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.