which gave a strong light, but there didn’t seem to be any disturbance about.
“It certainly was the piano,” he said, much puzzled.
“And sounded like a cat serenade,” ventured Harry.
“Well, she isn’t around here,” laughed Uncle Daniel, “and we never heard of a ghost in Meadow Brook before.”
All this time the people upstairs waited anxiously. Flossie held Nan so tightly about the neck that the elder sister could hardly breathe. Freddie and Sandy were still under the bedclothes, while Mrs. Bobbsey and Aunt Sarah listened in the hall.
“Dat sure is a ghost,” whispered Dinah to Martha in the hall above. “Ghosts always lub music,” and her big eyes rolled.
“Ghosts nothin’,” replied Martha indignantly. “I dusted every key of the piano today, and I guess I could smell a ghost about as quick as anybody.”
“Well, I don’t see that we can do any good by sitting around here,” remarked Uncle Dan to the boys, after the lapse of some minutes. “We may as well put out the lights and get into bed again.”
“But I cannot see what it could be!” Mrs. Bobbsey insisted, as they all prepared to retire again.
“Neither can we!” agreed Uncle Daniel. “Maybe our piano has one of those self-playing tricks, and somebody wound it up by accident.”
But no sooner were the lights out and the house quiet than the piano started again.
“Hush! keep quiet!” whispered Uncle Daniel. “I’ll get it this time, whatever it is!”
With matches in one hand and a candle in the other he started downstairs in the dark without making a sound, while the piano kept on playing in “chunks” as Harry said, same as it did before.
Once in the parlor Uncle Daniel struck a match and put it to the candle, and then the music ceased.
“There he is!” he called, and Flossie thought she surely would die. Slam! went the music-book at something, and Sandy almost choked with fear.
Bang! went something else, that brought Bert and Harry downstairs to help catch the burglar.
“There he is in the corner!” called Uncle Daniel to the boys, and then began such a slam banging time that the people upstairs were in terror that the burglar would kill Harry and Bert and Uncle Daniel.
“We’ve got him’ We’ve got him!” declared Harry, while Bert lighted the lamp.
“Is he dead?” screamed Aunt Sarah from the stairs.
“As a door-nail!” answered Harry.
“What is it?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, hardly able to speak.
“A big gray rat,” replied Uncle Daniel, and everybody had a good laugh.
“I thought it might be that,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“So did I,” declared Nan. “But I wasn’t sure.”
“I thought it was a big black burglar,” Flossie said, her voice still shaking from the fright.
“I thought it was a policeman,” faltered Sandy. “’Cause they always bang things like that.”
“And I thought, sure’s yo’ life, it was a real ghost,” laughed Dinah. “’Cause de clock jest struck fer de ghost hour. Ha! ha! dat was suah a musicanious rat.”
“He must have come in from the fields where John has been plowing. Like a cat in a strange garret, he didn’t know what to do in a parlor,” said Uncle Daniel.
Harry took the candle and looked carefully over the keys.
“Why, there’s something like seeds on the keys!” he said.
“Oh, I have it!” exclaimed Bert. “Nan left her hat on the piano last night, and it has those funny straw flowers on it. See, the rat got some of them off and they dropped on the keys.”
“And the other time he came for the cake,” said Aunt Sarah.
“That’s it,” declared Uncle Daniel, “and each time we scared him off he came back again to finish his meal. But I guess he is through now,” and so saying he took the dead rodent and raising the side window tossed him out.
It was some time before everybody got quieted down again, but finally the rat scare was over and the Bobbseys turned to dreams of the happy summer-time they were enjoying.
When Uncle Dan came up from the postoffice the next morning he brought a note from the fresh-air camp.
“Sandy has to go back!” Nan whispered to Bert. “His own father in the city has sent for him, but mamma says not to say anything to Sandy or Freddie—they might worry. Aunt Sarah will drive over and bring Sandy, then they can fix it. I’m so sorry he has to go away.”
“So am I,” answered Nan’s twin. “I don’t see why they can’t let the little fellow alone when he is happy with us.”
“But it’s his own father, you know, and something about a rich aunt. Maybe she is going to adopt Sandy.”
“We ought to adopt him; he’s all right with us,” Bert grumbled. “What did his rich aunt let him cry his eyes out for if she cared anything for him?”
“Maybe she didn’t know about him then,” Nan considered. “I’m sure everybody would have to love Sandy.”
At that Sandy ran along the path with Freddie. He looked like a live buttercup, so fresh and bright, his sunny sandy curls blowing in the soft breeze. Mrs. Bobbsey had just called the children to her.
“We are going over to see Mrs. Manily today, Sandy,” she said. “Won’t you be awfully glad to see your own dear Mamma Manily again?”
“Yep,” he faltered, getting a better hold on Freddie’s hand, “but I want to come back here,” he finished.
Poor darling! So many changes of home in his life had made him fear another.
“Oh, I am sure you will come to see us again,” Mrs. Bobbsey declared. “Maybe you can come to Lakeport when we go home in the fall.”
“No, I’m comin’ back here,” he insisted, “to see Freddie, and auntie, and uncle, and all of them.”
“Well, we must get ready now,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “John has gone to bring the wagon.”
Freddie insisted upon going to the camp with Sandy, “to make sure he would come down again,” he said.
It was only the happiness of seeing Mamma Manily once more that kept Sandy from crying when they told him he was to go on a great big fast train to see his own papa.
“You see,” Mrs. Manily explained to Mrs. Bobbsey, “a wealthy aunt of Edward’s expects to adopt him, so we will have to give him up, I am afraid.”
“I
