"Well, I'm glad I know what it was," said Mother Bunker. "If I hear a noise in the night I like to know what it is and where it comes from. Now I can go back to sleep."
"So can I," said Rose.
And the other little Bunkers said the same thing. As for Mun Bun and Margy, as soon as they heard that everything was all right they uncovered their heads and went to sleep before any one else.
"Well, well! To think what a little thing can puzzle every one," said Grandpa Ford to Daddy Bunker, as the grown folks went back to their rooms. "Maybe we'll find that the other noises are made just as simply as this one was."
"Maybe," agreed Daddy Bunker. "But of late we haven't heard that groaning noise much, and maybe we shall not again."
"I hope not," said Mother Bunker.
The grown folks did not know that, half asleep as they were even then, Russ and Rose heard this talk. And the two older Bunker children made up their minds to find the ghost—if there was one—or whatever sounded like one.
The next day the children all went up to the attic and saw the string where one of them had left it tied to the bells. Daddy Bunker had taken off the apple.
"I wish we could see the rat!" exclaimed Laddie.
"I don't," said Rose. "I don't like rats."