“And tip his hat?” Laddie demanded.

“Why didn’t we see you?” inquired Violet.

“My! what a lot of questions,” laughed Grandpa Ford.  “Yes, I played a little joke on you.  I hid behind the snow man, which was so large I could keep out of sight.  I hid there when I saw you coming toward it, and I thought it would be fun to make you think it was alive.  So I made him bow with the tall hat.”

“But we didn’t see your arm,” said Russ.  “How did you do it?  Did you put your arm up inside the snow arm of Mr. White?”

“No,” answered his grandfather.  “I wound this white scarf around my arm, and it looked so much like the snow man himself that you couldn’t see when I moved.  Did I fool you?”

“Yes, you did—­a lot!” admitted Russ.

“It was better than a riddle,” said Laddie.

Then Grandpa Ford showed how he had hidden himself behind Mr. White, and, wrapping his arm in a white scarf, which he wore around his neck in cold weather, Mr. Ford had reached up and lifted off the hat and put it back.  The white scarf hid his arm, and it looked exactly as if the snow man had made bows.

“We thought maybe he was alive!” laughed Rose.

“Well, I was going to have him throw snowballs at you in another minute,” said Grandpa Ford with a smile, “but I had to sneeze and spoil my trick.”

“But it was a good one,” said Violet.

“Now, we’ll make the rest of the snow family of White,” said Russ.  “And if Dick or anybody comes along we’ll play the same trick on them that Grandpa played on us.”

“Well, you can finish making Mr. White’s family later,” said Grandpa Ford.  “I came out now to see if you don’t all want to come for a ride with me.  I have to go to town for some groceries, and also go a little way into the country to see a man.  Do you want to come for a ride?”

Well, you can just imagine how gladly the six little Bunkers answered that they did.  They forgot all about the snow people, except to tell Daddy and Mother Bunker about Grandpa’s funny trick, and, a little later, they were in the big sled filled with straw, riding over the snow.

Merrily jingled the bells as over the drifts the horses pranced.  Down the road they went to the store in Tarrington, where Grandpa Ford bought the things Grandma had sent him after.

“Are we going home now?” asked Russ, as the sled turned down a country road.

“No, not right away,” answered his grandfather.  “I have to go over to Glodgett’s Mills to see a man, and after that we’ll turn around and be home in time for supper.  It looks like more snow, and I want to get you back before, the storm.”

Out on the country roads, where the snow was deep, went the horses, jingling their bells and pulling the sled full of children after them.

“Get along, ponies!” cried Grandpa Ford.

And then, all of a sudden, something happened.  The sled went into a big drift, which was deeper than Grandpa Ford thought.  A moment later there was an upset, and the six little Bunkers were spilled out into the snow.