“But, Pa, I can’t!” protested Lily.
“You can, if you like,” said Pa, exasperated this time and unbuckling his belt.
Crash! A heap behind him, a medley of limbs and steel fittings! Maud, who was still trying, on her bike, startled by Pa’s threatening movement, had fallen flat down.
“Maud again! That damned Jonah!” cried Pa, going up to her. “Well, Miss Woolly-legs, do you mean to stay there all night?”
But she did not move; and, when they had disentangled her from the bike, Pa saw an eye that was quite red and a little stream of blood trickling down her cheek.
“Let’s look!” said Pa anxiously.
A spoke sprung from the felly had scratched her eye.
It was a serious accident. Sprained wrists, barked shins didn’t count; but a spoke in the eye.... Luckily, Maud had no relations; there was no claim to be feared: not a vestige of old sheep on the mother’s side. Pa said all this to himself as he ran to the chemist, and Lily consoled poor Maud as best she could, said that, after all, it was part of the game: she’d know better another time, eh? She’d be a great star yet, eh, Maud?
The poor maimed thing lifted her face to Lily, stammered through her tears that it was nothing ... all right again now ... Pa’s fault, with his belt.
“For a little thing like that!” said Lily, laughing. “Fancy falling from your bike for that! Why, I’d rather have twenty ‘contracts on the back’ than lose an eye.”