Evening star., 1932-01-10


can do is tell you the whole story from
the beginning.
On that afternoon when Hunk, Chuck, Paul
and had been watching the workmen over at
the school, and left the boys TO take out the
ashes, they went over to Hunks shop. Hunk
had been fooling with an old portable victrola
over there, and that was the germ Of their
great idea to haunt house and cause some
excitement in Bairdsville.
They chose the old Blodgett house, and later
that afternoon the three of them went ever
there, getting I'm by climbing the back porch
roof and opening second story window. On
the third floor they fixed up the clever device
that played the music
1t was simply the old portable victrola with
q violin record on 1t, and an alarm clock with
the bell removed. They set the needle OF the
victrola about half through the record, then
ran piece of cord from the starting lever to
the key on the back of the alarm clock Then
they set the clock.
When the alarm reached the hour set, the
turning key wound up the cord and pulled the
lever starting the victrola. You have heard
a record start with the needle already on?
Well, that caused the groaning noise before
the music came. And, of course, the auto-
matte stop shut off the record when the end
was reached.
They hid this device under the loose floor
boards In the third-hoor front room The light
was merely q candle end, which HUNK was
clever enough 10 remove before our searching
party found M. This was all the ghost con-
sisted of ut first, and the three fellows had
the time of their lives, laughing at the town.
THE white ngure which we saw fit across the
| window ON the last day was another stunt
of Hunks, which he fixed up with piece of
1II0xx aCFl0 and fNx cryI
And the noise we heard when we went TO
investigate was made by lot of trash piled
on balanced board at the top Of the banlster.
When Hunk touched the rickety banister. the
board fell spilling all that trash on the stairs.
Up to this point the other boys were in on
all Hunks schemes But his last and best, the
wild laughing, was all his own. He had found
an old record which was nothing but man
laughing from start TO finish. Probably you
have heard that sort of record yourself. Wei,
Hunk bored hole about half inch from the
center hole in the record and put the new hole
on the peg OF the machine. If you have ever
heard a record fixed like this, you know how
crazy 1T sounds, and that laughing record did
the trick all right And, of course, when Paul
and Chuck heard it, they didn't know what 1t
was and they were scared to death
Hunk hadn't left a trace of all his "ghosting"
except for the sheet and pulley arrangement,
and when he saw the police were going to enter
the house, he decided to rush In and get that
out He did that while we were on our trip
back to town. But Hunk had never been In
the old house alone at night before, and all
this ghost business had begun TO get on his
nerves Then, when his light went out, he got
really frightened with the result you already
know
THE police and some of the men were rather
! provoked at the hoax that had been played
on them, but they admitted it was clever, and
they decided Hunk had been punished enough
by his bad scare. Moreover, they couldn't
punish boy just before Christmasl t-.. .
And now guess you understand why said
there was a moral to this story-for me!
THE End