“Mother, could you spare Joanna for a week or two, till they can find somebody?  She can cook almost as well as Sarah, you know.  She cooked for me last fall, when you were away and Sarah was taken ill.”

Jarvis’s mother looked at him doubtfully.  “I think you had better not go as far as that.  Be content with supplying the tent and its equipment, and see how Max and Alec take it.  The young girl they have now will do for a time, surely.”

“All right—­if you think that’s the better plan.  Ready, Sis?”

Jarvis put the gray mare through her paces, and there was still an hour of daylight left when he and Josephine reached the pine grove.

“It’s ten degrees cooler out here than it is in town at this hour,” declared Jarvis, with satisfaction.  He pushed up the goggles and lowered them again quickly.  Even the subdued light in the grove, at a point where the setting sun did not penetrate, was too much for his eyes.  “Confound the things!” he exploded.  “Shall I ever be anything again but an owl in daylight?  Well, where shall the tent go?”

“Over there,” replied Josephine, promptly.  “There’s just one perfect spot for it—­on the top of that little rise, looking toward the south, and away from the grove.”

“Right you are.  But the trees are too thick.”

He pulled out a foot-rule and began to measure.  Presently he announced the result:  “One tree, this little fellow, will have to come down.”

“Do you dare?”

“Of course I dare.  Where can I get an axe?”

Josephine glanced toward the house.  Then she thought of the Ferry cottage.  “The little house beyond the hedge—­I know the people—­at least, I’ve met one of them.  Shall we go and ask?”

Jarvis was already hurrying toward a distant gap in the hedge.  “I’ll go!” he called back.

In two minutes he reappeared.  With him was a sturdy figure.  Josephine recognized the broad shoulders, the thick reddish-brown hair, the gleam of the hazel eyes.  She nodded at Donald Ferry, noting that he was not now clad in a gray flannel shirt, but in one of white, with a low collar and silk neck-tie, similar to Jarvis’s—­hot-weather dress with an urban air about it.  He carried an axe.

“Thank you,” said Jarvis, when they had reached the spot which Josephine had designated.  He held out his hand for the axe.

Ferry shook his head, smiling.  “Which is the tree?” he inquired.

“Give me the axe, please,” repeated Jarvis.  “There’s no reason why you should chop down trees for us on a sweltering night like this.”

“It won’t make me swelter as much as it will you,” asserted Ferry retaining his hold on the axe.  “I’m an old woodman.  Come, show me the tree, or I’ll chop at a venture.  Miss Burnside?”

Josephine pointed out the tree.  Ferry lifted the axe and swung it, and it sank deeply into the trunk.  Another blow; it struck the same spot.  Another and another, with an unerring aim.  “You are a woodman,” admitted Jarvis, admiringly, watching the powerful swing and the telling blows.