Spin

by Peter Zheutlin

  And that explains my second piece of business in New York. I went to persuade Morrill Goddard, the Sunday editor at the World, to publish a first-person account of my travels, the one I had promised when we’d met in New York more than a year earlier. It was essential to my plan to win the prize money that he do so, and while I had promised him an exclusive, he was under no obligation to publish it. Perhaps he, too, had lost interest in my journey, or had come to regard me as a charlatan.

  The World, as I said, was a combination of serious news and sensational features that one needed to take with a large grain of salt. They were always on the lookout for dramatic, eye-catching stories that would sell newspapers. Like my lectures, many of those stories were plainly intended to entertain and titillate, not to educate. Even so, publication of my story in the nation’s most prominent newspaper, a Pulitzer paper, would bolster the case I expected to have to make to Colonel Pope. It would help establish my bona fides and my fame, and would be a powerful lever if the colonel balked at making good on the prize money. Little did I know when I called on Mr. Goddard in late September that another door, into a future I had neither planned nor predicted, would open wide.

  Sixteen

  “Miss Londonderry, or should I say Mrs. Kopchovksy now that you have returned?” Mr. Goddard asked with a smile. “It is good to see you again.”

  He had always known my real name, and it had appeared in one of the early news items about my trip in the World a year earlier.

  “However you wish, Mr. Goddard,” I replied. “I suppose now that the venture is over I am once again Mrs. Kopchovsky.”

  “Well, you’ve much to be proud of, Mrs. Kopchovksy. I’ve followed your progress whenever I could. I suppose you will be glad to get home to Boston.”

  Truthfully, I was utterly indifferent, even reluctant. I still had no idea how to reenter my old life.

  “I suppose so,” I answered, “though I am now used to living a life of adventure, and that will be hard to give up.”

  Mr. Goddard nodded. I could tell from his expression that it was time to get to the point.

  “Mr. Goddard, I am here to fulfill my commitment to you to write an exclusive account of my travels. I trust you are still interested.” It was more of a question than a statement made with any confidence.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Kopchovsky, how do you see putting more than a year’s worth of adventure into one page of a broadsheet?”

  For ten minutes I gave Mr. Goddard a condensed version of one of my lectures, choosing the most sensational and outlandish anecdotes from among the many—some real, some imagined, some embellished—that I had tried out on the road. In the end it was an easy sell. A woman, alone, around the world on a bicycle, fighting the elements, riding through war zones, often at risk of life and limb, was a natural for the World.

  “How soon can you have it to me, Mrs. Kopchovksy?” he asked. “We plan the Sunday section a few weeks in advance, and I don’t want too much time to pass before we publish. The story needs to be fresh.”

  “I will be back here at 10 A.M. tomorrow. It will be done by then,” I replied.

  “Very well, Mrs. Kopchovsky. I make no promise, but let’s see what you come up with. I will see you in the morning.”

  * * *

  Writing the article that night was a breeze. After all, I had been writing it in my head for fifteen months. Getting it down on paper was the easy part.

  The next morning I was back at the World in Mr. Goddard’s office with a handwritten manuscript of a few thousand words. Little did I know that in addition to delivering the story, I was also auditioning for a job.

  Mr. Goddard took his pince-nez, rested them on the bridge of his nose, and began reading silently. I watched his every expression to see if I could discern his reaction. For the most part he was stoic, grinning faintly a few times and grimacing once. I assumed that was when he got to the part about the Japanese soldier who killed a Chinese prisoner before my eyes and “drank his blood while the dead man’s muscles were still quivering.”

  When he was done, he tossed the manuscript onto his desk and removed his pince-nez. For a moment he gazed at me intently, but I could not read him. My heart seemed to skip a beat waiting for his judgment, for with it, I was sure, would rise or fall any chance I had of securing the prize money from Colonel Pope. He seemed to stare at me for a good five minutes, though I am sure it was really just a matter of seconds.

  “Brilliant, Mrs. Kopchovksy!” he said at last. “It will be a sensation. You have a real knack for this. We will run it in a few weeks’ time.”

  I was delighted, of course, and smiled broadly and thanked him profusely. But it was what he said next that took me completely by surprise. He told me Nellie Bly had just left the World a few weeks earlier—whether she quit or was fired depended on who was doing the telling, I soon learned. The paper, he said, needed a new enterprising woman reporter, and they needed one quick. Bly had an enormous following, especially among women readers, and she sold a lot of papers.

  “You have the gumption and the pluck, Mrs. Kopchovsky,” said Mr. Goddard. “And this,” he continued, picking up my manuscript, “proves you can write. I propose you move to New York and write regular features for the World, some of your own devise and others to be assigned. Would that be of interest? Miss Bly left a big hole here, and I think you can fill it if you’d like to take the chance.”

  Take the chance? Of course I would! I was flattered, overwhelmed, excited, and stunned at the door that was being opened for me. As a teenage girl reading of Bly’s adventures, I wanted, as I said at the beginning of this missive, to be like her. Now I was being offered the opportunity to practically become her! How could I refuse? As with the bicycle trip, I did not consult with Grandpa. I said yes on the spot. As the expression goes, I wore the pants in the family, literally, based on my riding attire, and figuratively. But now it was time to go home, reunite with Grandpa and the children, explain that we were abruptly moving to New York, and settle my business with Colonel Pope.

  * * *

  As I said, there was more afoot in publishing my story in the World than my desire to tell my story and to try to capitalize on the fame I had achieved over the previous fifteen months. The last word I had from Alonzo Peck, the telegram received in Los Angeles, was not encouraging, and I wondered whether Colonel Pope had, given the growing skepticism about my methods, abandoned hope of winning his wager, thus putting in doubt the considerable prize money that would be paid only if I had met the conditions set forth. I had come full circle around the world from Chicago, I had collected the signatures of American diplomats that proved my presence in various cities, and I had, with two weeks to spare, returned within fifteen months. But had I circled the world by bicycle?

  I needed leverage, and a full-page story in the country’s leading newspaper, one in which I appeared as a true heroine, one in which I was trumpeted as the embodiment of the “New Woman,” would provide it. Who would want to publicly renege on a pledge to reward such a deserving woman of her hard-earned prize money? The sum was a modest one for Colonel Pope; a fortune to me. Why would he risk infuriating those who made up the potential market he so coveted? And one thing could not be disputed: I had, as the colonel had hoped, inspired among women great interest in the bicycle. One might quibble about the details, but his purpose had been well served.

  * * *

  Homecoming was a painful affair. Simon and Frieda were so young, they had no memory of me whatsoever. When I walked into the apartment for the first time, with Grandpa and the children gathered to welcome me home, their little bodies went limp when I hugged them. I was a stranger. Mollie simply turned around and walked stoically into her bedroom. Grandpa looked at me balefully as if to say, “What did you expect?” We sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Our conversation was awkward. What could I say? I had abandoned this family well over a year before. I didn’t know if I could repair the damage, or if I even had the wherewithal to try. />
  “It is time to be a family again,” said Grandpa simply, in his heavily accented English. I wished he would try harder to sound more like an American than an immigrant. But he never would, right up to the day he died last year.

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure how to do that. Become a family, I mean. And I still had to tell Grandpa we were moving to New York. You might wonder how I could be so sure he would agree to such a move, and all I can tell you is that I knew. It was his lot in life to accommodate himself to me.

  I was home for a little over a week. Enough time to make amends with Bennett and Baila, though they were, bless them, really quite forgiving. I thanked them profusely for all they had done and acknowledged the burden I had put upon them, which went a long way in putting the past fifteen months behind us. I think they were just relieved that I was back, that they could turn all their attention to their own growing family and no longer face questions from friends and neighbors about the rather odd circumstances into which I had delivered them.

  Three days after I arrived home, the children still wary and wondering who the stranger was in their midst, Grandpa took the train to Maine to buy the various goods he sold from his pushcart. My eldest sister Sarah, who lived in Bath, and her husband Isaac had a small department store. It was cheaper for Grandpa to combine his orders with theirs and travel to Maine occasionally to bring them back.

  The day after Grandpa left I asked Baila to watch the children—only for a few hours this time, I promised her—so that I could attend to my business with Colonel Pope. Back to the bicycle store on Washington Street I went, the one I had visited so regularly when I was selling adverts for the papers. Alonzo was expecting me—I’d sent him a note two days before—and he knew the purpose of my visit. I brought with me the documentation of where I’d been, the signatures of the various consuls I’d collected along the way, and various souvenirs I’d purchased and shipped home, physical evidence of my presence in far-flung corners of the world.

  Alonzo was delighted to see me; I had always liked the man.

  “Mrs. Kopchovsky!” he exclaimed. “It has been a long time, and you look no worse for wear.” He shook my hand vigorously. Whatever difficulties I might have persuading the colonel that I had met the terms of the wager and was entitled to the prize money, I knew Alonzo would be on my side and do what he could to press my case.

  “So tell me, Mrs. Kopchovksy, of your travels!” He never seemed so young as he did in that moment, like a schoolchild about to receive a treat. I gave him more or less the same performance I had given Mr. Goddard a week earlier, holding forth for about ten minutes, just long enough so that when I came to the point, I felt I wasn’t being rude.

  “Alonzo,” I said, “surely you know what is on my mind today. I have made the circuit and done so in the time allotted. Dr. Reeder can attest that I have by my own efforts made the five thousand dollars I was required to earn en route. I am counting on Colonel Pope to make good on the promise of the prize money.”

  Was I ever! I had told Mr. Goddard we would be moving to New York so I could take up my position with the World, and I needed the prize money to do it.

  Alonzo looked at me kindly, but it was obvious the colonel had conveyed to Alonzo some doubt as to whether he was obligated.

  “Mrs. Kopchovsky,” Alonzo said, with more than a note of apology in his voice, “if it were up to me, you know I would give you a draft for the ten thousand dollars today. But the colonel is not convinced you have fulfilled the terms of the contract. As you might imagine, he was distressed when he learned that in Chicago you had changed mounts, for he envisioned your entire venture as a long-running advertisement for the Columbia. But I took the liberty of pointing out to him, at some risk of incurring his wrath, that it was not stipulated that you make the entire journey on a Columbia. To this he grumbled that it was indeed so, an oversight on his part, but still he felt the implication was clear. But more to the point, as you surely know, some of the various cycling periodicals and newspapers have made note that your passage from France to China and Japan was made in remarkable time for a woman who was supposed to be astride a wheel.”

  He looked at me sheepishly and then at the floor. He was embarrassed to have to confront me with what was unquestionably true. The terms of the wager required that I travel ten thousand miles by bicycle. I was short by at least two thousand miles. My purchase on the prize money was far from certain, to put it generously.

  “Alonzo, I will not deny what is perfectly obvious, but I would like to make my case directly to the colonel, if that would be possible,” I said. “I would tell him that his purpose in sending a woman on such a journey was more than fulfilled. It cannot be measured, but I have piqued the curiosity of many thousands of women in the wheel, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands, and that was the idea, was it not? My name—well, the name Miss Londonderry—is known around the world, and what is it known for? For wheeling around the world, regardless of the fine details.”

  “The colonel has not made a final decision about this matter yet,” Alonzo answered, “and he made it clear that I would be his intermediary in this discussion, one he fully expected. I’m afraid it will fall to me to press your case with him. Remember, for him to collect his winnings he must provide the proof to his counterparties that you have complied with the terms of the wager, and he is not holding a strong hand. ‘A pair of twos’ is how he described it to me.”

  I did not breathe a word to Alonzo that within a few weeks’ time the World would be publishing, on the front page of the special Sunday section, an account of my journey, one that would, because I knew their methods, herald me as a heroine, the very embodiment of the “New Woman,” a class of women with growing political clout and buying power. “Blackmail” would be too strong a word for it; I prefer to say this was my advantage, my ace in the hole to the pair of twos the colonel was holding. Once the story was published, the colonel would, I was sure, find it more in his self-interest to deliver the prize money than have it become public knowledge that he had withheld it from a woman who was now a national and international sensation. What, after all, would Miss Susan B. Anthony, firmly in my corner, to be sure, have to say about that?! Why didn’t I mention the story I’d written for the World to Alonzo? A man of Colonel Pope’s stature has many friends in high places, and even those he doesn’t know could be easily reached. I didn’t want him to kill the story.

  “Give me a couple of weeks, Mrs. Kopchovsky,” Alonzo said. “You know I will put your best foot forward with the colonel, but I can offer no assurance of the outcome.”

  “I know, Alonzo,” I replied sympathetically. “You have been a good friend to me. Let me know when you have some news to share.”

  And with that I headed home to prepare dinner for the children, wash their clothes, sweep the floor, and scrub the bathroom, chores I had not performed in well over a year and which I had missed not at all.

  * * *

  When I arrived home, there was a telegram waiting for me. It was from Mr. Goddard at the Sunday World.

  “Dear Mrs. Kopchovksy,” it read. “Bicycle feature to appear October 20. In meantime, Boston newspapers reporting of a ‘wild man’ of the woods near Royalston, Mass., terrorizing local community. Acts of violence targeting a farmer named Richardson. Farm animals killed, stove exploded, heavy objects thrown through windows. Wild Man described as tall, bearded to his waist, and scrawny. Sounds like a good feature. Can you take train to Royalston promptly for possible scoop?”

  I hadn’t expected to be pressed into service so soon, but the story sounded like more high adventure, and I certainly wanted to please Mr. Goddard, who was intent on making me the next Nellie Bly.

  With Grandpa in Maine, I pleaded with Bennett and Baila to watch the children, telling them I had urgent business to attend to in the western part of the state and giving vague answers to their questions as to what it could possibly be about. It will just be a few days, I implored them. They wearily agreed, and the
next morning I took the train to Athol, the nearest stop to Royalston, and took a room in the local hotel where I registered as Nellie Bly. A new adventure had begun.

  By the time I joined a search party organized by the local sheriff, a man named Doane, to scour the woods for the Wild Man, suspicions had already focused on Charley Richardson, a young man of about twenty, who lived with his mother on the family farm that was the target of the attacks. But I told a different story, published several weeks later in the Sunday World. In my telling, as we divided into groups of twos and threes so we could cover more ground, I arranged to be paired with Charley Richardson. And through a careful interrogation in which I gained the young man’s confidence, he told me that he was weary of life on the farm and wanted to move to the city but was unable to persuade his mother to sell the place. I questioned him about the various incidents that had so terrorized him, his mother, and the surrounding community, and noted that when he described the mysterious events, he was always conveniently nearby as they happened. Using extraordinary powers of deduction, I confronted young Charley, and he then poured forth his confession. Sherriff Doane lavished praise on me for solving the case. That’s supposed to be me in the picture as published in the Sunday World.

  Oh, what fun I had, Mary! I remember it as if it were yesterday. And the story, which ran in November, delighted Morrill Goddard, for he knew then for sure, he had found his new Nellie Bly.

  * * *

  When Grandpa returned from Maine, he was surprised to find I was not at home, but off in western Massachusetts doing what, he did not know. A letter he had sent me from Maine a few days before had arrived while I was away. In it he expressed the hope that my reunion with the children was going well. I feel badly about it now; his hopes that we would restore the life we had before I pedaled out of Boston had been dashed. And now I had to deliver the news that we were moving to New York so that I could pursue my new career. The look in a man’s eyes when he knows he is powerless to resist is a terribly sad one, but my mind was made up, and where I went I knew Grandpa would follow. His sense of duty, his desire to hold the family together, allowed no other choice.