The following story appears in my upcoming book, 
True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen
It was written in 1881, yet I can't help thinking about it every time I see someone using a hands-free device.  Enjoy!

I must tell ye how Deacon Jones got fooled, when I was to his house last summer. You know the deacon’s awful savin’, and he hadn’t took no newspaper for years; said how he could hear enough o’ the wicked doin’s of the world without payin’ money to read about ‘em.
Wall, he went over to Bangton one mornin’ to carry some butter and eggs, and buy groceries, and one thing n’other they was needin’, and Mis’ Jones and me we had a good long day all to ourselves.

Between sundown and dark, we was settin’ together knittin’ and talkin’, when the deacon come in. He laid his bundles down on the table without sayin’ a word. He alwers invariable used to say, “There, wife, there’s your groceries; use ‘em sparin’, use ‘em sparin’.” So this time we didn’t know what to make on him. He looked uncommon sober, too.

“Father,”says Mis’Jones,“what’s the matter? Didn’t the things sell well?”

“Yes, the things sold well enough,” says he, “but I found out somethin’ down to Bangton that’s just about upset me.”

“The bank haint failed -”

“No, no! For the land sake, aint there no troubles in this world but money trouble!” says the deacon real snappish.

“Why, yes, of course,” says Mis’ Jones, “but dew tell us what is the matter!”

Then he set down and told us. “You know Widder Grimes’ oldest boy, James, has been to work in Barker’s grocery store for more’n a year. You remember what a nice boy he’s alwers been,— good habits and all that,—and sence his father died he’s the main stay o’ the family, as you might say. It was only the other day his mother was tellin’ me about him; how well he was gettin’ along, and how Barker meant to take him in pardner this fall. She seemed so proud and happy over it. She’s jest bound up in that boy! But I’ll tell ye how it was. After I’d done my arrants and packed all the bundles away under the buggy seat, I went back into Barker’s store and set down on a box to eat a bite o’lunch and rest me a minnnit, when James Grimes come in. I noticed he looked kinder queer. He steered straight for the back end o’ the store, and leanin’ up agin the wall, begun to go through with the silliest lot o’ performances I ever see. If he hadn’t been more’n six year old, I should a thought he was makin’ believe at some kind o’ child’s play! He pertended to be talkin’ to somebody, hollered “hullo!” and “all right!” and a whole mess o’ stuff, then laughed as hearty as could be, at his own nonsense. I couldn’t believe it of James and I turns to Jeff Adams, standin’ by me, “Drunk, ain’t he?” says I. Jeff didn’t make no answer, only winked one eye and grinned. It was a good joke to him I s’pose, but it wa’n’t to me; I tell you I felt like death, and I went and got out my team and come away as quick’s I could. And the wust on’t is, it’ll just about kill the Widder Grimes!”

Mis’ Jones wiped her eyes, “Poor woman, God help her!” says she.

All of a suddin an idee popped into my head. I says to the deacon:

“Did James say ‘Hullo!” when he fust begun to talk?”*


“Yes. He kep’ sayin’ on’t over’n and over.”


“And didn’t he hold somethin’ up to his ear?”


“I didn’t mind. There was a lot o’ things all cluttered up hangin’
on the wall behind him; corn poppers, and tin-ware, and so on— but why, what are you drivin’ at, Ruth Ann?”

“Wall,” says I, “I think James was jest talkin’ through a telefone—one o’ them talkin’ machines, you know.”


“Telefone!” says the deacon, all struck of a heap. “I’ve heerd on ‘em. Do you s’pose they’ve got one in Barker’s store? I dunno.” 


“How should ye know anything, for that matter, when we don’t
take no newspaper!” said his wife, kinder spiteful.




“I swanny!” says the deacon, “if I don’t believe you’re right,
Ruth Ann! James wouldn’t git drunk—I might a knowed it!”


He went off post hast over to neighbor Fuller’s to make inquiries, and he found out that Barker had got a telefone, and that James Grimes was stiddy as an eight-day clock, jest as he alwers had been.
The best on’t was, the deacon concluded to take a newspaper. 

* The expression “Hollo!” or “Holla!” was originally used to indicate surprise or call attention to something. When the telephone started to become popular, people considered its jangling noise so unnerving that “Hello” became the standard telephonic greeting. 

            Every year since the 1970s, volunteers on Bainbridge Island (Gabriel's hometown) have been organizing a fun bike ride at the end of February called the Chilly Hilly.  It's a big day for Gabriel's bike shop and naturally he's always working, so despite having seen and talked with participants for well over a decade, he's never actually ridden in the official ride.  On the day of the event each year he typically awakes in the wee small hours of the morning to ride the course before work.  He does his version of the ride so early, in fact, that he has been paced by bats instead of the thousands of humans who throng Bainbridge's roads after the race officially starts later in the day.  It's a thirty-three mile ride, and depending on weather usually has anywhere from two thousand to around five thousand participants.  Bainbridge is a short ferry ride from Seattle and cyclists around Puget Sound consider Chilly Hilly to be the kick-off ride for the cycling season.  This year I decided to join the fun.

            Gabriel's mom has the plum location of living across the street from the ride's starting line, so it was only natural for us to sleep at her house the night before.  Gabriel was up at four a.m.; since we were in the same bed his alarm unavoidably woke me up as well.  I had already decided to split the temporal difference between my husband's ride with the bats and the unofficial (broad daylight) start of 8 a.m. preferred by most riders.  I leisurely performed my morning ablutions, then puttered around my mother-in-law's house a while playing with her cat, then left at the very civilized hour of 6 a.m.

            The weather was unusually fine for February and a few miles into my ride I was treated to my reward for departing early: an utterly amazing sunrise.  The Chilly Hilly route more or less loops the perimeter of Bainbridge Island and I was riding along the eastern coast when light flamed through the sky.  It was high tide, and the waters of Puget Sound lapped the very top of the gravelly sands on the beach where currents had laid driftwood in piles.  Mist rose up over salt waves a few tints darker than the blue-gray sky overhead.  In the distance Mt. Rainier stood out in shades of glaciers and snow, while a strip of brilliant showy pink striped the sky over the north Cascades.  In the space between this society of mountains and their great monarch Rainier, the towers of Seattle's skyline took central focus in the viewer's vision.  The Space Needle was indistinct but the Columbia Tower and other skyscrapers stood out to mark the triumphs of man's high achievements.  I thought of how proud the works of man looked on a stage of Nature's glory, and the feelings it evoked reminded me of pictures from the 1890s whose overall theme had not been so very different from what I was seeing in 2015.

            Bringing my gaze closer than the Emerald City, I saw a gentle ripple in the water which at first I took to be kelp.  When it arched its back and dove I recognized a river otter, gone to salt water for the day.  Turning my eyes back to shore and the delicate cherry blossoms which lined the road, I continued on my way.

            At 7:05, after a very leisurely hour on the road, I was passed by the first other rider I had seen on the course—a man a bit older than myself wearing a bright blue jacket.  We wished each other good morning as he zoomed past on his carbon-fiber road bike.  A few minutes later he was followed by the first pack of cyclists: Evidentally they'd come off the ferry together.  A man in a bright yellow jacket with a reflective triangle on his back gave me a thumbs-up.  "Right on!" he called.

            A pedestrian moving in the opposite direction looked a bit bewildered by the sudden flood of cyclists, but she picked me out from the throng, possibly because I was the only one in plaid silk instead of Lycra, possibly because I was the only one on a heavy steel bike instead of a carbon fiber machine.  Our eyes met and she smiled broadly at me.  "I love it!" She called.  "The old-fashioned way!"  I smiled at her and continued on.

            As the pack passed me and mounted a hill ahead, I could see sweat rising as steam from their hunched backs.  I followed them at a more sedate pace, stopping occasionally to take notes on things like squirrels and daffodils.

            Gabriel and I lived on Bainbridge when we were first married, but I had forgotten about the island's daffodils in the intervening years.  As I cycled past bunches of the cheerful yellow blooms lifting their faces to the road, the story came back to me.  Volunteers plant them all over the island and local legend holds that they are an homage to Chielf Seattle's granddaughter Mary Sam.  The story goes that in the early days of settlement Mary, who was well-versed in native remedies and loved beautiful things, would trade medicinal plants to the white women in exchange for flower bulbs—and she was particularly fond of daffodils.  Such tales are difficult or impossible to substantiate, but this is a case where the tale took on a life of its own.  True or not, it inspired the volunteers who continue to plant these hardy, naturalizing flowers all over the island.  It would be hard to prove that Chief Seattle's granddaughter really traded native plants for daffodils, but those cheerful blooms have nonetheless become the legacy of her story.  When I saw them I thought about a more sinister and complicated case of native plants being traded for daffodil blooms—but that story is tangled in a moral dilemma the way a stone becomes entwined in a flower bulb's roots.  I pushed it aside for another day, another ride.  I knew Gabriel and I would unavoidably confront it when we cycled through the Skagit Valley in one month's time.  However, this sunny, spring-like day was not one for dark thoughts.  

            Just weighty ones.  As I pedalled over Chilly Hilly's 2600 feet of elevation changes, I thought of how glad I was to be riding my 49.8 pound Gazelle on the downhills and how much I missed my more than 60 pound tricycle on the uphills.  This might seem contradictory, but the difference lies in how the machines are powered.  The Gazelle's free wheel makes it a dream for smooth downhill coasting.  The fixed gear on the trike carries through each pedal stroke into the next and makes the machine work just as hard as its rider—a wonderful boon in hill climbing.  After the ride was over I would comment to Gabriel that it was a pity it seemed virtually impossible to design a bike which could shift between fixed gear and free wheel.  He replied that it's been done, albeit inadvertantly.  A free wheel acting as a fixed gear or vice-versa can happen on some hubs when they malfunction.  It is within the realm of theoretical possibility to design the capability into a bike as a controllable feature like a shifter or a brake, but the cycling world hasn't reached that stage of evolution yet.  Perhaps someday it will.

            My fifty pound Gazelle is a heavy bike, even by nineteenth-century standards.  Gabriel's high wheel bikes only weigh about 32 pounds.  Early pneumatic safeties weighed more than Ordinaries and it took them a few years to lighten up.  In 1890 the average pneumatic safety weighed 42 pounds; by 1895 this average dropped to 22 pounds.[1]  By 1897 it was already possible to manufacture a Safety bicycle weighing less than nine pounds that could support a rider who weighed over two hundred.[2]

            I was passed by other small packs of cyclists on high-tech bikes but I had given myself such a massive headstart that I was nearly done with the 33-mile route by the time the main peleton started catching up.  When the throng of cyclists grew really thick an interesting thought occurred to me and I started paying closer attention to the habillements of my fellow riders.  I smiled wryly to myself when I confirmed my suspicions: Not only was I the only one on the course in a corset (which I had definitely expected), I was also the only one in a skirt (which slightly surprised me.)  Most entertaining of all though, I was the only rider not in Lycra!  It wasn't until I had finished the ride and had been loitering in the concessions pen several hours waiting for Gabriel to get off work that I finally saw one single rider in stretch denim and heard rumors of a handful of other cyclists (out of the day's 4,500 participants) who had ridden in something other than Spandex or Lycra.  It's funny how quick modern Americans are to label the clothing customs of other cultures as society-enforced restrictions, yet they refuse to recognize that they enforce regulations just as strict upon themselves.

I had been just as comfortable in my silk during this ride as I had been on far shorter rides wearing full Lycra years before when I'd lived on Bainbridge.  I was actually quite a bit more comfortable due to all the extra cycling I had been doing lately.  I was a bit surprised to realize the island's hills were easier to climb and the roads seemed shorter than they had when I was ten years younger.  Comfort on a bike owes far more to fitness and confidence than to magic talismans in the form of trendy clothing.


Notes:

[1] Reid, Carlton. Roads Were Not Built For Cars. Belfast: Appletree Press Ltd, 2014. p. 194.


[2] Hubert, Philip. G. Jr. "The Wheel of Today." Athletic Sports. Dudley Allen Sargent, et al. The Out of Door Library. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p. 188.

We're getting really excited about the upcoming paperback release of my book 
Victorian Secrets: What A Corset Taught Me About the Past, the Present, and Myself.  
To help build the anticipation for everyone else as high as it is for us, here are a few short excerpts from the book.  This excerpt describes my first experience cycling in my corset.  
Enjoy!

Excerpted from Victorian Secrets...  (Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), p. 45:


I have never had a driver’s license, and it was my custom to ride my bicycle to school. I was a little nervous about cycling corseted, but after going a few blocks, I realized I needn’t have worried. My posture was a bit more upright than the classic cycling position, but nothing quintessential had changed. The corset didn’t interfere with my legs’ range of motion, and of course, my arms were completely free. The added stiffness on my torso required a bit of acclimation as my body practiced the little hindbrain tricks of balancing that a cyclist does so quickly that conscious thought doesn’t get a chance to enter into them, but overall the changeover from uncorseted to corseted riding was really no harder than a shift from off-road tires to slicks: something to get used to, nothing to worry about...

 

Purrings

Excerpted from Good Housekeeping, May 26th, 1888

 
Oh, Bessie dear, to me be kind!

     Don't drive me from the cushioned chair,

When by the fire poor puss you find

     Prepared to spend the cold night there!

 
And Bessie, when I sing my song,

     Hoping to make you understand,

Why do you cry "Scat puss!  Go 'long!"

     And to the cellar drive your friend?

 
Perhaps you do not understand:

     But could I make my meaning clear,

And you'd my language at command,

     These are the words would meet your ear:

     "Imp-u-r-r-tinent p-u-r-rson, why p-u-r-r-sis in p-u-r-r-suing this p-u-r-r-nicious p-u-r-r-pose?  P-u-r-r-haps I can p-u-r-r-suade you to p-u-r-r-mit this p-u-r-r-secuted p-u-ss to p-u-r-r-severe in her p-u-r-r-pose of p-u-r-r-suing her nap in peace.  P-u-r-r-ched here she can p-u-r-r-petrate no p-u-r-r-nicious p-u-r-r-loinings of any p-u-r-r-son's app-u-r-r-tenances.

     This is the p-u-r-r-port of my p-u-r-r-petual p-u-r-r-ings.  I hope you will p-u-r-r-ceive them to be p-u-r-r-tinent and p-u-r-r-sausive, and will p-u-r-r-form what I p-u-r-r-ceive to be p-u-r-r-fectly p-u-r-rmissible.

                          From your p-u-r-r-secuted p-u-r-r-titioner,

                                                                               PUSSY.

                                                                                      -M.E.W.    

Remember, my book Victorian Secrets: What A Corset Taught Me About the Past, the Present and Myself is currently available in hardcover, and will soon be out in paperback!
Check it out on
Amazon or Barnes & Noble!

Excerpted from Victorian Secrets, (Skyhorse Publishing, 2013) pp. 149-150:

"The distinction between costume and clothing was—and is—very important to me. The word costume does derive from the French term, which simply denotes a suit of clothing; the educated classes of Victorians often had fairly extensive training in the French language, and when they used the term in this way, they did so with full understanding of its cultural and linguistic context. However, the idea of costume as normal clothing is no longer in keeping with the way the word has come to be used in twenty-first-century American culture. To anyone who would dispute this fact, I invite consideration of the following scenario: You wake up on a typical morning, yawn, and reluctantly roll out of bed. You start to pull on your everyday shirt and whatever else you happen to wear on a normal day. Someone else in the household, still half-asleep, asks what you are doing. Do you reply, “I’m putting on my clothes,” or “I’m putting on my costume”? I think not many people would give the latter response.

The word costume has acquired strong associations with things that are false, such as children’s Halloween fantasies and theatrical roles.  A costume is window-dressing for playacting; something worn in a specified context by someone pretending to be something they are not. For an individual with this heavy cultural load in his or her subconscious to refer to historical clothing as costumes is to partially deny the veracity of those who wore them, perhaps without even realizing it. The antiques packed away in my cedar chests, which I had studied, worn, and learned from, were not costumes. They were real clothing, worn by real people on a daily basis.

On the very first day of my first French class in college, my teacher made an insightful statement that stayed with me throughout my studies and beyond. “French people,” she said, “don’t say something in French because they mean it in English and don’t know any better. French people say things in French because they mean them in French!”

For this reason, even the term cultural costume strikes me as rather patronizing, for all that it might be technically correct in anthropological settings. Americans do not refer to a bride’s white gown as a costume, so why should we use that term to describe the traditional dress of other cultures?

The clothing of the past was not worn because those creating it didn’t know any better; it was worn for a myriad of very specific reasons, practical as well as cultural. I had already learned that corsets support the back and aid in good posture. Likewise, Gabriel had discovered that the small, and very deliberately placed, pocket at the front of a man’s waistcoat keeps his watch (an extremely delicate and valuable piece of technology) in the place where it is least likely to be broken, easiest to access, and at the same time most difficult to steal owing to the visibility of its location. Even the tiniest detail had something to teach us about the daily life of history—things we could never learn from books because they were too commonplace or too intimate to be written down, and things that could certainly never be taught by costumes because playclothes often leave out the details altogether...

A sneak peek into my new book, 
True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen.
This guide to Victorian etiquette and cultural philosophy is a compilation of advice from antique primary sources in my collection and is now available for pre-order from 
Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Enjoy!

Elements of the Beautiful

The love of beautiful adornment is innate in the human mind, and in reality has a great influence in elevating and refining the [human] race. It is true that the mind may sometimes be too much given to personal decoration, but the instincts which cause us to clothe ourselves beautifully are all refining and elevating in character.

The desire to please and to be beautiful surrounds us on every hand with grace, elegance and refinement.

The person who cares nothing for personal appearance is a sloven. Were all to be thus, the human race would rapidly degenerate toward barbarism. The person who is careless of dress is likely to be equally regardless concerning purity of character.

The little girl that studies her features in the mirror, while she evinces possibly a disposition to be vain, nevertheless in this act shows herself to be possessed of those instincts of grace which, rightly directed, will beautify and embellish all her surroundings through life.

The boy that cares nothing for personal appearance, that does not appreciate beauty in others, is likely to develop into the man who will be slovenly in habits, whose home will quite probably be a hovel, and himself very likely a loafer or a tramp. But the boy—the rolicsome, frolicsome boy, ready to roll in the dirt, possibly—who, under all this, aspires to appear handsome, who desires a clean face, clean hands and a clean shirt, who admires a well-dressed head of hair and a good suit of clothes—that boy possesses the elements which in the man, in an elegant home, will surround him with the artistic and the charming.

The love of the beautiful ever leads to the higher, the grander and the better. Guided by its impulses, we pass out of the hut into the larger and better house; into the charming and elegantly adorned mansion. Actuated by its influence, we convert the lumbering railway carriage into a palace-car, the swamp into a garden, and the desolate place into a park, in which we wander amid the trees, the streams of limpid water, and the fragrance of beautiful flowers.

All along the world’s highway are the evidences, among the most elevated and refined, of the love of the beautiful, which, perhaps more than in any other manner, finds expression in dress.

This love of personal adornment being an inherent, desirable, refining element of character, it does not, therefore, become us to ignore or to suppress it. On the contrary, it should be our duty to cultivate neatness of appearance and artistic arrangement in dress, the whole being accompanied by as much personal beauty as possible...

 

An Early Morning Ride

Away, away, my wheel and I,

The roadside fences past us fly,

With downward push and circling round

We scarcely seem to touch the ground.

The freshening breeze dissolves the mist,

Which rolling fof the mountain kiss't,

That dewy kiss the mountain thrills,

And answers with a thousand rills,

Whose limpid waters leap and flow

Down to thirsty plains below.

Our quickening breath and bounding heart

Make us of nature feel a part;

The eye takes in the landscape wide

When out upon a morning ride.

How glad and gay the whole earth seems,

Emerging from the night's dark beams!

The birds, upborne on buoyant wing,

From tree and bush their anthems sing;

The lowing kine, in meadows green,

Beside our pathway often seen,

Look o'er with large and wondering eye

As we, all noiseless, pass them by.

The rising sun begins to throw

His beams o'er all the scene below,

And brightens as his glances pass

The dew-drop on each blade of grass.

The leaves upon the tree-tops high

Dance gayly 'gainst the bright blue sky,

Where fleecy clouds are backward drawn

Before the roseate ones of morn.

The waning moon with faded ray

Retires before the orb of day.

With tightened hands and urging strength

We've gained theh summit steep at length,

And from its top drink in the scene,

As fair as e'en the poets dream.

Here sparkling in the morning sun

How swift the river seems to run!

How smoothly o'er the dewy grass

The moving clouds their shadows pass!

How blue the sky!  How green the trees!

How every object tries to please!

No hint is here of cent per cent,

No lawyers eager on the scent,

No criminal with fearful eye

Escaping from the hue-and-cry

With which man hunts his fellow-man,

Forgetful of the loving plan

The Master came on earth to teach;

"Have loving thoughts each one to each";

But soon with faces homeward turned,

With whirling wheels the ground is spurned,

And down the hill with flying pace

Lead Father Time a breathless race.

Turn, turn, my wheel, as free birds wing,

Thou bearest me like a living thing.

My pulses throb, my heart beats wild,

O'er this the nineteenth century's child.

—James D. Dowling, 1883.[1]



[1] Dowling, James D. "An Early Morning Ride." The Wheelman. September, 1883, pp. 426-427.

Links to some photos of beautiful Victorian ladies; I especially like the marvelous corset on the equestrian rider!  Enjoy!

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/wonderful_photographs_of_victorian_women_of_color

Doing research for a book on cycling, I came across the quote below in an 1885 pamphlet—and did a double-take.  I re-read it, then checked the book's date again: 1885.  The original of this work on repairing Ordinary bicycles had been stamped with an official Library of Congress copyright to dispel any lingering doubt: December 7, 1885.  After verifying this, I turned back to the quote, read it again, and had a good laugh.

"The author closes this book with very best wishes to the whole bicycle and tricycle fraternity and that they may "live long and prosper."—Park, Col. Horace. Amateur Bicycle Repairing. Columbus, Ohio: Mann & Adair Publishers, 1885. p. 19.

It reminded me of a photoshopped picture which circulated a few weeks ago after the passing of Leonard Nimoy.   Considering Mr. Nimoy's renowned good sense of humor, I like to think he would have appreciated the juxtaposition.