“Come right in!” went on Mrs. Thompson.  “Are you cold?”

“Not very, thank you,” answered Rose.  “We had lots of blankets in the sled, and we didn’t get much snow on us.”

“Well, sit up by the fire, and I’ll get you something to eat,” said Mrs. Thompson.

“I’ll put one of your horses in the stable while you ride to the blacksmith shop on the other,” said Mr. Thompson, putting on his hat and overcoat, to go out where Grandpa Ford was waiting.

“Now, you’ll be all right, little Bunkers!” called their grandfather to them, as he started away on the back of Major, who had been unharnessed.  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Mr. Thompson took Prince to his stable.  There was a small one back of the cabin.  I have called it a “cabin,” though it really was a small house.  But it was built like a log cabin, and was much smaller than the house at Great Hedge.  It was clean and neat, and on a table covered with a bright red cloth, in front of a glowing fire in the stove, Mrs. Thompson set out some cups, some milk, a plate of bread and some cookies.

“Now come and eat,” she said to the six little Bunkers.

They were just drawing up their chairs, and Russ was wondering how long his grandfather would be gone, when, all at once, a hollow groan sounded through the cabin.

“Umph!  Urr-rumph!”

It was a most sorrowful and sad sound and, hearing it, Rose cried: 

“Why, there’s the ghost again!  Oh, it’s come from Great Hedge down to this house!  There’s the ghost!”

Again the hollow groan sounded.

CHAPTER XXIV

CHRISTMAS JOYS

Russ, who was about to take a bite out of a cookie that Mrs. Thompson had given him, stopped with the piece half-way to his mouth.  He looked at Rose with wide-open eyes.

The other little Bunkers also looked at their sister, who had left her chair and was standing in the middle of the room.

“What did you say, my dear?” asked Mrs. Thompson.

Before Rose could answer again came a queer, hollow, groaning noise, that sounded, the children said afterward, “as if a sick bear had hidden down the cellar and couldn’t get out.”

Just what sort of noise a sick bear makes I don’t know, for I never heard one.  But this noise at any rate, must have been very strange.

“Umph!  Umph!  Urr-rumph!” it went.

“There it is!” cried Rose.  “That’s the ghost!  It sounds just like the noise at Great Hedge, doesn’t it, Russ?”

“It—­it sounds something like it,” Russ had to admit.  “But there isn’t a ghost—­Daddy said so.”

“A ghost, child!  I should say not!” cried Mrs. Thompson.  “Of course there is no such thing.”

“But what makes the sound?” asked Russ.  “Don’t you hear it?”

“I hear it!” exclaimed Laddie.

“So do I,” said Violet.