The Bent Twig

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried out enthusiastically, "Oh yes—Camilla looks Italian—like an Italian princess!"

Judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression and remained silent, an achievement of self-control which Sylvia was never able to emulate.

The Fingál girls continued to occupy a large space in Sylvia's thoughts and hours, and before long they held a unique position in the opinion of the school, which was divided about evenly between the extremes represented by Sylvia and Judith. The various accomplishments of the new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration and suspicion. They could sing like birds, and, what seemed like witchcraft to the unmusical little Americans about them, they could sing in harmony as easily as they could carry an air. And they recited with fire, ease, and evident enjoyment, instead of with the show of groaning, unwilling submission to authority which it was etiquette in the Washington Street School to show before beginning to "speak a piece."

They were good at their books too, and altogether, with their quick docility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please, were the delight of their teachers. In the fifth grade, Sylvia's example of intimate, admiring friendship definitely threw popular favor on the side of Camilla, who made every effort to disarm the hostility aroused by her too-numerous gifts of nature. She was ready to be friends with the poorest and dullest of the girls, never asked the important rôles in any games, hid rather than put forward the high marks she received in her studies, and was lavish with her invitations to her schoolmates to visit her at home.

The outside of this house, which Mr. Fingál had rented a month or so before when they first moved to La Chance, was like any one of many in the region; but the interior differed notably from those to which the other children were accustomed. For one thing there was no "lady of the house," Mrs. Fingál having died a short time before. Camilla and Cécile could do exactly as they pleased, and they gave the freedom of the house and its contents lavishly to their little friends. In the kitchen was an enormous old negro woman, always good-natured, always smelling of whiskey. She kept on hand a supply of the most meltingly delicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, "Heah, chile, put yo' han' in the cookie-jah and draw out what you lights on!" was always flourished in the faces of the schoolmates of the two daughters of the house.

In the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly shining furniture, reigned Mattice, another old negro woman, but, unlike the jolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled and silent. She it was who arrayed Camille and Cécile with such unerring taste, and her skilful old hands brushed and dressed their long black hair in artful twists and coils.

Here, against their own background, the two girls seemed more at their ease and showed more spontaneity than at school. They were fond of "dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of the stories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for acting which explained their success in recitations. Once when the fun was very rollicking, Camilla brought out from a closet a banjo and, thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a tingling accompaniment to one of her songs. The other little girls were delighted and clamored for more, but she put it away quickly with almost a frown on her sweet face, and for once in her life did not yield to their demands.

"Well, I think more of her for that!" remarked Judith, when this incident was repeated to her by Sylvia, who cried out, "Why, Judy, how hateful you are about poor Camilla!"

Nothing was learned about the past history of the Fingáls beyond the fact, dropped once by the cook, that they had lived in Louisiana before coming to La Chance, but there were rumors, based on nothing at all, and everywhere credited, that their mother had been a Spanish-American heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying a Protestant. Such a romantic and picturesque element had never before entered the lives of the Washington Street school-children. Once a bold and insensitive little girl, itching to know more of this story-book history, had broken the silence about Mrs. Fingál and had asked Camilla bluntly, "Say, who was your mother, anyway?" The question had been received by Camilla with whitening lips and a desperate silence—ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which tore Sylvia's heart. "You mean, horrid thing!" she cried to the inquisitor. "Her mother isn't dead a year yet! Camilla can't bear to talk about her!"

Once in a great while Mr. Fingál was visible,—a bald, middle-aged man with a white, sad face, and eyes that never smiled, although his lips often did when he saw the clusters of admiring children hanging about his daughters.