Fred wasn’t in the kitchen with them!
“Where’s Fred?” asked Polly, anxiously. “Didn’t he come in? Has any one seen him?”
“The ghost has carried him off!” cried Margy, in alarm. “He’s gone! Oh, my, what will Mother say?”
“It wasn’t a ghost,” said Polly again. “I tell you, there are no ghosts. And if it was a ghost, it couldn’t carry Fred off—a ghost can’t carry anything.”
“You just said there aren’t any ghosts,” objected Margy.
“Well, I mean if there were ghosts, they couldn’t carry any one off,” Polly explained.
“Then where is Fred?” asked Artie, quite as though he thought Polly would be able to tell him.
“I don’t know,” Polly admitted. “You don’t suppose he could have fallen down a hole somewhere, do you? I don’t remember having seen him after I saw the ghost—and that was just before I started to pull up the cabbage.”
No one remembered having seen Fred.
“But then,” added Ward, “I couldn’t see anything, really. The flannel slipped down over my eyes and I couldn’t see where I was going, let alone any one else. I don’t know where Fred went.”