“Hi, you there, Mary! I’ll pull your ear! Birdie, if I take my belt to you!”
But his Lily above all; his Lily! his seven stone of flesh and bones! Pa was an artiste; he had thought of a thousand things since his trip to Brighton. New and astounding tricks; and easy at that ... if Lily only would! Oh, he’d soon make her graceful! But, for that, she would have to obey, to let go the handle-bar at a sign, instead of endlessly seeking her balance. For instance, Pa held her rein to prevent falls—there was nothing spiteful about Pa, he never let you fall on purpose—and Lily—“One! Two!—Count together, Lily!”—put one foot on the saddle, the other on the handle-bar: “Three!” That’s where she had to let go her hands, smartly, and stand erect as she rode. The machine slipped under her. Lily, shaking with fear, stooped to seize the handle-bar.
“Stand up, Lily! Show pluck, Lily!” said Pa.
Lily, accustomed to obeying blindly, drew herself up again. But, sometimes, crash! The whole came tumbling down. Notwithstanding the rein, Lily fell to the ground; and the bike, in addition, caught her a kick in passing.
“Nothing broken? A tiny scratch; it’s nothing. Tom, the white stuff!”
Tom left his Woolley-legs, brought a bottle of embrocation; a few drops of that on the skin, a bit of sticking-plaster; there, that was all right.
“You see, Lily, you’re not dead yet! Nothing to be frightened about. Come, try again!”
The great thing was to hustle. Pa displayed so much enthusiasm—“Those Pawnees, damn it!”—that Lily, for all her fears, was smitten in her turn, ended by becoming exasperated against those Pawnees, felt a longing to wring their necks!
She obeyed her Pa like an automaton, in her anxiety to do well.
“More graceful! That’s it! Not so stiff!” said Pa.