“How could an apple make bells jingle?” asked Laddie.  “Is that a riddle, Daddy?”

“Well, almost, you might say.  This is how it happened.  When Grandpa Ford and I got up to the attic, we saw the string of sleigh bells hanging from a nail, where you children must have left them when you last played with them.  But we couldn’t see any one near them who might have rung them, and there was no one in the attic, as far as we knew.

“Then, even as we stood there, waiting and looking about, I saw the string of bells move, and then they jingled, and, looking down on the floor, I saw a big rat trying to carry this apple away in his mouth.”

“Oh, Daddy!” cried Rose, “how could a rat carrying an apple away in his mouth, make the bells ring?”

“Easily enough,” her father answered.  “The apple was tied on a string, as I suppose some of you children left it when you got through playing this afternoon.  And the other end of the cord was tied to the string of bells.  That was also more of your play, I suppose.

“The rat came out of his hole in the attic, smelled the apple on the floor, and tried to drag it into his cupboard.  But the string held it fast, and as the rat pulled and tugged he made the sleigh bells jingle; for every time he pulled the apple he pulled the string, and every time he pulled the string he pulled the bells.”

“And is that all there was?” asked Grandma Ford.

“All there was,” answered Grandpa Ford.  “Just a rat trying to have a nice apple supper made the bells ring.”

“Well, I’m glad I know what it was,” said Mother Bunker.  “If I hear a noise in the night I like to know what it is and where it comes from.  Now I can go back to sleep.”

“So can I,” said Rose.

And the other little Bunkers said the same thing.  As for Mun Bun and Margy, as soon as they heard that everything was all right they uncovered their heads and went to sleep before any one else.

“Well, well!  To think what a little thing can puzzle every one,” said Grandpa Ford to Daddy Bunker, as the grown folks went back to their rooms.  “Maybe we’ll find that the other noises are made just as simply as this one was.”

“Maybe,” agreed Daddy Bunker.  “But of late we haven’t heard that groaning noise much, and maybe we shall not again.”

“I hope not,” said Mother Bunker.

The grown folks did not know that, half asleep as they were even then, Russ and Rose heard this talk.  And the two older Bunker children made up their minds to find the ghost—­if there was one—­or whatever sounded like one.

The next day the children all went up to the attic and saw the string where one of them had left it tied to the bells.  Daddy Bunker had taken off the apple.

“I wish we could see the rat!” exclaimed Laddie.

“I don’t,” said Rose.  “I don’t like rats.”

“I guess I’ve a riddle about a rat,” said Laddie after a pause.