FullReads

She always wore a widow’s cap and a black gown. In the mornings she donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the afternoon, an apron of that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture factory, and gave bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady’s bicycle. Behind him walked Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her ankles–she, always so dignified in her toilets.

“Land’s sakes!” gasped Mrs. Winslow, “if she ain’t going to ride a bike! Well, what next?”

What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs. Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss Hopkins’, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression. Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness.

“Don’t you think it is very high ?” said Lorania. “I can never get up on it!”

“It will be by the block at first,” said Shuey, in the soothing tones of a jockey to a nervous horse; “it’s easy by the block. And I’ll be steadying it, of course.”

“Don’t they have any with larger saddles? It is a very small saddle.”

“They’re all of a size. It wouldn’t look sporty larger; it would look like a special make. Yous wouldn’t want a special make.”

Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. “The pedals are very small, too, Cardigan. Are you sure they can hold me?”

“They could hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a bit on the pedals–ye won’t be skinning your ankles so much then–and hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the steering-bar. Push off hard. Now! “

“Will you hold me? I’m going–Oh, it’s like riding an earthquake!”

Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way–to teach the balance. “Keep the front wheel under you!” he cried cheerfully. “Niver mind where you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep a-pedalling!”

“But I haven’t got but one pedal!” gasped the rider.

“Ye lost it?”

“No; I never had but one! Oh, don’t let me fall!”

“Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I’ll hold it steady, and you get both feet right. Here we go!”

Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the wheel by the full exercise of Shuey’s great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet, for some strange reason, instead of seeking the lost, simply curled up as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless Shuey got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling away from him, that Lorania’s strained gaze suddenly fell on the frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins’ features; but she looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her ground, she saw the cyclist approaching–on foot.