"Only I can't seem to blow it just right. Something appears to have got stopped up in the horn, or else maybe it's frozen. It doesn't blow like it used to."
"I should think it didn't!" laughed his wife. "Stop your tooting, and bring the horn down where the children can see it. Some of 'em thought it was a ghost, such as they have at Great Hedge. Did you ever hear of a ghost there?"
"Oh, I've heard some talk of it," answered Mr. Thompson, and now the six little Bunkers could hear him coming downstairs. He seemed to be carrying something large and heavy.
"Why didn't you tell me about it?" asked his wife. "I like ghost stories."
"Oh, this isn't really a ghost," quickly explained Rose. "It's just a queer, groaning sound, and it comes in the middle of the night sometimes, and my daddy and grandpa can't find out what it is."
"Maybe it was Mr. Thompson blowing his horn," suggested Russ. "It sounded like that."
"Well, I'm sorry my playing sounds as bad as that," laughed Mr. Thompson, and then he came into the room where the children were, carrying a large brass horn, the kind that play the bass, or heavy, notes in a band. Putting his lips to the mouthpiece Mr. Thompson made the same "umph-umph!" sound that had so startled the children at first.
"Does that sound like the ghost?" he asked Russ.
"Just like it, only louder," was the answer.
"I wonder what it can be at Great Hedge," said Mrs. Thompson. "I should think it would scare you dreadfully," she went on.