THE GOOD OF THE ILL WIND
Mabel waked up just as Jane triumphantly rode her last wave and was
cast up on the sand still holding on to her unconscious burden.
Lorna’s friends, shrieking and crying, threw themselves on her wailing
and moaning:
“She is dead! She is dead!”
“Give her to me!” sternly demanded her stricken father.
Jane was completely exhausted and lay for a moment with her eyes
closed while the crowd of holiday makers closed in around her,
praising her and lauding her to the skies. But Jane’s work was not
over. As soon as she could pull herself together she was on her feet
and, pushing her way unceremoniously through the crowd, she caught Mr.
Breckenridge by the arm where he stood clasping his Lorna to his
broken heart.
“Don’t listen to them! She is not dead! Give her to me. Give her here,
I say! Mabel!” she called, “come and help me.”
Mabel was there in a moment.
“Push the crowd back and come give first aid to the drowning. You know
how.” Jane spoke authoritatively and Mabel took matters into her own
hands. Lorna’s friends were the hardest to manage as they insisted
upon hanging over her and covering her with kisses.
“You are killing her!” Jane spoke sternly. “Mr. Breckenridge, if you
can’t make these people stop, I’ll not answer for your daughter’s
life.”
And now Mr. Breckenridge took matters into his own hands and pushed
away the curious ones who would crowd in and with no gentle hand
pulled the well-meaning if ill-advised friends away from his daughter.
Then Mabel began the process of bringing to life the seemingly dead.
Many times had she practiced this stunt in classes until she knew how
to do it better than any one of the group of Camp Fire Girls.
“That fat girl will mash her,” wailed one of the friends.
“I may be fat but I’m no fool,” retorted Mabel, who had placed Lorna
on her face with arms above her head and face turned to one side. Then
she had seated herself astride the prostrate body and with clever and
strong hands manipulated her lungs. At first it seemed hopeless. The
friends still wailed and it took all of Jane’s strength, and stubborn
determination, combined with Mr. Breckenridge’s, to hold them back
from what they thought was their dead darling.
“She has just swallowed a lot of water,” Jane comforted the stricken
father. “She wasn’t under water long enough to be drowned. Her heart
is all right, isn’t it?”
“As right as a trivet, my dear.”
His “my dear” gave Jane a little thrill.
“She needs all the air she can get and the more people crowd around
her the harder it will be for her,” she said to the father, and to
herself she wailed: “Where, where is Breck?” and she prayed: “Oh, God,
send Breck.”
And Breck came at that moment. Laden with food and with the rest of
the Boojummers Charlie and Breck had started back to the spot where
they had left the girls. From afar off they saw the crowd and began to
run. Suppose something had happened to Jane or Mabel. Breck remembered
with thanksgiving that Jane had promised not to go in the water again
until he got back.
“Good old Jane wouldn’t break her word for a million,” he said to
himself as he raced to see what was the matter anyhow.
Towering above the crowd he saw the head of his own father and
something in his face told him there was tragedy in the air.
Breaking through the crowd to the space kept open by the exertions of
Jane and Mr. Breckenridge, the son caught his father by the hand.
“Father!” he cried.
“Allen! My son! Look, your sister! She is drowned.”
“No, she is not,” put in Jane reassuringly. “See, her breath is coming
back!” and sure enough as Mabel pressed upon the lungs and then
removed the pressure a sign of animation could be discerned in the
prostrate body. The shoulders heaved slightly and there was a
quivering of the long lashes that rested on the marble cheek.
Mabel began to sob.
“Let me take your place, Mabel, please,” suggested Jane.
“Never!” cried Mabel. “I’m just sobbing because I’m so happy. She’s
trying to breathe.”
“She’s going to live,” Jane whispered to Breck.
“I’ve always wanted to bring somebody back ever since the time it was
Miss Min’s riding skirt and not Miss Min that got drowned,” continued
Mabel, still pressing gently but firmly on Lorna’s lungs and then
releasing the pressure.
“I believe, little sister, you tried to take in the whole ocean,” said
Breck, kneeling by Lorna’s side and taking her hand in his after it
was all over and she had come back to consciousness.
“Oh, Allen! And we have found you at last. We have been searching up
and down the coast for days and days,” she whispered faintly. “Father
didn’t know I understood what he was doing, but he couldn’t fool me.
He has been as restless as a caged lion. He was sure he would find you
at Nantucket Town and when you weren’t there he sailed away, but only
went around the island and put in again this morning.”
This was in such a low tone that nobody except Breck heard it, but
Jane noticed that there were tears in his eyes when he got to his feet
and again grasped the hand of his father.
“Father, I want you to know my friends. This is Mr. Wing. I shipped as
common seaman on his yacht, the ‘Boojum,’ but, by a stroke of good
fortune, I am now--er--eating at the captain’s table.”
Breck went down the line introducing his friends, but with an unwonted
shyness saved Jane until the last. Jane stood by looking on and
blushing in spite of herself. Her bathing cap that the waves had
spared had been lost in the scuffle with the crowd and the importunate
friends and her wealth of blue-black hair had fallen about her
shoulders, making her look very handsome. Mr. Breckenridge looked at
the girl keenly as his son at last turned to her. He took her brown
hand in both of his and said:
“Somehow I don’t need to be introduced to this young lady. I know her
already, all but her name. I know she risked her life for a perfect
stranger and I know she has more grit than any man on the beach, as
much grit as any man I have ever known.”
He leant over and kissed her hand. “I can never repay you, my dear,
whatever your name is. There is no way to repay you.”
“Yes there is, sir,” said Jane blushing furiously but smiling bravely.
“You can give your son and me your blessing, because we are thinking
about getting married.”
It was a good thing the crowd had dispersed and gone back to the safer
beach, because crowd or no crowd Breck put his arm around his dear
Jane and kissed her again and again.
Then Charlie felt he should kiss Mabel because she had done such good
work in resuscitating the drowned. And Mr. Breckenridge thanked her
all over again for her wonderful skill.
“Where did you learn how to do it?” he asked.
“Part of being a Camp Fire Girl,” declared Mabel. “Camp Fire Girls are
just hanging around longing for emergencies to occur so they can get
more beads. You needn’t be grateful to me for resuscitating your
daughter. I have been praying for such a chance for ever so long.”
Everybody laughed at Mabel, who usually put her foot in it and never
could get out a long word without mixing it up.
“And you are a Camp Fire Girl too?” Mr. Breckenridge asked Jane.
“Oh yes, and it was being one that made me able to save Lorna. You see
we practice saving people. Mabel doesn’t mean we want things to happen
but that we want to be near by and able to help if things do happen.”
“I see,” he smiled.
“Well, I’m mighty hungry,” put in the irrepressible Mabel.
“Here are the eats,” whispered Charlie. “Hot-dog sandwiches and long
green pickles and ginger ale, but you have to drink out of the
bottles.”
Jane and Mabel could not help being amused to see the elegant persons
who had been so superior not half an hour before and too refined even
to bathe in the ocean with the common herd actually sitting down on
the beach with them, whom they had so ignored, and sharing the crude
luncheon with ill-concealed gusto.
“Excitement always makes me hungry,” sighed Mabel to one of the
chinless youths who was daintily munching a long dill pickle.
As for Lorna’s flattering friends, they watched to see what she would
do and then did likewise even to the extent of a vulgar hot-dog
sandwich.
“I don’t know whether it is good for anyone who has been so near
drowning to eat such food, but I guess you can try it, little Sister,”
laughed Breck.
The warm sun quickly dried the wet suits. Color came back into the wan
faces and laughter was on the lips that had so recently uttered only
moans. It was a merry party. No one could be stiff and elegant very
long with the Boojummers headed by the amusing and altogether natural
Mabel.
Breck watched with pleasure his sister’s interest in Jane. His
father’s eyes were never off his son’s fiancée and in them it was
plain to read supreme satisfaction and approval.
And is this not a very good place to leave our Camp Fire Girls? They
have had a wonderful summer trying to live up to the principles taught
by their organization. Some of the beads they have won will not show
on their strings but will be what Mabel called “character beads.”
Mr. Breckenridge saw to it that the two young women who saved his
daughter’s life should have something more tangible than just
“character beads.” When they got back to New York, they had hardly
reached their hotel, when each received a package by special
messenger. Each box contained a priceless string of pearls, with Mr.
Breckenridge’s card, on which was written.
Some Camp Fire Beads
For
A Brave Girl
“Have you told your father about Hurricane Island yet?” Jane asked
Breck.
“Yes, and he merely wanted to know if you approved and was mighty
disappointed to hear most of the stock was bid for already. I guess
we’ll have to let the Governor in on it for a little.” And Jane smiled
a happy assent.
THE END