The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-08
CYCLING AS SHE TAUGHT
The Lovers, Her Wheel and What Han.
pens When She First Rides Alone.

The LOvers, Her Wheel and What Hap
pens When She First Rides Alone.
He generally teaches her. 1t appears to
him capital idea, as being likely to afford
unlimited opportunity for tete-a-tetes lit
eral and metaphorical And she receives
the suggestion with unfeigned delight,
having already made private attempts to
subdue the inherent vice of her steed, both
alone in the back garden and, supported
by her brother, in the quietest side street
procurable- But il the one case the BIZ
cycle has demolished the adjacent box Dor
ders, furiously attacked the fruit trees and
bitten her shins and ankles, while in the
other Jack has persistently and cruelty let
go her waist at all those crucial moments
when common humanity would have sug-
gested that he should hold on like a steam
crane. His proposal comes in time to
save her from despair, and she arranges a
meeting place as far from the haunts of
men as the Vaccinations of her mother
and the business hours of ''he'' will allow.
Then they proceed to business. He puts
the saddle up to its proper height, and she
makes him lower it again, because, she
says, it reduces the danger and makes her
feel happier. Then he holds the machine
with grim frmness and decision meant to
show it has met its master, while she puts
her high heeled shoe on the frame, scrapes
off a good bit of enamel and sGrambles into
the saddle. Afterward she catches hold of
him with both hands and entreats him not
to let the horrid thing move. He asks her
mildly but firmly what she thinks she has
come out for and begins to wheel it down
the road She holds the handle bar with
one hand and clutches her lover by the
scruf of the neck with the other, so that
he silently curses stick up collars in his
secret soul and wonders why it is no man
can go spooning in his everyday clothes.
s-I.o
him off the crown of the road into the gut
ter, until his legs scrape against the curb.
Then one of the pedals catches him in the
calf and causes him suddenly to sit down
on the edge of the footpath with the bicy-
Gle in his lap and the girl in the lap of the
bicycle. After he has explained that it was
all his fault and she has forgiven him they
go on again. Now she is beginning to gain
confidence, and she makes him trot smart
1y beside her for half a mile or so, every
now and then lending the whole forces of
his manly frame to keep her from climb
ing trees or removing such of her neigh
bors' landmarks as may lie handy in the
shape of walls and gates. Then they come
on a little slope, and she kicks the bicycle
over in her efforts to ride up. He asks her
if it isn't geared too high, and she says no;
she lowered it herself with a monkey puz-
zler, or something OF that sort, as soon as
it arrived and hash It allowed it to be raised
since. And he signs, but says nothing.
Then she tells him he can take his hand
off the bar and only hold the saddle, and
he does so and says nothing about the
pieces that the saddle springs pinch out OK
his fingers. And thereafter comes a great
display of skill and courage, and she is en-
boldened to order him to run beside with
arms outspread like the wings of a guar
dian angel and not to touch her at all. And
this he does until his wind gives out, when
he seats himself on a rustic bench bios
soming with nursemaids and babies and
sees her wabble away into the dim dis
lance. And then-then she looks aside
(since she cannot look around) and calls
upon his name and knows that he is no
longer there. And she lets go the handles
in a panic of terror and the road stands up
and hits her on the head, while the bicycle
lies down on her and tries to kick her and
roll over her. But he comes up in time to
save her from its fury, and as he wipes the
dust off her dress he tells her that victory
is hers at last for she has ridden alone
Chicago Times Herald.