A BAD TWIST
It was about the middle of the afternoon that I found myself bowling
along a smooth highway, bordered by trees and stretching itself almost
upon a level far away into the distance. Had I been a scorcher, here
would have been a chance to do a little record-breaking, for I was a
powerful and practised wheelman. But I had no desire to be extravagant
with my energies, and so contented myself with rolling steadily on at
a speed moderate enough to allow me to observe the country I was
passing through.
There were not many people on the road, but at some distance ahead of
me I saw a woman on a wheel. She was not going rapidly, and I was
gaining on her. Suddenly, with no reason whatever that I could see,
her machine gave a twist, and, although she put out her foot to save
herself, she fell to the ground. Instantly I pushed forward to assist
her, but before I could reach her she was on her feet. She made a step
towards her bicycle, which lay in the middle of the road, and then she
stopped and stood still. I saw that she was hurt, but I could not help
a sort of inward smile. "It is the old way of the world," I thought.
"Would the Fates have made that young woman fall from her bicycle if
there had been two men coming along on their wheels?"
As I jumped from my machine and approached her she turned her head and
looked at me. She was a pale girl, and her face was troubled. When I
asked her if she had hurt herself, she spoke to me without the
slightest embarrassment or hesitation.
"I twisted my foot in some way," she said, "and I do not know what I
am going to do. It hurts me to make a step, and I am sure I cannot
work my wheel."
"Have you far to go?" I asked.
"I live about two miles from here," she answered. "I do not think I
have sprained my ankle, but it hurts. Perhaps, however, if I rest for
a little while I may be able to walk."
"I would not try to do that," said I. "Whatever has happened to your
foot or ankle, you would certainly make it very much worse by walking
such a distance. Perhaps I can ride on and get you a conveyance?"
"You would have to go a long way to get one," she answered. "We do not
keep a horse and I really--"
"Don't trouble yourself in the least," I said. "I can take you to your
home without any difficulty whatever. If you will mount your machine I
can push you along very easily."
"But then you would have to walk yourself," she said, quickly, "and
push your wheel too."
Of course it would not have been necessary for me to walk, for I could
have ridden my bicycle and have pushed her along on her own, but under
the circumstances I did not think it wise to risk this. So I accepted
her suggestion of walking as if nothing else could be done.
"Oh, I do not mind walking a bit," said I. "I am used to it, and as I
have been riding for a long time, it would be a relief to me."
She stood perfectly still, apparently afraid to move lest she should
hurt her foot, but she raised her head and fixed a pair of very large
blue eyes upon me. "It is too kind in you to offer to do this! But I
do not see what else is to be done. But who is going to hold up my
wheel while you help me to get on it?"
"Oh, I will attend to all that," said I, and picking up her bicycle, I
brought it to her. She made a little step towards it, and then
stopped.
"You mustn't do that," said I. "I will put you on." And holding her
bicycle upright with my left hand, I put my right arm around her and
lifted her to the seat. She was such a childlike, sensible young
person that I did not think it necessary to ask any permission for
this action, nor even to allude to its necessity.
"Now you might guide yourself with the handle-bar," I said. "Please
steer over to that tree where I have left my machine." I easily pushed
her over to the tree, and when I had laid hold of my bicycle with my
left hand, we slowly proceeded along the smooth road.
"I think you would better take your feet from the pedals," said I,
"and put them on the coasters--the motion must hurt you. It is better
to have your injured foot raised, anyway, as that will keep the blood
from running down into it and giving you more pain."
She instantly adopted my suggestion, and presently said, "That is a
great deal more pleasant, and I am sure it is better for my foot to
keep it still. I do hope I haven't sprained my ankle! It is possible
to give a foot a bad twist without spraining it, isn't it?"
I assented, and as I did so I thought it would not be difficult to
give a bad twist to any part of this slenderly framed young creature.
"How did you happen to fall?" I asked--not that I needed to inquire,
for my own knowledge of wheelcraft assured me that she had tumbled
simply because she did not know how to ride.
"I haven't the slightest idea," she answered. "The first thing I knew
I was going over, and I wish I had not tried to save myself. It would
have been better to go down bodily."
As we went on she told me that she had not had much practice, as it
had been but a few weeks since she had become the possessor of a
wheel, and that this was the first trip she had ever taken by herself.
She had always gone in company with some one, but to-day she had
thought she was able to take care of herself, like other girls.
Finding her so entirely free from conventional embarrassment, I made
bold to give her a little advice on the subject of wheeling in
general, and she seemed entirely willing to be instructed. In fact, as
I went on with my little discourse I began to think that I would much
rather teach girls than boys. At first sight the young person under
my charge might have been taken for a school-girl, but her
conversation would have soon removed that illusion.
We had not proceeded more than a mile when suddenly I felt a very
gentle tap on the end of my nose, and at the same moment the young
lady turned her head towards me and exclaimed: "It's going to rain! I
felt a drop!"
"I will walk faster," I said, "and no doubt I will get you to your
house before the shower is upon us. At any rate, I hope you won't be
much wet."
"Oh, it doesn't matter about me in the least," she said. "I shall be
at home and can put on dry clothes, but you will be soaked through and
have to go on. You haven't any coat on!"
If I had known there was any probability of rain I should have put on
my coat before I started out on this somewhat unusual method of
travelling, but there was no help for it now, and all I could do was
to hurry on. From walking fast I began to trot. The drops were coming
down quite frequently.
"Won't that tire you dreadfully?" she said.
"Not at all," I replied. "I could run like this for a long distance."
[Illustration: "I PUT ON MY COAT"]
She looked up at me with a little smile. I think she must have
forgotten the pain in her foot.
"It must be nice to be strong like that," she said.
Now the rain came down faster, and my companion declared that I ought
to stop and put on my coat. I agreed to this, and when I came to a
suitable tree by the road-side, I carefully leaned her against it and
detached my coat from my bicycle. But just as I was about to put it on
I glanced at the young girl. She had on a thin shirt-waist, and I
could see that the shoulders of it were already wet. I advanced
towards her, holding out my coat. "I must lay this over you," I said.
"I am afraid now that I shall not get you to your home before it
begins to rain hard."
She turned to me so suddenly that I made ready to catch her if her
unguarded movement should overturn her machine. "You mustn't do that
at all!" she said. "It doesn't matter whether I am wet or not. I do
not have to travel in wet clothes, and you do. Please put on your coat
and let us hurry!"
I obeyed her, and away we went again, the rain now coming down hard
and fast. For some minutes she did not say anything; but I did not
wonder at this, for circumstances were not favorable to conversation.
But presently, in spite of the rain and our haste, she spoke:
"It must seem dreadfully ungrateful and hard-hearted in me to say to
you, after all you have done for me, that you must go on in the rain.
Anybody would think that I ought to ask you to come into our house and
wait until the storm is over. But, really, I do not see how I can do
it."
I urged her not for a moment to think of me. I was hardy, and did not
mind rain, and when I was mounted upon my wheel the exercise would
keep me warm enough until I reached a place of shelter.
"I do not like it," she said. "It is cruel and inhuman, and nothing
you can say will make it any better. But the fact is that I find
myself in a very--Well, I do not know what to say about it. You are
the school-teacher at Walford, are you not?"
This question surprised me, and I assented quickly, wondering what
would come next.
"I thought so," she said. "I have seen you on the road on your wheel,
and some one told me who you were. And now, since you have been so
kind to me, I am going to tell you exactly why I cannot ask you to
stop at our house. Everything is all wrong there to-day, and if I
don't explain what has happened, you might think that things are
worse than they really are, and I wouldn't want anybody to think
that."
[Illustration: "THE RAIN WAS COMING DOWN HARD"]
I listened with great attention, for I saw that she was anxious to
free herself of the imputation of being inhospitable, and although the
heavy rain and my rapid pace made it sometimes difficult to catch her
words, I lost very little of her story.
"You see," said she, "my father is very fond of gardening, and he
takes great pride in his vegetables, especially the early ones. He has
peas this year ahead of everybody else in the neighborhood, and it was
only day before yesterday that he took me out to look at them. He has
been watching them ever since they first came up out of the ground,
and when he showed me the nice big pods and told me they would be
ready to pick in a day or two, he looked so proud and happy that you
might have thought his peas were little living people. I truly believe
that even at prayer-time he could not help thinking how good those
peas would taste.
"But this morning when he came in from the garden and told mother that
he was going to pick our first peas, so as to have them perfectly
fresh for dinner, she said that he would better not pick them to-day,
because the vegetable man had been along just after breakfast, and he
had had such nice green peas that she had bought some, and therefore
he had better keep his peas for some other day.
"Now, I don't want you to think that mother isn't just as good as
gold, for she is. But she doesn't take such interest in garden things
as father does, and to her all peas are peas, provided they are good
ones. But when father heard what she had done I know that he felt
exactly as if he had been stabbed in one of his tenderest places. He
did not say one word, and he walked right out of the house, and since
that they haven't spoken to each other. It was dreadful to sit at
dinner, neither of them saying a word to the other, and only speaking
to me. It was all so different from the way things generally are that
I can scarcely bear it.
"And I went out this afternoon for no other reason than to give them a
chance to make it up between them. I thought perhaps they would do it
better if they were alone with each other. But of course I do not know
what has happened, and things may be worse than they were. I could not
take a stranger into the house at such a time--they would not like to
be found not speaking to each other--and, besides, I do not know--"
Here I interrupted her, and begged her not to give another thought to
the subject. I wanted very much to go on, and in every way it was the
best thing I could do.
As I finished speaking she pointed out a pretty house standing back
from the road, and told me that was where she lived. In a very few
minutes after that I had run her up to the steps of her piazza and was
assisting her to dismount from her wheel.
"It is awful!" she said. "This rain is coming down like a cataract!"
"You must hurry in-doors," I answered. "Let me help you up the steps."
And with this I took hold of her under the arms, and in a second I had
set her down in front of the closed front door. I then ran down and
brought up her wheel. "Do you think you can manage to walk in?" said
I.
"Oh yes!" she said. "If I can't do anything else, I can hop. My mother
will soon have me all right. She knows all about such things."
She looked at me with an anxious expression, and then said, "How do
you think it would do for you to wait on the piazza until the rain is
over?"
"Good-bye," I said, with a laugh, and bounding down to the front
gate, where I had left my bicycle, I mounted and rode away.
The rain came down harder and harder. The road was full of little
running streams, and liquid mud flew from under my whirling wheels. It
was not late in the afternoon, but it was actually getting dark, and I
seemed to be the only living creature out in this tremendous storm. I
looked from side to side for some place into which I could run for
shelter, but here the road ran between broad open fields. My coat had
ceased to protect me, and I could feel the water upon my skin.
But in spite of my discomforts and violent exertions I found myself
under the influence of some very pleasurable emotions, occasioned by
the incident of the slender girl. Her childlike frankness was charming
to me. There was not another girl in a thousand who would have told me
that story of the peas. I felt glad that she had known who I was when
she was talking to me, and that her simple confidences had been given
to me personally, and not to an entire stranger who had happened
along. I wondered if she resembled her father or her mother, and I had
no doubt that to possess such a daughter they must both be excellent
people.