With all this she was politely overbearing. She let people know she wanted to have her way--and then took it! From the first she pushed her way into prominence in church matters, choosing the Sunday school as the door. The Sunday school fell entirely under her sway in a very short time, partly because Mrs. Prell, the wife of the superintendent, had social ambitions, and urged Mr. Prell to second Lucille's wishes, and partly through Lucille's mere desire to lead. She began as leader of the simple Sunday school music, standing just under the pulpit and beating out the time of
"Little children, little children, Who love their Redeemer--"
with an arm that jingled with bracelets as her horses' bridles jingled with silver-plated chains.
Her knowledge of music was slight--she could just about pick out a tune on her harp by note--but she called in Professor Schwerl and made him pound further knowledge into her head. The hot-tempered old German did it. He swore at her, got red in the face, perspired. It was like pouring water on a duck's back, but some drops clung between the feathers, and Lucille knew how to make a drop do duty as a pailful. She took charge of the church music, reorganized the choir, and made the church think the new music was much better, than the old.
And so it was. She added Professor Schwerl and his violin to the organ. Theoretically this was to increase the volume of sweet sounds; in effect it made old Schwerl the hidden director of the choir, with Lucille as the jingling, rustling figurehead. So, step by step, Lucille became a real power in the church. The trustees and elders had little faith in her wisdom; they had immense respect for her ability to have her own way, whether it was right or wrong.
Lucille, having won her place in the church, set about creating a "salon." Her first idea was to make her parlor the gathering place of all the wit and wisdom of Riverbank, as Madame de Staël made her salon the gathering place of the wit and wisdom of Paris. Perhaps nothing gives a better insight into the character of Lucille than this: her attempt to create a salon--of which she should be the star--in Riverbank. She soon found that the wit and wisdom of our small Iowa town was not willing to sit in a parlor and talk about Michael Angelo. The women were abashed before the culture they imagined Lucille to have. The men simply did not come. Not to be defeated, Lucille organized a "literary society." By including only a few of her church acquaintances she gave the suggestion that the organization was "exclusive." By setting as the first topic the poems of Matthew Arnold--then hardly heard of in Riverbank--she suggested that the society was to be erudite. The combination did all she had hoped. Admission to Lucille's literary society became Riverbank's most prized social plum.