“Make ’em stop pulling my hair!” begged Mun Bun again.  And then, as he moved a little to one side, Laddie saw the spinning wheel turn and he cried: 

“I know what it is!”

“What?” asked Russ.  “Do you see ’em?  Is it Margy or Vi?”

“Neither one,” answered Laddie.  “It isn’t anybody.”

“Nobody pulling Mun Bun’s hair?” asked Russ.  “Then what’s he hollering for?”

“’Cause the spinning wheel’s pulling it.  Look!  He’s caught in one of the spinning wheels, and his leg is tangled in one of the string belts we left on, and he made the wheel go around himself.”

Russ dropped his candle-mould gun and ran over to his little brother.  Surely enough it had happened just as Laddie had said.

The golden hair of the little boy had become tangled in the slender spokes of the spinning wheel, some of which were a bit splintery.

As I told you, when Russ and Laddie finished making believe the wheels were an airship, they left some strings on them.  By pulling on these strings the spinning wheels could be made to go around.  And that was what Mun Bun had done, though he did not know it.

At first he did not feel it when, leaning up against one of the wheels, his hair got caught.  Then his legs became entangled in one of the strings, and, as he stepped out, he pulled on the string and the wheel began to spin.

Of course that stretched his hair tightly, and it felt exactly as if some one were pulling it, which was the case.  Only it was the spinning wheel, and not a ghost or any person.

All ghost stories will turn out that way if you wait long enough.  Every time it is something real which makes the funny noises or does the funny things.  For there are no ghosts.

“Wait a minute, Mun Bun, and I’ll fix you!” cried Russ.  “Stand still.  The more you move the more you pull your own hair.”

“I’m not pulling my hair,” said Mun Bun.  “Somebody behind me is pulling it.”

“It’s the spinning wheel,” said Laddie with a laugh.

Then, when they had untangled Mun Bun’s hair, they showed him how it all had happened.  He had really pulled his own hair.  Of course, he was not hurt very much, for only a little of his hair had stuck to the wheel.

“I can make a riddle up about this,” said Laddie when Mun Bun was free once more.

“How?” asked Russ.

“Oh, I don’t know just yet, but it’ll be something about how can you pull your own hair and not pull it.  And the answer will be a spinning wheel.”

“Can I make the spinning wheels go ’round?” asked Mun Bun, who wanted to have some fun after his trouble.

“Yes, you can play with ’em,” agreed Russ.  “That is, with one of ’em.  I’m going to take the other and make it ring the sleigh bells.”

“How can you?” asked Laddie.

“I’ll show you,” answered Russ.

He took the strings off one wheel, letting Mun Bun play with that, and then tied more strings on the second wheel.  He also fastened a string of bells on the wheel, and then, standing in a far corner of the attic, and pulling on the string of jingling bells, Russ could make them tinkle and ring.