The Bent Twig Part 8

The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia.--"Of course we can't have Camilla at the picnic."--"My uncle wouldn't want a _n.i.g.g.e.r_ there."--"We'll have to tell her she can't come."

Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them s.n.a.t.c.hes of similar talk.--"Anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way they do--just like n.i.g.g.e.rs' voices."--"They'll have to go to the _n.i.g.g.e.r_ school now."--"Huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and their black dresses--nothin' but n.i.g.g.e.rs!" The air seemed full of that word.

Sylvia sickened and quailed.

Not so Judith! It had taken her a moment to understand the way in which the news was being received. When she did, she turned very pale, and broke out into a storm of anger. She stuttered and halted as she always did when overmastered by feeling, but her words were molten. She ignored the tacit separation between children of different grades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself pa.s.sionately among the girls who were talking of the picnic, clawing at their arms, forcing her way to the center, a raging, white-faced, hot-eyed little thunderbolt. "You're the meanest low-down things I ever heard of!" she told the astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury.

"You--you go and s-sponge off the Fingals for c-c-cakes and rides and s-s-soda water--and you think they're too l-l-lovely for w-words--and you t-t-try to do your hair just the way C-C-Camilla does. They aren't any different today f-f-from what they were yesterday--are they? You make me sick--you m-m-make m-m-me--"

The big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the formation of lines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant obedience to its voice sent the children all scurrying to their places, from which they marched forward to their respective cla.s.srooms in their usual convict silence. Just as the line ahead was disappearing into the open door, the well-kept, s.h.i.+ning surrey drove up in haste and Camilla and Cecile, dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ran to their places. Evidently they had heard nothing. Camilla turned and smiled brightly at her friend as she stepped along in front of her.

Sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. Up to that moment, she had felt nothing but shocked and intensely self-centered horror at the disagreeableness of what had happened, and a wild desire to run away to some quiet spot where she would not have to think about it, where it could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stop beating so furiously. What had she ever done to have such a horrid thing happen in her world! She had been as much repelled by Judith's foaming violence as by any other element of the situation. If she could only get away! Every sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a graceful and comely order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of it all. Up to the moment Camilla came running to her place--this had been the dominant impulse in the extreme confusion of Sylvia's mind.

But at the sight of Camilla she felt bursting up through this confusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct of self-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive--sympathy with Camilla--Camilla, with her dog-like, timid, loving eyes--Camilla, who had done nothing to deserve unhappiness except to be born--Camilla, always uneasy with tragic consciousness of the sword over her head, and now smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousness that it was about to fall. Sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably.

She was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the two natures under her skin, and this, their first open struggle for the mastery of her, was like a knife in her side.

She sat during the morning session, her eyes on the clock, fearing miserably the moment of dismissal at noon, when she must take some action--she who only longed to run away from discord and dwell in peace. Her mind swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling to another. Every time that Camilla smiled at her across the heads of the other children, sullenly oblivious of their former favorite, Sylvia turned sick with shame and pity. But when her eyes rested on the hard, hostile faces which made up her world, the world she had to live in, the world which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness for her, the world which would now be ranged with her or against her according to her decision at noon, she was overcome by a panic at the very idea of throwing her single self against this many-headed tyrant.

With an unspeakable terror she longed to feel the safe walls of conformity about her. There was a battle with drawn swords in the heart of the little girl trying blindly to see where the _n_ came in "pneumonia."

The clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. Sylvia had come to no decision. She could come to no decision! She felt herself consciously to be unable to cope with the crisis. She was too small, too weak, too shrinking, to make herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force.

It was five minutes of twelve. The order was given to put away books and pencils in the desks. Sylvia's hands trembled so that she could hardly close the lid.

"Turn!" said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice. The children turned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the aisle, their eyes menacingly on Camilla.

"Rise!" Like a covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the long hours of immobility.

"Pa.s.s!" Clattering feet all over the building began moving along the aisles and out towards the cloakrooms. Every one seized his own wraps with a practised s.n.a.t.c.h, and pa.s.sed on, still in line, over the dusty wooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out to the playground--out to Sylvia's ordeal.

As she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sunlight, she still had reached no decision. Her impulse was to run, as fast as she could, out to the gate and down the street--home! But another impulse held her back. The lines were breaking up. Camilla was turning about with a smile to speak to her. Malevolent eyes were fixed on them from all sides. Sylvia felt her indecision mount in a cloud about her, like blinding, scalding steam.

And then, there before her, stood Judith, her proud dark little face set in an angry scowl, her arm about Cecile Fingal's neck.

Sylvia never could think what she would have done if Judith had not been there; but then, Judith was one of the formative elements of her life--as much as was the food she ate or the thoughts she had. What she did was to turn as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she had always meant to do it, put her arm through Camilla's and draw her rapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited. Judith and Cecile followed. The crowds of astonished, and for the moment silenced, children fell back before them.

Once she had taken her action, Sylvia saw that it was the only one possible. But she was upheld by none of the traditional pride in a righteous action, nor by a raging single-mindedness like Judith's, who stalked along, her little fists clenched, frowning blackly to right and left on the other children, evidently far more angry with them than sympathetic for Cecile. Sylvia did not feel angry with any one.

She was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever dreamed possible. The distance to the surrey seemed endless to her.

Her sudden rush had taken Camilla so completely by surprise that not until they were at the gate did she catch her breath to ask laughingly: "What in the world's the _matter_ with you, Sylvia? You act so queer!"

Sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting Camilla into safety, but a little red-headed boy from the second grade, who could scarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly, pointing his dirty forefinger at Camilla:

"n.i.g.g.e.r, n.i.g.g.e.r, never die, Black face and s.h.i.+ny eye, Curly hair and curly toes-- _That's_ the way the n.i.g.g.e.r goes!"

There was a loud laugh from the a.s.sembled children.

Camilla wavered as though she had been struck. Her lovely face turned ashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with the eyes of one dying.

From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that look. She forgot the crowd,--boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, she flung her arms about her friend's neck, hiding the white face on her shoulder. Judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla's arm. "Don't give in! Don't give in!" she screamed. "Don't cry! Don't let 'em see you care! Sa.s.s 'em back, why don't you? Hit that little boy over the head! Sa.s.s them back, why don't you?"

But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into the carriage, little Cecile stumbling after, the silent tears streaming down her face. The two clasped each other, and the surrey drove quickly away, leaving the Marshall girls standing on the curb.

Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them.

"Nasty old things!" she cried, sticking out her tongue at them. She was answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walked away, pulling Sylvia with her. For a few steps they were followed by some small boys who yelled in chorus:

"Judith's mad and I'm glad, And I know what'll please her: A bottle of wine to make her s.h.i.+ne, And two little n.i.g.g.e.rs to squeeze her!"

They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when Judith turned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath.

At the sight they scattered like scared chickens.

Judith was so angry that she was s.h.i.+vering all over her small body, and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice: "Nasty old things! Just wait till I tell my father and mother!"

As they pa.s.sed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia a physical impossibility that only that morning they had raced and scampered along, whirling their school-books and laughing.

They ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, and pouring out incoherent exclamations. Sylvia cried a little at the comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on Mrs.

Marshall's lap and closely held. Judith never cried; she had not cried even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so p.r.o.nounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia who told the facts. She was astonished to find them so few and so quickly stated, having been under the impression that something of intense and painful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning.

But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background of strange, pa.s.sionate prejudice which Sylvia could not phrase, and which gave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story: "--and so Judith and I walked with them out to the gate, and then that little Jimmy Cohalan yelled out, 'n.i.g.g.e.r--n.i.g.g.e.r'--_you_ know--"

Judith broke in, her nostrils distended, "And they never sa.s.sed back, or hit anybody or anything--just crumpled up and cried!"

Sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. "Why, I thought you were on their side!"

"Well, I _am_!" a.s.serted Judith, beginning to stammer again. "But I don't have to _like_ 'em any better, do I--because I get mad when a l-l-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin'

off--" She stopped, balked by her infirmity, and appealed to her parents with a silent look of fury.

"What _shall_ we do, Mother?" asked Sylvia despairingly, looking up into her mother's face from the comfortable shelter of her long, strong arms. Mrs. Marshall looked down at her without speaking. It occurred to Sylvia disquietingly that her mother's expression was a little like Judith's. But when Mrs. Marshall spoke it was only to say in her usual voice: "Well, the first thing to do is to have something to eat. Whatever else you do, don't let a bad condition of your body interfere with what's going on in your mind. Lunch is getting cold--and don't talk about trouble while you're eating. After you're through, Father'll tell you what to do."

Professor Marshall made a gesture of dismay. "Good Lord, Barbara, don't put it off on me!"

His wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. "I certainly have nothing to say that would be fit for children to hear!" she said in an energetic tone, beginning to serve the baked beans, which were the main dish for the day.

After the meal, always rather hasty because of the children's short noon-hour, Sylvia and Judith went to sit on their father's knees, while he put an arm about each and, looking from one serious expectant face to the other, began his explanation. He cleared his throat, and hesitated before beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as he went on. What he finally said was: "Well, children, you've stumbled into about the hardest problem there is in this country, and the honest truth is that we don't any of us know what's right to do about it. The sort of thing that's just happened in the Was.h.i.+ngton Street School is likely to happen 'most anywhere, and it's no harder on these poor little playmates of yours than on all colored people. But it's awfully hard on them all. The best we can do is to hope that after a great many people have lived and died, all trying to do their best, maybe folks will have learned how to manage better. Of course, if grown men and women don't know how to help matters, you little girls can't expect to fix things either. All you can do is to go on being nice to Camilla and--"

Judith broke in here hotly, "You don't mean we oughtn't to _do_ something about the girls being so mean to them--not letting Camilla go to the picnic and--"

"What _could_ you do?" asked her father quietly, "that would make things any better for Camilla? If you were forty times as strong as you are, you couldn't make the other girls _want_ Camilla at the picnic. It would only spoil the picnic and wouldn't help Camilla a bit." Professor Marshall meditated a moment, and went on, "Of course I'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends who are unhappy through no fault of theirs" (Sylvia winced at this, and thought of confessing that she was very near running away and leaving Camilla to her fate), "and I hope you'll go on being as nice to your unfortunate friends as ever--"

Judith said: "They aren't friends of mine! I don't like them!"

As not infrequently happened, something about Judith's att.i.tude had been irritating her father, and he now said with some severity, "Then it's a case where Sylvia's loving heart can do more good than your anger, though you evidently think it very fine of you to feel that!"

Judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and Sylvia drooped miserably in the consciousness of receiving undeserved praise. She opened her mouth to explain her vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiber was not equal to the effort. She felt very unhappy to have Judith blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed, but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion.

Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "It's twenty minutes to one. You'd better run along, dears," he said.

After the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved an unbroken silence, remarked dryly, "So that's the stone we give them when they ask for bread."

Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "My dim generalities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, I admit," he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn't directly contradicted by our lives? There's no use telling children something that they never see put into practice."

"It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives," suggested his wife uncompromisingly.