But Daddy Bunker and Grandpa Ford had gone to town in the sled.  But Dick, the hired man, was at home, and he came to help Mother Bunker and Grandma Ford.

“I’ll get you out, Russ!  Don’t cry!” shouted Dick, as he ran up with his long rubber boots on.  These were so high that he could wade into almost any snowdrift.  “Don’t cry, Russ!”

“I’m not cryin’,” answered Laddie’s brother.  “I’m only hollerin’ so somebody’ll come and get me.  My foot’s stuck!”

And that is just what had happened to him.  He had stepped into a soft part of the drift with one foot, and had nearly turned a somersault.  Then the long barrel stave, tied fast to his shoe, became caught crossways under the hole in the snow, and Russ couldn’t pull his foot out.

He could not stand up, and so had to lie down, and one leg was out of sight down in the hole.

“I’ll soon have you out!” cried Dick.

He was as good as his word.  Reaching down in, he loosened the barrel-stave snowshoe from Russ’s foot, and soon pulled the little boy up straight.  Then he carried him to the porch.

“I wouldn’t go in deep places with those queer things on my feet any more,” said Grandma Ford.

“No, we won’t,” promised Russ.

So, when the snowshoe was again tied on his foot, he and Laddie shuffled about where the snow was not too deep.  They had lots of fun, and the other little Bunkers came out to watch them.  Mun Bun wanted a pair of the barrel-stave snowshoes for himself, but his mother said he was too little; but Russ made some for Rose and Vi.

Two days later, when the six little Bunkers got out of bed, they found that the weather had turned warmer, and that it was raining.

“Oh, now the nice snow will be all gone!” cried Rose.

“And we can’t make any more snow men and forts,” added Russ.

“But you can have fun when it freezes,” said his father.

“How?” asked Laddie.

“You can go skating,” was the answer.  “There is a pond not far from Grandpa Ford’s house, and when it freezes, as it will when the rain stops, you and the others can go skating.”

“I can skate a little,” announced Russ.

“So can I,” said Laddie.  “Did we bring any skates?”

“Yes, we packed some from home,” replied his mother.

“I want to skate!” exclaimed Mun Bun.

“You can have fun sliding, you and Margy,” said Rose.  “And I’ll pull you over the ice on a sled.”

This satisfied the smaller children, and then, as the weather was so bad that they could not go out and play, the six little Bunkers stayed in the house and waited for the rain to be over and the ice to freeze.

They played around the house and up in the attic, and, now and then, Russ and Rose found themselves listening for the queer noise.  They didn’t call it the “ghost” any longer.  It was just the “queer noise.”

But they did not hear it, and they rather wanted to, for they thought it would be fun to find out what caused it.