“You see,” said Cologne, “Mother did not want us to be working always, so she made the table service a la Indian.  We burn most of the dishes when we’ve used them, and they keep our camp fire going, or rather, they only start it.  Then the metal plates are so easy to wash, and so hard to break.  Oh, we have camping down to a system!  I hope you will like the system.”

“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 passed 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!”