“May I try riding this bicycle?”
“You know how to ride one, young fella?”
“No, but I need it for riding to school.”
Now all the workers are watching. This is going to be fun, something to break the monotony of their hard days.
“Look, kid. If you can ride that bike outta here and down the street without falling off, I'll sell it to you for only
ten
dollars.”
He looks back over his shoulder at the other workers. They've all stopped working. They stand with their hands on their hips or holding tools. One straddles the bicycle on which he's working, lifts the cap from his bald head.
Sture rolls the bike by hand outside the shop. The men follow him out to watch. Sture has studied the machine carefully enough to know that in order to get it going and moving, he must start it rolling as fast as possible, as soon as possible, or it will tilt over. He also sees it has no brakes. No bicycles at that time had effective brakes. The only way to stop was to jump off or run your hand against the wheel. The trick was to somehow avoid the rapidly turning pedals. There were no free-turning wheels, no hand brakes, no coaster brakes.
Sture checks to see if his legs are long enough to reach the ground when he's straddled the center support bar. They aren't. The only way he can stop the bicycle will be to vault off, holding on to the handlebars and pulling the bicycle up on its back wheel. Sture has ridden many a cow in from the field and performed essentially the same kind of jump, so he's not afraid.
He works the pedal into position and pushes off. After a few yards of wobbling he's on his way down the street. His strong legs, incredible agility, and astounding sense of balance make it easy for him. He might have been the youngest person in Oshkosh to ride a bicycle. Bicycles at that time were for adults, definitely not toys for young boys.
Sture has some difficulty turning at the end of the street but learns to tilt his body in the direction of the turn and masters it. He starts pumping hard up the slight hill back to the shop. All the shop men are out in the street watching him. They're ready to catch him when he tries to stop. But Sture does his quick leap off one side of the bike, holding the handlebars tight so the bike rears up like a horse when its bridle is pulled back hard.
There's a moment's silence, then the shop men break out in applause. The head of the shop comes over and tousles Sture's head.
“You're really a wise guy there, ain't you, buddy. I was fooled sure enough and thought you didn't know from nothin' about a bicycle, but you must work in some circus or somethin'. I never seed nobody get off a fast bike that way; I was sure you was gonna break your fool neck.”
Sture only smiles into his eyes, his own eyes sparkling from the pleasure of the ride. The separation from the earth, the speed, the sense of control and leverage on space, exhilarate him.
“Yes sir. If it's all right with you, I do want to buy this bicycle. I'll be back with the money in just five minutes.”
Sture dashes off and the men laugh. None of them has any idea Sture is actually going to buy the bicycle, and they're amused at how the head of the shop got fooled into giving this fresh kid a free ride.
They go back to work. Sture has gone around the corner to get money out from the lining of his jacket where he's sewn it. He has fifteen silver dollars.
He pulls out ten of them, then quickly sews back the remaining five. Since he was seven, Sture has repaired all his own clothes. He's enjoyed long evenings quilting with his mother. He can sew with almost the adeptness and precision of a tailor. He bites off the thread and puts the needle back into the collar of his jacket, where he keeps it. He slides on a small piece of wood bark to cover the point. A needle is a precious object to Sture.
Then Sture runs back to the shop with his ten dollars clutched tightly in his hand. He walks up to the shop boss.
“So you're back again, you little tyke. What do you want, another free ride? I'm almost tempted to give you one just to see if you can pull off that trick you did there.”
“I've come to pay for the bicycle. Is that all right? You said if I could ride it without falling you'd sell it to me for ten dollars.”
The shop boss leans back looking down over his long handlebar mustache and beer belly at this little sinewy, blond boy.
“I did say that, didn't I?”
He looks around at the rest of the men in the shop smiling. They've all stopped working again.
“Well, I'll tell you, young feller, if you can get up that ten dollars in the next five minutes I'll give you back fifty cents of it right here. How's that? And then you'd better get out of here because we're not getting any work done what with watching your shenanigans.”
He folds his muscular arms. Sture opens his hand with the ten silver dollars. The shop boss leans forward, his mouth open, his hands gradually falling to his sides in bewilderment.
“Sir, if you'll put out your hand I'll count the ten dollars into it. But you don't have to give me back the fifty cents because it wouldn't be fair. You didn't know I already had the money.”
Sture starts counting the money into the shop boss's hand. The whole shop crowds around.
“Hey, boss, you'd better take a bite of that there money; it could be just tin or somethin'.”
But the shop boss knows these are real honest-to-God U.S. mint dollars. Sture continues counting, trying to make sure the man is paying attention.
“There they are, ten of them, sir. Would you write me a letter of receipt so no one will say I stole this bicycle?”
At first, no one moves. Then the entire shop breaks out laughing. They slap themselves on the knees and each other on the back. The shop boss stands staring at his hand.
“How do I know you didn't steal this
money?
”
Sture gives him his open, blank, but deeply meaningful stare.
“Because I tell you, sir. I earned that money with my parents, working on the farm, and this is the first thing I've ever bought and I think I shall be most happy with my bicycle.”
Sture walks over and holds the handlebars possessively. He's waiting.
“Sir, I'd appreciate it if you'd write that receipt so I can get home before it gets dark. I wouldn't want to hurt this wonderful bicycle by hitting a bump and bending a wheel or breaking the frame.”
“Just where do you come from, kid, and how in hell did some hick milk farmers get ten dollars together to buy a first-class quality bicycle like this? That's what I want to know. You tell me and I'll give you that fifty cents, one of the best deals you'll ever make in your life even if it is the first one.”
“I live near Manawa and we got the money by working hard and being careful.”
“How in hell did you get all the way from Manawa to Oshkosh anyway? That's over thirty goddamned miles.”
Sture smiles another of his magic smiles with a slight shadow of frown built into it. How else could he have gotten here? He wouldn't saddle up a horse for such a short trip, he hadn't had his bicycle yet, and he surely didn't have one of those automobiles.
“I walked, sir. That's not true, actually, I ran most of the way. I wanted to see what a bicycle really looks like and find out all about them and I have no place to stay here so I must get back today, there was no other way.”
“What time did you start, then?”
“About an hour before sunup.”
“But you were here just about time we ate lunch. You mean you went thirty miles in only seven hours?”
“I guess so. I run fast, sir. May I please have the receipt so I can go home? My mother will worry if I'm out too long past dark. With the bicycle I should go faster but I must leave now.”
“Well, I'll be hornswoggled!”
One of the men yells out from between the spokes of a bicycle:
“You were, Pat. Now give the kid his four bits and his receipt so he can pedal that bicycle thirty miles home. Probably he'll make it in about four hours and be there for late supper.”
So, that's the way it ended. Sture got his bicycle and pedaled it at maximum speed over the dirt roads and back paths all the way home. He was home at ten o'clock, just as the last light was leaving the sky. Sture felt bad because he'd missed both milkings, but his bicycle was everything he desired. He rolled it directly into the kitchen for his mother and father to see. They were in their night clothes. Sture got out an old cloth and a bucket of water to wash off the spatters of mud and the coat of thick dust, so they could enjoy it with him as he'd first seen it.
“Dad, I go so fast not even mosquitoes can catch me. I went the whole way and not one bite, see?”
He holds out his thin, bare, but not fragile arms.
“Up high like that, Mom, you can see everything and I think I got home in half the time it took me running down there. Think of it: half the time.”
That September, Sture began high school. He'd do the morning milking early with his father then start out on his bicycle. Most of the country roundabout was fairly flat, but it was a slow, long uphill pump to school. Sture would wear his farm clothes directly from milking and tie his school clothes on his back with his lunch.
At school, after he'd locked his bicycle, he'd go into the boys' room and change. He kept his farm clothes cached in a cubbyhole out of sight over the toilet. The high school was large, with inside toilets.
Sture quickly settled into his studies. At first, most of the other pupils thought he was only a child visiting. Sture was not particularly small but he was thirteen years old, two years younger than any of the other students. Within a few weeks, however, the other students knew about him. His class participation, questions, his first test and examination results set him apart. The teachers, originally apprehensive about so young a student, soon began to delight in his learning ability. His algebra teacher couldn't believe Sture's competence; it was unnatural the ease with which he handled the more complicated algebra usually reserved for the most advanced students. His Latin teacher insisted he must have studied Latin before; no one could absorb and use so much of a new language without previous experience. Sture didn't know it, but by Christmas there had been several teachers' meetings devoted almost exclusively to him.
Sture enjoyed his school work, but because he had to leave immediately after the last bell, there was no time for socializing. He used the short lunch period to nibble on a piece of home-baked black bread and hard Cheddar. The school library was a place of wonder to him, and it was there he went for lunch. He quickly learned one was not allowed to eat in the library, so he started cutting his bread and cheese into bite-size pieces and stashing them in his pockets to be eaten surreptitiously.
Sture's mind was still mostly captivated by his bicycle. He'd bought a lock and chain so he could secure it to a post near the school gate. He was working on a way to pedal up the hill to school faster and more easily and at the same time not use all his energy going home by holding back on the pedals. After much experimentation he developed two different shanks to attach the pedals to the sprocket. One set was very short, only about four inches, and the other long, long as he could make them without his pedals touching the ground. When he went to school he used the long shank and could pump up the hills much more easily. He'd carry the short shanks with his school clothes, books, and lunch. Then, on the way home, he'd substitute the short shanks on the pedals and could pedal at great speed, getting home easily in time to milk the cows. In fact, on that bicycle, coming down that hill from school, he was probably the fastest-traveling human being within a hundred miles of Oshkosh. He started getting home too early for milking and began staying on an extra half hour to work in the library, where it was quiet and there was good, steady electric light.
Sture went through his high-school years, pedaling from home to school every day. Winters he tied rope around the wheels of his bicycle so he could get a grip in ice and snow. Even on days when snowdrifts were up to the second story of his house he snowshoed to school. Twice he was the only pupil to show up in his classes.
At the farm, they'd increased the herd by ten cows and that meant more milking, so Sture's time at school was soon limited to class time. He read almost every book in the school library. It was as if he ate books. In the evenings, he read everything he could, on the pretext he was doing homework for school. He actually could do all his required assignments during lunchtime at the library.
The world interested Sture. He began to want to travel and see some of it. He worked ever harder at the farm but he knew it was not where he wanted to be all his life.
He graduated from high school at sixteen with every prize and honor, but there was no way for him to go on to a college or university.
He helped his father build an extension to the barn, and together they installed an indoor toilet and bathtub. Sture's father and mother lived in a constant amazement at their son, and at the same time worried about him. He didn't seem to smile as much. He didn't talk with the animals any more. All he did was read books.