"We're not going to tell!" exclaimed Russ.
"Come now! Go to bed, all of you!" cried Daddy Bunker. "You'll have plenty of fun, and secrets, too, if you go to Great Hedge."
"Oh, then we must be going!" cried Rose, and Vi was so excited about this that she forgot to ask any more about the secret.
Mrs. Bunker thought it was only some little joke between her two older children. If she had known what they had heard out on the porch that afternoon she might have talked to them before they went to sleep. But Russ and Rose hid in their hearts what they had heard about the ghost of Great Hedge.
It was fully decided on the next day that the six little Bunkers and Daddy and Mother would go, shortly, with Grandpa Ford to his big estate in the country, just outside of Tarrington, in New York state. Russ and Rose listened carefully to see if they could hear any more about the ghost, but neither Mr. Ford nor Mr. Bunker mentioned it. And Mother Bunker was so busy, with Norah, getting the things ready for another trip, that she did not speak of it, either.
"My!" exclaimed Norah, as she helped sort out the clean clothes, "these six little Bunkers are getting to be great travelers. First they go to Grandma Bell's, then to Aunt Jo's and then to Cousin Tom's, and now to Grandpa Ford's. I wonder where they'll go next?"
"There's no telling," said Mrs. Bunker. "But we must take plenty of warm clothes along for them this time, as it will soon be cold weather and winter."
"I love to be in the country in the winter," said Rose, who was helping her mother. "You can have such fun snowballing."
"And making snow men and snow forts," added Russ, who came in to get a piece of string for something he was making. He went out whistling, and soon he and Laddie were heard pounding away on the back porch.
Russ was not happy unless he was whistling, or unless he was making something, just as Laddie was very fond of asking riddles.