COUNTING THE HOURS
"You're right, Margaret," Lucile was saying. "I did call you all together
just to speak of our guardian."
The girls leaned forward eagerly. "What about her?" they demanded.
"Oh, Lucy, don't keep us waiting," begged Marjorie. "Is she coming to
Burleigh?"
"Not so fast," cried Lucile. "Give me half a chance. I haven't heard from
our guardian personally, but Phil got a letter from Jim the other day and
he said----" Lucile paused dramatically.
"Yes, yes; go on," they demanded, excitedly.
"And she said that Mr. and Mrs. Wescott were going to visit Burleigh very
soon."
"Soon," cried Margaret. "That sounds good. Always before it's been
something that was going to happen in the dim future."
"Did she say any special time, Lucy?" Ruth broke in, impatiently.
"No, there was nothing definite about it," said Lucile, "but I expect to
hear from her almost any minute now."
"There comes the postman--perhaps he will bring you a letter," suggested
Evelyn.
"Oh, what's the use of raising our hopes?" admonished Jessie. "There's
just about one chance in a thousand that the letter will come when we
want it."
"All we can do is wait," said Lucile, philosophically. "In the meantime,
suppose we all suggest something that we can do to welcome her--make her
feel how truly glad we are to see her. Somebody suggest something."
"For goodness' sake, Lucy," Marjorie exclaimed, "you might better have
left me out of this. I'm no good at all when it comes to using any
imagination."
"You have probably as much as any of us, and you can't get out of helping
that way," said Lucile, decidedly.
"From things she has said, I should give her credit for a good deal of
imagination," quoth Jessie, slyly.
"Oh, I'll get even for all those awful things you have said to me and
about me, Jessie Sanderson," Marjorie threatened, good-naturedly. "I'd do
it now, only I'm too busy trying to think up a plan."
"Good girl; keep it up," commended Lucile, and then, as she caught a
murmured "That's just an excuse" from Jessie's direction, she cried, with
a scarcely suppressed laugh, "Perhaps you would be doing a little more
good in the world, Jessie, if you would follow her example."
"Bravo!" cried Evelyn. "That's one for you, Jessie," and promptly
received a withering glance from that young lady, which said as plainly
as words, "You just wait; there'll be a day of reckoning, and then----"
"Here comes the postman," cried Margaret. "Shall I take the mail, Lucy?"
"Please," she answered, and a moment later Margaret handed her half a
dozen envelopes, while the girls looked on in eager silence.
"Is it there?" cried one of the girls, at last.
"Not yet," said Lucile, but as she turned over the last letter, she
uttered a cry of amazement and delight that sent all the girls crowding
about her.
"That is her handwriting," exclaimed Evelyn, and then there ensued such a
babble of wonder and delight and excited speculation as to its contents
that Lucile was finally obliged to shout, "If you will only sit down,
girls. I'll see what's inside, and please stop making such an unearthly
noise--we'll have the reserves out to quell the riot before we know it."
The girls laughed and distributed themselves about the porch, as many as
could possibly get there crowding the rail on either side of Lucile,
while they all listened with bated breath to what their guardian had to
say.
"To Lucile and all my dear camp-fire girls," read Lucile. "I planned to
come to Burleigh long ago, as you all know, and was bitterly disappointed
when I was forced at the last minute to change my plans."
"So were we," said Evelyn, and was greeted by a chorus of impatient
"sh-sh" as Lucile went on:
"But this time I am as sure as I can ever be of anything that my plans
won't fall through. I expect to be in Burleigh by the twenty-fifth."
"Oh, think of it! That's day after to-morrow!" Margaret exclaimed,
rapturously.
"That's what it is," Jessie agreed.
"Go on, Lucy; what more has she to say?" demanded another of the girls,
and Lucile went on with her reading.
The rest of the letter contained descriptions of her travels and all she
had seen, ending up with: "When I see my girls, I will tell you all I
have been writing now, and a great deal more, and will expect to hear
more fully than they have been able to write me all that has happened to
them during the last six months. I am counting the hours till I see you
all again. Good-by till then, dear girls. Your own loving guardian."
"That's all," Lucile finished. "Now we know when she's coming."
"Isn't she dear, and didn't the whole thing sound just like her?" cried
Jessie.
"Exactly," agreed Evelyn, and then added, "If she is counting the hours
till she sees us, I wonder what we'll be doing."
"We'll be making the hours count," said Lucile.
"Good for you, Lucy; that's what I call efficiency," cried Marjorie.
"Make time work for us."
"Yes, but how are we going to do it?" said Ruth, distrustfully.
"I'll tell you," Lucile answered. "I thought that we ought to give our
guardian a surprise when she comes. She hasn't been here for so long, and
we ought to make it something she will remember."
"You've thought of something, Lucy; I can tell that," cried Jessie.
"Suppose you let us know about it."
"Go ahead, Lucy--we'll let you think for all the rest of us," Marjorie
suggested. "You can do it better, anyway."
"How very kind of you!" mocked Lucile. "I appreciate your generosity
immensely."
"Go on; tell us your idea, Lucy," urged Margaret. "Never mind her."
"Well, it was only this, and if any one has anything better to offer, I'm
only too glad to hear about it. I thought that you girls could all dress
up in your ceremonial costumes. In the meantime, I'll have a fire made in
the living-room fireplace and then I'll go to meet her."
"And leave us home?" Evelyn interrupted.
"Exactly," said Lucile, firmly. "As I said before, I'll go to meet her
and bring her here. Then I'll take her upstairs to get her things off and
tell her you girls will be here right away."
"And we're to be hidden in some other room, I suppose," Marjorie
ventured.
"Uh-huh. Then I'll get her down into the living-room and make her
comfortable in front of the fire----"
"Let us hope it's a cool day," Margaret interjected.
"We'll hope so," agreed Lucile. "We will have plenty of cool days yet,
anyway, before spring sets in in earnest, and maybe the day after
to-morrow will be one of them. I'll get her to sit there, even if it is
warm."
"What then, Lucile?" asked one of the girls. "I have a feeling that the
most interesting part is yet to come."
"It is," said Lucile. "You see, I'll be talking to her so hard that she
won't notice what's going on around her much--that is, if you are
careful. Then you come in, one by one, on your tip-toes and sit in a
semicircle behind her."
"Oh, that will be a lark," cried Evelyn. "And are we to wait till she
finds us out?"
"That's what I was going to tell you," said Lucile. "When you all get
settled, I'll put my hand up to my hair like this, and then you begin to
sing, very softly, 'Oh, fire----'"
"That will be splendid, Lucy; it will seem almost like old times," cried
Margaret. "How did you manage to think it all out so beautifully?"
"Oh, it was simple enough," said Lucile. "The only thing is, do you all
like it?"
Lucile was very well satisfied with the reception of her plan a moment
later. The girls were enthusiastic and overwhelmed her with questions
until she was obliged for the second time that morning, to say, "One at a
time, please."
When, finally, all the arrangements were complete and satisfactory, one
of the girls discovered it was after noon.
"Girls," exclaimed Evelyn, dismayed, "we've used up the whole morning
just talking."
"Why, what time is it?" asked Margaret, feeling for her watch.
"It's twelve fifteen," announced Evelyn, impressively.
"Time I was going home," Marjorie declared, jumping up. "Where's my
hat?"
"It's inside with Evelyn's," Lucile answered. "If I hadn't taken care of
them there would have been nothing left resembling a hat. I'll get
them," she added, and ran into the house.
In a moment she returned with a hat in each hand.
"What did you want to wear them for, anyway?" she said, as they started
off. "You didn't really need them, and just think of all the work you
made me."
"Oh, they just wanted to show them off," laughed Gertrude Church.
"Humph, we know why they pretend to criticize us, don't we Marjorie?"
queried Evelyn, with a knowing wink.
"Sure; they're jealous," was the laconic reply, at which all the girls
laughed scornfully.
"We'd have to have something better than that to be jealous of," scoffed
one.
"Then we'll see you Monday, Lucy," called Jessie, as they started off
down the street. "Maybe before," she added.
"I can stand it," laughed Lucile. "Come early Monday, anyway, all of you,
and don't forget what I told you."
"We won't," they called; "don't worry!" And, indeed, she had no need for
anxiety, for the thought that filled the girls' minds to the exclusion of
everything else was:
"Our guardian is coming Monday--oh, why is it so far away?"