“I’ve a good mind to tell Father,” continued Jimmie, who, of the three older boys, was less inclined to leniency with the performances of Brother and Sister.  “Next time you might be badly hurt, and then it would be too late to punish you.  Come here, Sister.”

Sister came reluctantly.

“What were you trying to do?” said Jimmie grimly.

“Trying to use the swinging rings,” answered Sister meekly.

“There’s nothing to do,” wailed Brother forlornly.  “Everybody’s busy and no one wants to play.  And you don’t own this barn, Jimmie Morrison—­so there!”

“Perhaps I don’t,” retorted Jimmie.  “But Dad happens to have given me the use of it.  And you’re going to stay out if I have to put a padlock on the door.  You’ve got all outdoors to play in—­can’t you find something pleasant to do?”

“Betty!  Roddy!” called Nellie Yarrow from her side of the hedge.  “Betty!  Come on out, I want to tell you something.”

Brother and Sister ran toward the door.

“Wait a second!” shouted Jimmie.  “Turn around.”

They looked back at him.  He was smiling.

“No hard feelings?” he suggested.

Sister dimpled and Brother laughed.

“No hard feelings,” they chuckled and ran on down to the hedge.

That was the way the Morrison family always smoothed out their disputes.  There was so many of them that they really could not be expected to be always pleasant and never quarrel, but every disagreement was, sooner or later, sure to end with the cheerful announcement, “No hard feelings.”

“I suppose they ought to have a place of their own to play in,” said Jimmie to himself when the children had gone.  “I wonder if—­”

He had an idea which for the present he meant to keep to himself.

CHAPTER X

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

“Hello!” Nellie Yarrow greeted Brother and Sister.  “What do you think?”

“What?” asked Sister, apparently unable to think.

Nellie Yarrow pointed her finger as one having important news to tell.

“The haunted house is rented!” she said, excitedly.

The “haunted” house was an object of curiosity to every child in Ridgeway.  It was a small, shabby brown shingled dwelling on one of the side streets, and it was whispered that a man had once seen a “ghost” sitting at one of the windows.  That was enough.  Ever after no boy or girl would go past the house at night, if it were possible to avoid it, and the more timid ran by it even in the day time.  Of course they should have known there are no such things as “ghosts,” but some of them didn’t.

“Who is going to live in it?” asked Sister curiously.  “Don’t you suppose they will be afraid?”

“Well, I wouldn’t live in it,” declared Nellie positively.  “Some folks don’t care anything about ghosts, though.  Let’s go down and watch ’em carry in the furniture.”