll just call it 'Mr. Noise.'"
"And we'll help you find 'Mr. Noise'!" laughed Russ.
Laddie came from where he was playing with a new riddle, and, while they
were laughing over it, the groaning noise sounded again.
"Listen, all of you, and see if you can tell where it is," said Grandpa
Ford.
Russ and Rose listened. So did Laddie and Violet; but Mun Bun and Margy
kept on playing with their dolls.
"It's a tree rubbing against the house outside," said Russ.
"I thought so at first," said Grandpa Ford, "but there are now no trees
that rub. I cut off the branches of those that did."
Each one thought it was in a different room, but a search showed nothing
out of the way. They were all very much puzzled.
"It's worse than one of Laddie's queer riddles," said Daddy Bunker, when
he and Grandpa Ford came back from having searched in several of the
rooms.
They listened for a while longer, but the noise was not heard again, and
then it was time to go to bed. The wind sprang up again and the clouds
seemed to promise more snow. And, surely enough, in the morning, the
white flakes were falling thick and fast.
"They'll cover up our snow man," said Laddie to Russ.
"Never mind. I know how we can have more fun," said the older boy.
"How?"
"I'll make some snowshoes for us, and we can walk without sinking down
in the snow."
"How can you do that?"
"Oh, I'll show you. I started to make 'em before, but I forgot about it.
Now I will."
And, when breakfast was over, and the four older children had been
warmly wrapped and allowed to go out to play in the storm, Russ led
Laddie to the barn.
"We'll make the snowshoes there," he said. "I have everything all
ready."
Laddie saw a pile of barrel staves--the long, thin pieces of wood of
which barrels are made, where his brother had stacked them. Russ also
had some pieces of rope, a hammer and some nails, and some long poles.
"What are they for?" asked Laddie, pointing to the poles.
"That's to take hold of and help yourself along. It's awful hard to walk
on snowshoes--real ones, I mean. And, maybe, it'll be harder to walk on
the barrel kind I'm going to make."
Then Russ began making the snowshoes.