“We won’t,” promised Rose.  “And maybe we’ll be lucky and find it.”

“I hope you will,” put in Grandma Ford.

“It sounded like a cow mooing,” remarked Russ.

“Yes, it did,” agreed Grandpa Ford.  “At first I thought it was a cow that had got into the cellar.  But I couldn’t find one.  Then I thought it was boys playing a trick on us, but I heard the noise in the middle of the night, when no boys would be out.  I don’t know what makes it, but I’d like to find the ghost, as I call it, though I’m not going to after this.  That isn’t a good name.  We’ll just call it ‘Mr. Noise.’”

“And we’ll help you find ’Mr. Noise’!” laughed Russ.

Laddie came from where he was playing with a new riddle, and, while they were laughing over it, the groaning noise sounded again.

“Listen, all of you, and see if you can tell where it is,” said Grandpa Ford.

Russ and Rose listened.  So did Laddie and Violet; but Mun Bun and Margy kept on playing with their dolls.

“It’s a tree rubbing against the house outside,” said Russ.

“I thought so at first,” said Grandpa Ford, “but there are now no trees that rub.  I cut off the branches of those that did.”

Each one thought it was in a different room, but a search showed nothing out of the way.  They were all very much puzzled.

“It’s worse than one of Laddie’s queer riddles,” said Daddy Bunker, when he and Grandpa Ford came back from having searched in several of the rooms.

They listened for a while longer, but the noise was not heard again, and then it was time to go to bed.  The wind sprang up again and the clouds seemed to promise more snow.  And, surely enough, in the morning, the white flakes were falling thick and fast.

“They’ll cover up our snow man,” said Laddie to Russ.

“Never mind.  I know how we can have more fun,” said the older boy.

“How?”

“I’ll make some snowshoes for us, and we can walk without sinking down in the snow.”

“How can you do that?”

“Oh, I’ll show you.  I started to make ’em before, but I forgot about it.  Now I will.”

And, when breakfast was over, and the four older children had been warmly wrapped and allowed to go out to play in the storm, Russ led Laddie to the barn.

“We’ll make the snowshoes there,” he said.  “I have everything all ready.”

Laddie saw a pile of barrel staves—­the long, thin pieces of wood of which barrels are made, where his brother had stacked them.  Russ also had some pieces of rope, a hammer and some nails, and some long poles.

“What are they for?” asked Laddie, pointing to the poles.

“That’s to take hold of and help yourself along.  It’s awful hard to walk on snowshoes—­real ones, I mean.  And, maybe, it’ll be harder to walk on the barrel kind I’m going to make.”

Then Russ began making the snowshoes.