"Here, Dinah!" called Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh. "Come down here.
We've found your ghost."
"I doan't want to see it!" exclaimed the colored cook, "Jest toss it overbo'd!"
"It's nothing but a noise made by a creaking rope," said Nan. "And you can't throw that overboard."
"All right, honey lamb. Yo' can call it a rope-noise ef yo' all laiks," said Dinah, when finally she had been induced to come down. "But I knows it wasn't. It was some real pusson cryin', dat's what it was."
"But you said it was a ghost, Dinah!" laughed Bert, "and a ghost is never a real person, you know. Oh, Dinah!"
"Oh, go long wif yo', honey lamb!" exclaimed the fat cook. "I ain't got no time t' bodder wif you'. I'se got t' set mah bread t' bake t'morrow. An' dere's some corn cakes, ef yo' ma will let yo' hab 'em."
"I guess she will," said Bert, with a laugh. "Some cakes and then bed."
They all thought the "ghost" scare was over, but Mr. Bobbsey noticed that when Dinah went through the passage between the kitchen and dining-room, she hurried as fast as her feet would take her, and she glanced from side to side, as though afraid of seeing something.
Every one slept soundly that sight, except perhaps Dinah, but if anything disturbed her, she said nothing about it, when she got up to get breakfast. It was a fine, sunny day, and a little later the Bluebird was moving across the lake, the motor turning the propeller, which churned the blue water into foam.
Mr. Bobbsey steered the boat to various places of interest on the lake. There were several little islands that were to be visited, and on one of the tiniest, they went ashore to eat their lunch.