“Oh, indeed he did!” said Grandpa Ford with a laugh.  “You see I understand turkey talk, and this bird just said:  ’Thanksgiving is coming, and then I’ll be gobbled-obbled-obbled!’ That’s what he said, and it’s going to come true.  That’s going to be part of our Thanksgiving day dinner.”

“I like turkey,” said Russ.  “Is Thanksgiving coming soon?”

“Next week,” his father told him.  “You want to get up good appetites between now and then.”

“I’m hungry now,” said Laddie, though how he could be, having only had breakfast a little while before, I don’t know.  But lots of children are that way.

There was plenty to see and do around Great Hedge Estate, and after the six little Bunkers had peeped in at the big Thanksgiving turkey, they played around the barn a bit and then romped in the snow.

In the afternoon Grandpa Ford hitched a team of horses to a big sled—­the same one that had brought them from the station—­and took them all for a long ride, the bells merrily jingling all the way.  They stopped in the city of Tarrington on the way home, and bought some things Grandma Ford wanted for the Thanksgiving dinner.

Coming home in the afternoon, the children went up to the attic to play again, taking some apples with them to have a play party.

“Oh, Grandpa Ford’s is just a lovely place!” exclaimed Rose that night as she and the others were going to bed.

“And we didn’t hear any more funny ghost noises,” said Russ in a low voice.  “I guess the ghost has gone, Rose.”

“I guess so, too.  I didn’t hear Daddy or Mother or Grandpa or Grandma say any more about it.”

That night Mun Bun awakened, and called to his mother to give him a drink of water.  As it happened Rose and Russ were also awake, and Margy, hearing her brother ask for water, wanted some, too.  So there were several of the Bunkers awake at once.

Just as Mrs. Bunker was giving Mun Bun his drink, there suddenly sounded through the dim and silent house the loud ringing of a string of sleigh bells.

“What’s that?” called Grandma Ford from across the hall.  “Is some one stopping out in front?”

“I’ll look,” said Grandpa Ford.  It was bright moonlight, and he could see plainly.  “No one there,” he said.

The bells jingled again, more loudly.

“They’re up in the attic!” cried Russ.  “Some one is ringing the bells in the attic!”

CHAPTER XVI

THANKSGIVING FUN

By this time it seemed as if every one in Grandpa Ford’s house at Great Hedge was awake.  Even Mun Bun and Margy sat up in bed, after having had their drinks, and listened.

“There certainly are bells jingling,” said Mother Bunker.

“And they are in this house, too,” added Grandma Ford, as she came out in the dimly-lighted hall, wearing a dark dressing-gown.  “I thought, at first, it might be a sleigh-riding party out in front.  Often they stop to ask their way.”