They that know nothing fear nothing. Away back in 1886 my alert young friend, Miss Anna Gordon, and my ingenious young niece, Miss Katharine Willard, took to the tricycle as naturally as ducks take to water. The very first time they mounted they went spinning down the long shady street, with its pleasant elms, in front of Rest Cottage, where for nearly a generation mother and I had had our home. Even as the war-horse snuffeth the battle from afar, I longed to go and do likewise. Remembering my country bringing-up and various exploits in running, climbing, horseback-riding, to say nothing of my tame heifer that I trained for a Bucephalus, I said to myself, “If those girls can ride without learning so can I!” Taking out my watch I timed them as they, at my suggestion, set out to make a record in going round the square. Two and a half minutes was the result. I then started with all my forces well 64in hand, and flew around in two and a quarter minutes. Not contented² with this, but puffed³ up with foolish vanity, I declared that I would go around in two minutes; and, encouraged by their cheers, away I went without a fear till the third turning-post was reached, when the left hand played me false, and turning at an acute angle, away I went sidelong, machine and all, into the gutter⁴, falling on my right elbow, which felt like a glassful of chopped ice, and I knew that for the first time in a life full of vicissitudes⁵ I had been really hurt. Anna Gordon’s white face as she ran toward me caused me to wave my uninjured hand and call out, “Never mind!” and with her help I rose and walked into the house, wishing above all things to go straight to my own room and lie on my own bed, and thinking as I did so how pathetic is that instinct that makes “the stricken deer go weep,” the harmed hare seek the covert⁶.