The Bent Twig | Page 8

the faculty ladies, and who
professed for the Marshalls, for Mrs. Marshall in particular, a
wrong-headed admiration which was inexplicable to the wives of the
other professors. The faculty circle saw little to admire in the Marshalls.
The spiritualist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolish
Cousin Parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothes and
incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing only by stern
pressure from their mother. She always wore a black straw hat, summer
and winter, always carried a faded green shopping bag, with a supply of
yellow writing paper, and always had tucked under one arm the curious,
heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, which spiritualists
call "planchette." The Marshall children thought this the most
laughable name imaginable, and were not always successful in
restraining the cruel giggles of childhood when she spoke of
planchette's writing such beautiful messages from her long-since-dead
husband and children. Although he had a dramatic sympathy for her
sorrow, Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made it
harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when Cousin
Parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse with
Milton or Homer. Indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been a
positive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing Sylvia,
aged ten, how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper, for
which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbidden her
ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense to his children again. He
himself was a stout unbeliever in individual immortality, teaching his
children that the craving for it was one of the egotistic impulses of the
unregenerate human heart.
Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained
Cousin Parnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor Kennedy, there
were many other habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless

students of both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere
they were allowed to enter; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named
Hecht, who worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political
pamphlets by night; Miss Lindström, the elderly Swedish woman
laboring among the poor negroes of Flytown; a constant sprinkling
from the Scandinavian-Americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled
the region near the Marshall home; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor
of a luridly radical Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in
private the "old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and
mild, ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at the
Marshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive.
These habitués of the house came and went with the greatest familiarity.
As they all knew there was no servant to answer the doorbell, they
seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, stepped into the hall,
hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and went into the big,
low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, they usually took a
book from one of the shelves lining the room and sat down before the
fire to wait. Sometimes they stayed to the next meal and helped wash
up the dishes afterwards. Sometimes they had a satisfactory visit with
each other, two or three callers happening to meet together before the
fire, and went away without having seen any of the Marshalls.
Informality could go no further.
The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely approaching the
regularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meeting
of the string quartet which Professor Marshall had founded soon after
his arrival in La Chance.
It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their seance.
Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and leader; Mr.
Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale plumber) was
second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and old Professor
Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. Any one who
chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings, on
condition that he should not talk during the music, and did not expect
any attention.

The music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. A little before
that time, Mrs. Marshall, followed by any one who felt like helping,
went out into the kitchen and made hot coffee and sandwiches, and
when the last chord had stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into
the dining-room and partook of this simple fare. During the evening no
talk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the musicians
over tempo and shading, but afterwards, every one's tongue, chastened
by the long silence, was loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity.
Professor Marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked faster and
louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especial favorite,
brilliant young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back with a sureness
and felicity of phrase which