At noon the four girls captured Jake and his horses, filled the bottom of the hay-wagon with baskets and pails, and were borne up to the fields, where they were hailed with cheers.  Under a tall elm, at one side of the scene of operations, they spread the lunch, and a motley crowd was presently encamped around it.  Their entertainers thought they had never seen a happier lot of youngsters.  They were of all sorts and sizes, but in one point they were alike:  their ignorance of the country and their delight in this interesting and novel experience.  They were very plainly all devoted friends of the young man who had brought them there, as could be seen in their every look at him.

“How long have you known Mr. Ferry?” Josephine asked of one slim, tall lad, with black hair drooping over a pair of sharp black eyes, his pale face full of animation.

“Oh, ever since he come down our street one day an’ axed me ’bout a feller I knowed that jes’ come back from the horspital.  Chap got run over—­Mr. Ferry was feared he wouldn’t have no home to stay in when he got out o’ horspital.  No more he didn’t—­till then.  After that day, he did, all right.”

Josephine glanced toward the subject of these remarks and then back at the lad, who nodded.  “Bet yer life ’twas him fixed it,” he declared.  “There don’t no kid go without some kind of a home, if he can fix things for ’em.”

“You boys must think a good deal of him,” suggested Josephine.

The boy’s lips answered only “You bet!” But his face instantly became eloquent.

After lunch the first load of hay was pitched upon the wagon, Jarvis, Jake, and Ferry wielding the pitchforks, Sally driving, and a big boy at the bridle of the colt that had run away during the ploughing season and so could not be trusted entirely to Sally, although she begged to be allowed to manage him without help.  He was not exactly a colt, after all, being four years old, but he was new in the traces of the work-horse and Jake kept an eye on him.

“You fellers pitch pretty well fer green hands,” acknowledged Jake, when the load was nearly on.  He was on the wagon with Sally, placing the forkfuls as they were pitched on.  “Expected to see one or ’tother of you git winded and go set down under the ellum.  ’Bout the third load’ll git you, though, I calc’late.”

The two contestants exchanged laughing glances under the forkfuls at the moment lifted above their heads.  “This fellow’s a Hercules for muscle,” said Jarvis to Jake, “but I’ve discovered several places in my anatomy not so well developed as they might be.  I’m going to get after them right away and train them up to the standard.  Great Caesar, but it’s a hot day!”

He stood up and wiped his perspiring brow.

“I think it’s deliciously cool,” remarked Sally from the top of the load.

“It’s perfectly comfortable here,” called Janet, from the fence near by, where the other three girls were perched.