Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's Part 11

In a little while Mrs. Bunker noticed that the heads of Margy and Mun Bun were nodding as they sat in their seats.

"I'm going to have those children lie down," she said. "Mun Bun, come over and sit with me. I'll cuddle you to sleep. Margy, you can go with Daddy."

"I want to stay here," said Mun Bun. "I've got something in my seat, and I don't want anybody to take it."

"I want to stay too!" exclaimed Margy. "I want to see what Mun Bun has."

Mr. Bunker turned the seat in front of the two smaller children over so a sort of bed could be made for them with a pile of coats and valises.

Soon Mun Bun and Margy, side by side, were having a fine sleep, and the train rumbled on.

Margy's doll was perched up on the seat in front of her, and Margy said her doll was "sleeping" too. But this doll slept with her eyes open.

Violet was looking at the picture book Laddie had finished with, and Laddie was trying to make a buzzer, as Russ had done. For Laddie had broken the one his brother had made for him.

Rose and Russ were sitting together, and for the first time in some days, they had a chance to talk about the ghost at Great Hedge.

"What kind do you s'pose it'll be?" asked Rose.

"Oh, the regular, scary kind," Russ answered.

"I hope it won't be too scary," said Rose.

"I'll be with you when we try to find out what it is," went on Russ.

"Boys are never afraid of ghosts or--or anything."

"Oh, I won't be afraid--not if you're with me, anyway. Isn't it fun to have a secret? And they don't know we heard about it!" Rose added.

"Won't they be s'prised if we find the ghost?"

"I guess they will," agreed Russ. "Maybe they're talking about it now,"

he went on, for his father and mother, with Grandpa Ford, several seats back, were talking earnestly together, as Russ could see. Just what they were saying the two oldest Bunker children did not know.

But, as a story-teller, or a writer of books, can sometimes be in two places at once, and listen to all sorts of talk, without the people who are talking knowing anything about it, I will tell you, as a special favor, that Mr. and Mrs. Bunker and Grandpa Ford really were talking about the "ghost," at Great Hedge.

"So neither Mr. Ripley nor his daughter, whose horse nearly ran away when she came to see you, could tell what all the queer doings meant at Great Hedge, could they?" asked Daddy Bunker.

"No. They said they never heard any queer noises when they lived at the place before they sold it to me," answered Grandpa Ford. "But your mother and I have heard many strange noises, and we can't account for them.

"Of course," went on Grandpa Ford, "I don't believe in ghosts. But I know we hear the strange noises, and we don't know what they mean. Your mother is annoyed by them. She has an idea, too, that perhaps there is a secret way for some one to get into our house, and that perhaps some persons go in at night, after we are in bed, and make noises."

"But why would any one do that?" asked Mrs. Bunker.

"Well, it may be some folks who would like to scare me away so they could buy Great Hedge for themselves," said Grandpa Ford. "The place is valuable, and Mr. Ripley sold it to me very reasonably, because his wife and little boy died there and he did not like to stay in the place that reminded him of them so much. So he sold."

"So he never heard the queer noises," said Mr. Bunker musingly.

"He says not. And neither did his daughter, Mabel. But Grandmother Ford and I hear them often enough, and so I thought I'd come down, and get all you Bunkers, to have you help me either find out what it is, or drive the ghost away," and Grandpa Ford smiled.

"Tell us, over again, what sort of noises they are," said Mother Bunker.

"I have been so busy the last few days, getting ready to travel, that I hardly remember what you said. Were the noises like yells or groans? Or were they just hangings?"

"Well," began Grandpa Ford, "on some nights the noises are like----"

And just then there came a sudden pop, as of a pistol, and a loud cry from Margy. She sat up in her seat and fairly shouted:

"Now you stop, Mun Bun! Stop shooting my doll! Mother, make Mun Bun stop!" cried the little girl. "He's got a gun, and he shot my doll, and he knocked her off the seat, and maybe she's killed."

"Mun Bun with a gun! What do you mean?" cried Daddy Bunker, jumping up from his seat. "What are you doing, Munroe?" he asked, a bit sternly.

The two youngest children had awakened while Grandpa Ford was telling about the ghost at Great Hedge. Of course they did not hear about it, nor did Rose and Russ.

"I have a popgun, and it shoots a cork," explained Mun Bun, as he held up what he had aimed at Margy's doll. "It didn't hurt, 'cause it only shoots a cork," he said.

"But you shooted my doll, and knocked her over, and maybe she's broken!"

sobbed Margy.

By this time Mrs. Bunker had reached the seat where the little girl and her brother had been sleeping. The mother picked the j.a.panese doll up from where it had fallen to the floor of the car, and said:

"Don't cry any more, Margy. Your doll isn't hurt a bit. But Mun Bun mustn't shoot at her any more, with corks or anything else. Munroe Ford Bunker! where did you get the popgun?" his mother asked, as she saw that he really did have a small one.

"Out of the basket," he answered. "When Margy and I went to get a drink of water I saw the popgun in the train boy's basket, and I took it out.

I thought maybe I'd want to shoot at a snow man me and Grandpa are going to make, so I kept the gun. Daddy can give the train boy a penny for it. I hid it in the seat. Then I saw Margy's doll on the seat in front, and she was asleep--Margy was--and I shot at the doll, but I didn't mean to make her fall."

"Oh, dear! Such a boy!" cried Mrs. Bunker. "To take the gun without asking! Here comes the boy now. You must give it back."

"Oh, let him keep it," said Grandpa Ford. "I'll buy it for him. We may want to shoot the snow man," he said with a laugh.

So Mun Bun got his popgun after all, though, of course, he did not do right in taking it from the train boy's basket. Nor was it quite right, I suppose, to shoot Margy's doll. But Mun Bun was a very little boy.

However, the train boy was paid, some other toys were bought, and then, as Grandpa Ford, some time later, looked from the train window, he exclaimed:

"Ha! Here comes the snow! I think we are in for a big storm!"

And with great suddenness the train was, almost at once, shut in by a cloud of white snowflakes, like a fog. The swirling white crystals were blown all about, and tapped against the gla.s.s of the windows, as if they wanted to come in where the six little Bunkers were. But the gla.s.s kept them out.

"How is it out--cold?" asked Grandpa Ford of a brakeman who came in an hour or so later, covered with white flakes.

"Very cold, sir, and growing more so. I'm afraid we'll run into a bad storm before we reach Tarrington. It's snowing worse all the while."

And so it was.

"Is this the blizzard?" asked Violet.

"Pretty close to it," answered Grandpa Ford.

Just then the train gave a sudden jerk, rattling every one in his seat, and came to a stop.