In the morning the girls themselves felt somewhat inclined to laugh at the fright they had had, and yet they knew that what had happened had been no figment of their imaginations. The sound, though weird and eerie, had been real—even Mrs. Gilligan would testify to that.
"Well, I tell you what we ought to do," said Ferd, as he sat down to a huge plateful of breakfast. "We fellows ought to take turn and turn about keeping watch. There must be some reason for the noise the girls heard, and I won't be happy until we find out what it was."
"I think you have the right idea," replied Chet, decidedly. "The only condition I make is that I be allowed to stand the first watch."
"You'll do nothing of the kind, any of you," broke in Mrs. Gilligan, with that slight tightening of her upper lip that the girls and boys had come to know—and respect. "That's a fine way to see all sorts of things that ain't and hear all sorts of things that never happened. Sit up in the dark, waiting for something to happen! I guess not!"
"But we can't just sit back and let the piano perform like that every night, can we?" asked Ferd, in an argumentative tone. "I'd rather stay awake part of the night than all of it."
"Don't you even want to solve the mystery?" asked Chet, in an aggrieved voice.
"Mystery—humph," grunted Mrs. Gilligan, feeling very brave and disdainful in the bright sunshine. "I don't believe there's a bit of mystery in the whole thing."
"Then what made the piano play?" Teddy insisted. "You said yourself that you heard it."
"Oh, I heard it all right," said Mrs. Gilligan, helping herself to more jam. "There isn't any doubt about that. But I have an idea what caused it, all right."
"Oh, tell us," they cried eagerly.