"How could I help liking it! Why it's just ideal. It makes our pretentious homes look like cheap bric-a-brac," Dorothy declared.

"Well, come now and have tea--we are to have it alone, you and I, for mother is busy helping Jennie can berries, and Jack is never home until the cows come--we can see herds of them troup over that hill every night."

Cologne put a match to the small oil stove, and then when the kettle boiled she made tea in the proper way, pouring the water over the leaves as they nestled in the blue Delft pot on the table. The edibles were produced from an improvised cupboard, and in a remarkably short time Dorothy and her friend were seated at the long table, enjoying a meal, the like of which the visitor declared she had never before fallen heir to.

"It must be the air," she remarked, helping herself to a sandwich, "for I have never felt so alarmingly hungry."

"Jack says they are 'standwiches,'" remarked Cologne, "for he never gets a chance to eat one while sitting down."

"That's true," replied Dorothy, "for at the places where one gets them one is never supposed to sit down. 'Standwiches' they really are.

I am anxious to see Jack. He gave me such a nice time when I visited you at Buffalo."

"Oh, he's a perfect giant," Cologne told her. "He grows while you wait. He's off fishing to-day. Promised to fetch home some nice fish for to-morrow's dinner. We get trout for breakfast in the stream over there. It's jolly to fish. I know you will like it up here, Dorothy."

"_Will_ like it! I _do_ like it! There is no future tense on that score. I have always longed for a visit 'way down east.' And how strange people talk! Just as soon as we pa.s.sed Connecticut it was like going into a new country, the accent is so different. Tavia declared it was nothing but a left-over brogue of the Mayflower vintage. Of course, that's what it really is. But Tavia! I had almost forgotten her. Could we go out anywhere and look for her?"

"Hardly," replied Cologne. "But we could drive out to the station again, and send a message to the Junction. I wish Jack was here. He would know best what to do. It is too provoking!"

"And she is so apt to fall in with a 'friend,'" mused Dorothy. "I never saw her equal for picking up friends."

"There's an automobile," exclaimed Cologne, listening to the ripping of the atmosphere as a machine tore down the road. "We don't have many cars around here, it's too hilly."

"They're coming in the lane! It's Tavia!"

Both girls jumped up, and ran to the lane that wound around the camp.

Tavia was standing up waving her hand bag.

"She made friends this time," declared Dorothy. "Just like her to fall into something easy."

CHAPTER VIII

THE WILD ANIMAL

"Perfectly delicious," Tavia was exclaiming, in her reckless way, "never believed a barn could be thus converted into a home." She tossed aside her traveling things. "And so sweet of you, Cologne, to ask poor me. The old joke, as if Rose-Mary-Cologne-Lavender could be other than sweet!"

"And so dear of you to get here," said Dorothy, with mocking voice.

"We really thought----"

"Doro, dear, if you only would get over that abominable thinking habit! See what happened to me when I thought I was was going to be locked up for the night in the little railroad station! Why, along whisked an auto, and the lady with the scared-to-death-hair looked at me. Seeing me was believing. The chaufferine (it was a lady and my French is packed up) asked me in. That was what I got for thinking on the wrong stoop. And weren't they dears? Did you mind the veils?

First I thought they were hoisted for rain clouds, and again, when I saw the blues and pinks, I decided for fair weather. There were enough colors to make a rainbow look like the milky way. And they asked me to come see them! Asked me! Why they begged me and made me give a cross-my-heart yes."

"But you won't go?" asked Cologne. "You know the Lamberts are--well--they are a troup of theatrical folks, and no one knows much about them."

"The only profession that hides the ego," broke in Tavia. "Now that is what I call cozy, to get away from the dear old nosey public. I wonder the whole world does not go in for the stage, and get a chance to walk through the streets, and have folks say, 'Isn't she perfectly sweet!'

All the while one could be sticking out her tongue, and otherwise enjoying herself--"

"Tavia!" exclaimed Dorothy. "Do talk something akin to common sense if you cannot do better. And don't mix up your p.r.o.nouns. You keep one bobbing through tenses and p.r.o.nouns as if the thinker were a jack-in-the-box."

"All the same I would love to go over to that big white house in the cherry trees, and see a dress rehearsal. They play Shakespeare."

"You must not think of such a thing," declared Dorothy. "Since Cologne does not wish you to go in the strange set, you will surely comply, but I do not have to tell you that I am sure you will," and she turned away in evident distress.

The next morning the three girls started to camp in earnest. Tavia insisted that it was her share of work to fetch one pail of water from the spring, because, she said, she had to stoop down so low, and walk so far the effort was equal to Dorothy's dish-washing or Cologne's m.u.f.fin-making.

"While you do the rest," she said, "I'll just run up, and look over the loft, the boys are out now, and Dorothy won't be afraid I'll forget my manners."

"You come here directly, and set this table for lunch," ordered Dorothy. "We are going out for trout, and will not be in until eating time, so we will get everything ready now."

"All right," answered Tavia, at the same time climbing up the ladder, and making her way to the loft.

"Oh, let her explore," said Cologne. "Then when she gets enough of it she will be satisfied."

"Don't touch any of the old guns up there," called Dorothy, "Jack says there are dangerous."

"All righty!" yelled Tavia from above. "But say wouldn't this be a handsome place to drop from?"

She was in the opening of the hay loft, lying on the floor with her head over the edge.

"Oh don't" begged Cologne. "Tavia, that is dangerous!"

Her voice was rather strained, Cologne was annoyed. Tavia jumped up, and, with a most unladylike "whoop," ran from one end of the loft to the other, exclaiming at every new found article of interest. Suddenly she stopped.

"Now what do you suppose she is at?" asked Dorothy, as she and Cologne listened.

"Maybe Jack's pipes. I am sure she would be interested in them. He has quite a collection."

"Oh! G-i-r-l-s!" came a shout from the loft. "Come quick! A wild animal!"

The voice left no room for doubt. Tavia did see something.

Cologne and Dorothy dropped their work and scrambled up the ladder.

"Over here!"

Tavia was on all fours, peering behind an old door that lay close to the side timbers of the barn. "Just look! His hair stands up like a porcupine, and his eyes! Oh, my! such eyes!"

Cologne and Dorothy looked.

"There certainly is something," admitted Cologne.

"It has straight black hair," exclaimed Dorothy, "and it does look fierce!"

"What shall we do?" asked Cologne. "Jack will not be back until night."