"Where is that drum you spoke of, Father?" he asked of Grandpa Ford.
"I don't see it now," was the answer. "It used to hang up on one of the rafters. But maybe the children took it down."
Daddy Bunker flashed his light to and fro.
"Here it is!" he cried, and he pointed to the drum standing up at one side of the big chimney, which was in the center of the attic. "The children did have it down, playing with it.
"But I don't see what would make it rattle," went on Daddy Bunker. "Unless," he added, "a rat is flapping its tail against the drum."
The noise had stopped again, but, all of a sudden, as Grandpa Ford and Daddy Bunker stood looking at the drum, the rattle and rub-a-dub-dub broke out again, more loudly than before. The drum seemed to shake and tremble, so hard was it beaten.
"Who is doing it?" cried Grandpa Ford.
Daddy Bunker quickly stepped over where he could see the other side of the drum, which was in the dark. He leaned over, holding his flashlight close, and then he suddenly lifted into view a large, battered alarm clock, without a bell.
"This was beating the drum," he said.
"That?" cried Grandpa Ford. "How could that old alarm clock make it sound as if soldiers were coming?"