The Bent Twig

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out upon the world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. The personality of the man they did not name hung between and around the two women like a cloud. As they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifully dressed, in the costly, shining car, their clouded faces might to a country eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that "rich city folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and their automobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout as cheerful as a balky horse."

But the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anything but conscious of class differences. It was a desperate need which reached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flank of the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely wooded road, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushes and yell at them.

Sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminine one of fear—a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk—But Molly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in a cloud of dust. "What's the matter?" she shouted as the man sprang up on the running-board. He was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and for an instant could only beat the air with his hands. Then he broke out in a hoarse shout—the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like a tocsin: "Fire! An awful fire! Hewitt's pine woods—up that road!" He waved a wild, bare arm—his shirt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. "Go and git help. They need all the men they can git!"

He dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through the bushes. They saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was still exhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard the bushes crash, saw them close behind him. He was gone.

Sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when she was thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward of the car. She caught at the side, at her hat, and saw Molly's face. It was transfigured. The brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smoke goes when the clear flame leaps up.

"What are you doing?" shouted Sylvia.

"To get help," answered Molly, opening the throttle another notch. The first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrific speed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitable strength. "Hear her sing! Hear her sing!" cried Molly. In three minutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into the nearest village, two miles from the woods. It seemed that in those three minutes Molly had not only run the car like a demon, but had formed a plan. Slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the car on a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a passer-by, she followed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to a big brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, "Peabody Brush-back Factory."

The car stopped. Molly sprang out and ran as though the car were a rifle and she the bullet emerging from it. She ran into a large, ugly, comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting their thin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young woman who burst through and in at a door marked "Manager."

"There's a fire on the mountain—a great fire in Hewitt's pine woods," she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a young captain leading a charge. "I can take nine men on my car. Will you come with me and tell which men to go?"

A dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpaca office coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared at her in a petrified silence. Molly stamped her foot. "There's not an instant to lose," she said; "they need every man they can get."