Lucile Triumphant — Story, Setting & Ideas

They looked with fond and justified pride upon the laughing recipient of their praise. From anybody's point of view, Lucile was good to look upon. Mischief sparkled in her eyes and bubbled over from lips always curved in a merry smile. "Just to look at Lucile is enough to chase away the blues," Jessie had once declared in a loving eulogy on her friend. "But when you need sympathy, there is no one quicker to give it than Lucy." From her mass of wind-blown curls to the tips of her neat little tennis shoes she was the spirit incarnate of the sport-loving, fun-seeking summer girl.

Then there was their summer at camp the year before, when Lucile had led them undauntedly and as a matter of course through experiences and dangers that would have dazed the other girls.

And then had come the crowning glory, the climax of their wonderful summer--the race! They felt again the straining of that moment when, with half a length to make up and scant twenty yards from the goal, she had led them in the glorious, madcap dash to victory! From that day on she had reigned supreme in the girls' warm hearts, and there was not one of them but felt "that nothing was too good for her."

"Let's be thankful for small blessings," laughed Lucile, referring to Evelyn's last remark. "By the way, girls, have you heard about Margaret?"

"No; what is it?" They were all eager interest at once.

"Why, Judge Stillman called a consultation yesterday and the doctors pronounced Margaret absolutely cured!"

"Hurrah!" cried Jessie, springing up from the rock she had been using as a seat. "We knew she was better, but--oh, say, isn't it great?"

"Rather; but that isn't all," said Lucile. "The Judge insists that we have done it all--and the camp-fire, too, of course."

"Oh, nonsense," Evelyn exclaimed. "It was the woods and the air and the water that did it. That was all she needed."

"Humph, speak for yourself," Jessie interposed. "I admit she could have done without you very well; I could myself, but----"

"Do I hear a gentle murmur as of buzz-saws buzzing?" quoth Evelyn, dreamy eyes fixed on space. "Methinks it grows more rasping of late----"

"For goodness sake, girls, stop it," begged Lucile, despairingly. "If you are going to be like this all summer, how on earth can I take you with me? I don't want to live in a hive of hornets."

"Take us with you?" they cried, bewildered. "What do you mean?" and Jessie added, tragically, "Tell me quickly or I die!"

"Oh, I just thought I might." It was Lucile's turn to regard the heavens fixedly.

"Lucile, I'd like to shake you. You can be the most exasperating thing at times!" cried Jessie excitedly, and Evelyn, with an inelegance that was none the less forceful, "If you have anything up your sleeve, let's have it!"

Lucile's gaze came down to earth abruptly.

"You seem to be in a great hurry," she protested. "You haven't given me time yet, you know."

"Oh, we'll hunt him up for you some other time," Evelyn wheedled, and Jessie added, sagely, "We're only losing him this way, you know;" then added, in desperation, "If you don't explain right away, you'll have a corpse on your hands, Lucy."

"Why, there's nothing to explain; you are just going, that's all," said Lucile, as if the matter were definitely settled.

"Lucy, are you fooling? If you are, I'll never, never forgive you." It was Evelyn who spoke, her whole body quivering with excitement.

"No, she's in earnest; can't you see? She means, she means----" and Jessie paused before the fateful word.

It was more than Lucile could stand. She jumped up, danced a few joyous and absurd little steps, then turning, made the girls a low bow.

"Greetings, fellow-travelers," she said.

ECHOES OF THE CAMP-FIRE

"But whatever put it into your head to take us along?" Jessie asked, after the first wild excitement had abated a trifle.

"Well, you see, it was this way," began Lucile, with the air of one imparting a grave secret. "When Dad came home last night, the first thing he did was to begin asking me a lot of foolish questions--or, at least, they seemed so to me. He started something like this: 'If you had your choice, what would you want most in the world----'"

"If he had asked me that, I wouldn't be through yet," Jessie broke in.

"Never mind her, Lucy," said Evelyn. "Go on, please."

"I felt very much that way myself, Jessie," and Lucile nodded understandingly at the ruffled Jessie. "Well," she went on, "I began naming over several things, and when I'd finished Dad looked so sad I thought I must have done something terrible, but when I asked him what was the matter he simply shook his head despairingly and sighed, 'Not there, not there.'"

The girls laughed merrily.

"Oh, I can just see him," chuckled Evelyn.

"Well, what then?" Jessie urged.

"Oh, I didn't know what to do," Lucile continued. "The more I asked him to explain, the more disconsolate he looked. When I couldn't stand it any longer I left the room, saying if he didn't want to tell me, he needn't. Then, when I got outside the door I could hear him chuckling to himself."

"Just like him," again interposed Jessie.

"Well, all the time I knew something was coming. At dinner it came when Dad calmly announced that he was going to Europe on business and that if his family wished--imagine that, _wished_--he might let us go along."

"Oh, my--wished!" murmured Evelyn.

"You should have seen Phil," Lucile went on with her story. "I never saw anyone so dumbfounded. He stopped with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth and gaped at Dad as if he were some curiosity. I must have looked funny, too, for suddenly Dad began to laugh, and he laughed and he laughed till we thought he'd die."

"'You couldn't look more dumbfounded if I had ordered your execution,' he gasped when he could get his breath. 'Of course, I can always make arrangements for you to stay behind.'"

"Oh," breathed the girls in unison, "what did you say?"

"Say? You had better ask what didn't we say. We talked and talked and talked as fast as our tongues would go till after midnight, and we wouldn't have stopped then if mother hadn't shooed us off to bed. Oh, I don't think I was ever so happy in all my life!"

"But where do we come in?" insisted Jessie.

"Right here. You see, I had been so excited and everything, I hadn't realized what it would mean to leave you girls for the whole summer. I guess Dad saw there was something the matter, for, when I started upstairs, he drew me back and asked me to tell him what was wrong. When I told him I wished you girls were going, too, he surprised me by saying, 'Why not?' For a moment I thought he was joking--he's always doing that, you know--but when I saw he was in sober earnest I could have danced for joy."

"Don't blame you. I'd not only have felt like it; I'd have done it, too," said Evelyn.

"Yes, and scandalized the neighbors," Jessie sniffed.

"I fail to see how the neighbors would have known anything about it," retorted Evelyn, with dignity, "since they can't see through the walls."

"Oh, they don't have to see," said Jessie, witheringly. "Anybody within a mile of you can _hear_ you dance."

"See here, Jessie Sanderson, that's not fair," Lucile broke in. "Evelyn's one of the best little dancers I know, and I won't have her maligned."

"Have her what? I wish you'd speak United States, Lucy," said Jessie, plaintively.

"Don't talk and you won't show your ignorance." It was Evelyn's turn to be scornful.

"Well, what does it mean?" Jessie returned. "_You_ tell us."

"Some other time," said Evelyn, calmly. "You will have to excuse me now. I am so excited now that I really can't bring my mind down to trivial matters."

"I knew it," Jessie was declaiming tragically, when a clear whistle sounded from the foot of the hill and Lucile exclaimed:

"There's Phil; I wonder what he wants now."

The three girls made a pretty picture as they stood there gazing eagerly down the slope, Lucile with her vivid gypsy coloring and fair-haired, blue-eyed Jessie, exactly her opposite, yet, withal, her dearest and most loyal friend; and last, but not least, Evelyn, short and round and polly, with a happy disposition that won her friends wherever she went.

Although it is generally conceded that "three make a crowd," the rule was certainly wide of the mark in this case. The girls were bound by a tie even stronger than friendship, and that tie was the law of the camp-fire. The latter had taught them many brave lessons in the game of life, lessons in self-denial, in sympathy and loyalty, and they were ever anxious to prove that they had learned their lessons well.

Though, once in a while, besetting sins would crop out and Lucile would cry, despairingly, "Oh, why did I do it; I knew I shouldn't," and Jessie would stop, when plunging nobly through a box of candies, to cry penitently, "Oh, I've eaten too many," and Evelyn would often be tempted to read too long and neglect her work, still, on the whole, they were infinitely helped by the wholesome teaching and precepts of the campfire.

"Oh, he's got a letter," cried Lucile, as Phil took a flying leap into their midst.

"Say," said Phil, eyeing them pityingly, "don't you fellows know it's time to eat?"

"It's never dinner-time yet," said Jessie in dismay.

"Yes it is, too," Evelyn contradicted. "Just look where the sun is."

"Where is it?" cried Phil, and then, as his gaze wandered to the sky, he added, with an air of relief, "Oh, it's still there; how you frightened me!"

"Goose!" his sister commented, and then, looking at the envelope he still held in his hand, she added, "Who's the letter from? Be sensible and tell us about it."

"Oh, that?" said Phil. "That's a letter from Jim. Seems to be getting along first rate."

"What does he say?" asked Jessie, all interest.

Phil eyed her speculatively. "I tell you what I'll do," he said. "I'll tell you about it on the way home."

The girls laughed and Lucile explained, "You see, he's never happy far from home and dinner."

"You seemed to get away with a mighty generous supply of oysters yourself the other night," Phil grumbled good-naturedly.

"Well, if I did, I was only obeying the camp-fire law, 'Be healthy,'" Lucile defended warmly.

The girls laughed and Jessie murmured something about, "That's right; keep 'em under."

"What's that?" Phil demanded, but Jessie evaded with another question:

"When are you going to tell us about Jim?"

"Here we are, half the way home, and you haven't even begun," Evelyn added.

"Well, he seems more than satisfied with his engineering, and most of his letter is taken up with praises of Mr. Wescott and his wife and how good they are to him. He says the luck he's had almost makes him believe in fate."

"Well, there certainly did seem to be a fate in the way young Mr. Wescott just happened up to camp in the nick of time to find our guardian and fall in love with her, worse luck," and Lucile vindictively kicked a stone from the path as though it were the meddling Mr. Wescott himself. "And then to think he should like Jim, a poor little country boy, well enough to take him along with him to the city, where he could make something of himself."

"Well, all I have to say is that there's no one I'd rather see get along than Jim. I liked him the first minute I saw him, and he sure does improve on acquaintance--the longer you know him, the more you like him. He deserves everything he gets," and Phil's face glowed with boyish enthusiasm.

"That's the way we all felt," said Lucile with equal earnestness, while Evelyn could not repress a chuckle at the memory of their first meeting with Jim. "Has he anything else to say?"

"Only one thing," answered Phil, mysteriously.

"What is it?" the girls demanded in chorus.

"Hurry up, please, Phil," Jessie pleaded.

"Certainly, anything for you," Phil returned gallantly. "Why, he just states that Mr. and Mrs. Wescott----"

"Miss Howland!" cried Evelyn.

"Miss Howland that was," corrected Phil; "Mrs. Wescott that is."

"What difference does it make?" cried Lucile, impatiently. "What about her--is she sick?"

At the suggestion the girls grew pale.

"Not quite as bad as that," teased Phil, enjoying the sensation his news was making and bent on prolonging it to the last extreme.

"Not quite? Oh, Phil, what do you mean?" cried Jessie, imploringly.

Anxiety and alarm showed so plainly on the girls' white faces that Phil suddenly relented.

"Don't get scared," he continued, elegantly. "Your guardian isn't sick. If she were, I guess she wouldn't be making plans for visiting Burleigh."

"Is that the truth?" Lucile demanded, seizing her brother's arm. "Don't play any more tricks, Phil," she pleaded. "It means an awful lot to us, you know, if Miss--Mrs. Wescott is coming."

"Oh, that's on the level all right," Phil answered with evident sincerity. "She just made up her mind a little while ago and Jim thinks she will probably write to you girls about it."

"Oh, just think, we are really going to see her again after six months," Jessie exclaimed, joyfully.

"And we'll give her a reception she will never forget," Lucile decided.

"All right; I'm with you," Phil shouted, and was off to join a crowd of the fellows on the other side of the street.

"Don't forget we eat soon," Lucile called after him.

"Such a chance," he flung back. "Bet I'll be there before you will."

"He thinks we're going to talk for another couple of hours," Jessie interpreted.

"No, we'd better do our talking to-morrow. Tell you what we'll do--I have--an idea," cried Lucile.

"Bright child, tell us about it," said Evelyn.

"Suppose we call a special camp-fire meeting to-morrow morning to talk over plans for Miss Howland's--I mean Mrs. Wescott's reception."

"Fine--but who will let them know?"

"Come over to-night, both of you, and we can 'phone them from here."

"All right, we'll do that, Lucy," agreed Evelyn. "We'll see you about eight o'clock, then."

"Better run, Lucy," warned Jessie, with a backward glance over her shoulder. "Phil will beat you in if you don't hurry--he's coming full tilt."

"All right, I'll see you to-night," said Lucile, as she made a dash for the house.

She stopped for a moment on the doorstep to flash them a merry glance and cry triumphantly, "I won!"

"But not by much," claimed Phil, taking the steps two at a time.

As they turned away, Jessie sent one parting shot over her shoulder:

"A miss is as good as a mile," she gibed.

Saturday dawned gloriously. The warm rain that had fallen over night had dissolved the last frail bond of winter and had set the spring world free. Trees and bushes and shrubs were frosted with clinging, glistening diamonds that shimmered and gleamed in the sun, while the moist, warm earth sent up a pungent sweetness found only in the early spring.

"Smell it, just smell it!" said Jessie, sniffling rapturously, as she and Evelyn started on their way to Lucile's.

"Isn't it great?" Evelyn agreed. "That rain was just what we needed."

"It reminds me of last spring----"

"What?" said Jessie, puzzled.

"Why, that this spring should remind you of last."

"Don't get flippant, young lady," said Jessie, severely, "or I shall be obliged to give you a ducking," the river being very convenient just there, as the girls had to walk alongside its shores for some distance before turning into Lucile's avenue.

"Please don't; I had enough of a ducking last year in camp when I fell off the rock. Don't you remember?" said Evelyn, with a rueful smile.

"I should say I do, rather," laughed Jessie. "No one who was there and saw you could ever possibly forget it."

"Oh, I know I always make an impression," said Evelyn, wilfully misunderstanding.

For once Jessie could find no suitable retort. "You hate yourself, don't you?" was all she could say.

"Not so you could notice it," said Evelyn, enjoying her victory. "It seems to me that you were saying something when I----"

"When you so rudely interrupted," said Jessie, sweetly. "I'm not so sure that I will tell you now. It was nothing of any importance."

"Oh, I knew that," said Evelyn quickly--it was certainly her lucky day.

"You win!" cried Jessie, good-naturedly, throwing up her hands in mock despair.

Evelyn laughed merrily. "I'll have to look out after this," she said. "There'll be back-fire, I'm afraid. But, seriously, Jessie, what were you going to say?"

"Oh, only that this wonderful weather reminds me of this time last year when we were just making our plans for camp."

"Yes and even then we hadn't begun to realize how great it was going to be."

"I never knew what real fun was till we got way off there in the woods with the river before us and the woods all about us. And the very best thing of all was that we had only ourselves to depend on for everything."

"And we seemed to get along pretty well, too, considering," said Evelyn.

"Of course we did," Jessie agreed, and then added with a laugh, "I think we would be a valuable aid to suffrage. Tell everybody we managed to get along without any man's help."

"Oh, but we didn't," Evelyn objected. "How about Mr. Wescott?"

"It seems to me we could have gotten along very well without any of his help," retorted Jessie, vindictively.

"Perhaps we could, but--our guardian would tell a different story," said Evelyn, meaningly.

As she spoke the door of Lucile's house opened violently and Lucile herself came flying to meet them. She was dressed all in white and she seemed to the girls the very spirit of spring.

"Oh, girls, I'm so glad you came early," she cried, joyfully. "I was hoping you would, so we could talk things over by ourselves before the others came." She threw an arm about each of the girls and ran them up on the porch.

"We are the first, then?" said Jessie, perching on the railing.

"I told Jessie you would think we had come to breakfast," remarked Evelyn, flinging her hat carelessly into a chair.

"That's the way to do it," said Lucile, sarcastically. "It would serve you right if somebody should sit on it."

"Put it on, Lucy, and let's see how you look in it," Jessie suggested.

Lucile laughingly obliged, and the girls gave an involuntary gasp of delight.

"Oh, you darling," cried Evelyn, hugging Lucile so ecstatically that in her enthusiasm she almost lost her balance and nearly fell to the ground beneath. Lucile clutched her and brought her back to safety.

"A chair is the safest place for you," said her rescuer, laughingly.

"Take off the hat and everything will be all right," said Jessie. "That was what nearly caused your undoing."

"Oh, very well," Lucile agreed. "For such a little thing why quarrel?" and disappeared within the house.

"Remember," said Evelyn, warningly, "remember, that hat is mine, and if you dare to put a slur upon it I'll----"

"Lucy, Lucy," cried Jessie in a frightened voice, "come quick; she is threatening me!"

"All right; wait a minute," came the voice from inside.

"But I can't wait a minute," wailed Jessie; "she may have killed me by that time."

"Well, what----" began Jessie, and Evelyn, glancing at her astonished face, broke into a shout of laughter.

"Oh, Lucy, come and see what you've done," she gasped. "Oh, Jessie, I never saw you look so funny, and that's saying a good deal."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," said Jessie, icily, though there was a twinkle in her eye. "Not having a mirror, I'm afraid I can't join in the joke."

"No, you are the joke," countered Evelyn.

Jessie's natural sweet temper was fast becoming ruffled by this rapid fire and she had opened her mouth for a sharp retort when Lucile came running out.

"What's the matter?" she cried, gaily, and then, at sight of Jessie's face, she stopped.

"Overdose of hammers," she diagnosed, then wisely changed the subject.

"If we don't hurry up, the girls will be here before we have a chance to say anything at all about Mrs. Wescott."