And, as soon as he saw that he was safe on the ground, and that the clothes basket balloon wasn’t going to take him up again, the little chap dried his tears.

“What made you think of that game to play?” asked Mrs. Bunker of Russ and Laddie, when she had seen to it that they took the clothes basket off the rope.

“Oh, we thought of it when we saw our toy balloons go up in the air,” said Russ.  “We had a race with ’em, and Laddie’s went higher than mine.  Then he said wouldn’t it be fun to have a real balloon.  And I said yes, and then I thought of the rope at the barn and Norah’s clothes basket and we made a hoister balloon, and Mun Bun wanted to go up in it, he did.”

“And we pulled him, we did, and he got stuck,” added Laddie.  “I guess I could make up a pretty good riddle about it, if I thought real hard.”

“Well, please think hard and don’t get your little brother into a fix like that again,” said Mrs. Bunker.

Of course Russ and Laddie promised that they wouldn’t play that game any more, but this was not saying they wouldn’t do something else just as risky.  They were not bad boys, but they liked to have fun, and they did not always stop to think what might happen when they had it.

“What’ll we do next?” asked Laddie, as they carried the clothes basket back to Norah’s laundry.

“Well, we could——­” began Russ.

Just then the supper bell rang.

“We’ll eat!” cried Laddie.  “That’ll be lots of fun.”

And after supper the six little Bunkers were too tired and sleepy to do anything except go to bed.

“But we’ll have lots of fun at Grandpa Ford’s,” murmured Rose as she went up to her room.

“Yes,” agreed Russ.  “We’ll have lots of fun, and we’ll hunt around and find——­”

Rose gave her brother a queer look and cried: 

“That’s a secret!”

“Oh, yes, so it is!  That’s a secret!” agreed Russ.

“What’s a secret?” asked Vi, not too sleepy to put a question, if it was the last thing she did that day.

“Oh, we can’t tell!” laughed Russ.  “Wait until we all get to Great Hedge, and then we’ll all hunt for it.”

“Hunt for the secret?” asked Vi.

“Yes,” answered Rose.

“Mother, Russ and Rose have a secret and they won’t tell me!” exclaimed the little questioning girl.  “Please make ’em!”

“Not to-night, my dear,” said Mrs. Bunker.  “Besides, if it is their secret it wouldn’t be fair for you to know.”

“But I want to, Mother!”

“We’re not going to tell!” exclaimed Russ.

“Come now!  Go to bed, all of you!” cried Daddy Bunker.  “You’ll have plenty of fun, and secrets, too, if you go to Great Hedge.”

“Oh, then we must be going!” cried Rose, and Vi was so excited about this that she forgot to ask any more about the secret.

Mrs. Bunker thought it was only some little joke between her two older children.  If she had known what they had heard out on the porch that afternoon she might have talked to them before they went to sleep.  But Russ and Rose hid in their hearts what they had heard about the ghost of Great Hedge.