m 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.

Mun Bun and Margy probably heard it, also, but they were too busy
finishing their bread and milk to say anything. Probably they knew that
Russ and Rose, who always looked after them, would take care of the
strange noise.

"Oh, _that_ noise!" exclaimed Mrs. Thompson, as once more the hollow
groan sounded, throughout the house. "You weren't afraid of that, were
you?" And her eyes began to twinkle, then she laughed.

"A--a little," admitted Rose.

"It sounds like the cur'us noise at Great Hedge," added Russ.

"Well, I didn't know you had a curious noise at your grandfather's
place," went on Mrs. Thompson. "First I ever heard of it."

"Oh, yes, there's a ghost there, only it isn't a ghost 'cause there's no
such thing! Daddy said so!" exclaimed Rose. "But we got----"

"We've got a funny noise there," said Russ, breaking in on what his
sister was saying. "It sounds like your noise, too."

"Well, there's nothing so very curious about this noise," laughed Mrs.
Thompson. "That's only my husband playing on the big horn he used to
blow when he was in the band. He hasn't used it much for years, and
can't blow it as well as he used to. But that's what the noise is. Every
once in a