Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy

John Kendrick Bangs

Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy

BIKEY THE SKICYCLE

I

HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT

Jimmieboy's father had bought him a bicycle, and inasmuch as it was provided with a bag of tools and a nickel plated bell the small youth was very much pleased with the gift.

"It's got rheumatic tires, too," he said, when describing it to one of his little friends.

"What's that?" asked the boy.

"Big pieces of hose pipe," said Jimmieboy. "They run all around the outside of the wheel and when you fill 'em up with wind and screw 'em up tight so's the wind can't get out, papa says, you can go over anything easy as a bird."

"I s'pose," said the little friend, "it's sort of like sailing, maybe. The wind keeps blowing inside o' those pipes and that makes the wheels go round."

"I guess that's it," returned Jimmieboy.

"But I don't see why they call 'em rheumatic," said the other boy.

"Nor I don't, either," said Jimmieboy, "unless it's because they move a little stiff at first."

It was not long, however, before Jimmieboy discovered that his father had made a mistake when he said that the pneumatic tire would enable a bicycle to ride over anything, for about a week later Jimmieboy tried to ride over the shaft of a lawn mower with his wheel, with disastrous results. The boy took a header, and while he himself was not hurt beyond a scratch or two and a slight shaking up, which took away his appetite, the wonderful rubber tire was badly battered. What was worse, the experience made Jimmieboy a little afraid of his new possession, and for some time it lay neglected.

A few nights ago, however, Jimmieboy's interest in his wheel was aroused once more, and to-day it is greater than ever, and it all came about in this way. His father and mother had gone out to make some calls and the youngster was spending a few minutes of solitude over a very fine fairy book that had recently been sent to him. While he was gazing at a magnificent picture of Jack slaying two giants with his left hand and throttling a dragon with his right, there came a sudden tinkling of a bell.

"Somebody's at the telephone," thought Jimmieboy, and started to go to it, when the ringing sound came again, but from a part of the house entirely away from the neighborhood of the telephone.

"Humph," said Jimmieboy. "That's queer. It isn't the telephone and it can't be the front door bell – I guess it's the – "

"It's me – Bikey," came a merry voice from behind the door.

"Who?" cried Jimmieboy.

"Bikey," replied the voice. "Don't you remember Bikey, who threw you over the lawn mower?"

Jimmieboy turned about, and sure enough there stood his neglected wheel.

"I hope you weren't hurt by your tumble," said the little bicycle standing up on its hind wheel and putting its treadles softly on Jimmieboy's shoulders, as if it were caressing him.

"No," said Jimmieboy. "The only thing was that it took away my appetite, and it was on apple pie day. It isn't pleasant to feel as if you couldn't eat a thing with a fine apple pie staring you in the face. That was all I felt badly about."

"I'm sorry about the pie," returned the little bicycle, "but glad you didn't flatten your nose or put your teeth out of joint, as you might easily have done. I knew a boy once who took a header just as you did, and after he got up he found that he'd broken the brim of his hat and turned a beautiful Roman nose into a stub nose."

"You mean snub nose, don't you?" asked Jimmieboy.

"No, I mean stub. Stub means more than snub. Snub means just a plain turn up nose, but stub means that it's not only turned up, but has very little of itself left. It's just a stub – that's all," explained the bicycle. "Another boy I knew fell so hard that he pushed his whole face right through to the back of his head, and you don't know how queer it looks to see him walking backward on his way to school."

"I guess I was in great luck," said Jimmieboy. "I might have had a much harder time than I did."

"I should say so," said the bicycle. "A scratch and loss of appetite, when you might just as easily have had your whole personal appearance changed, is getting off very cheap. But, I say, why didn't you turn aside instead of trying to ride over that lawn mower? Didn't you know you'd get yourself into trouble?"

"Of course I didn't," said Jimmieboy. "You don't suppose I wanted to commit soozlecide, do you? I heard papa talking to mamma about the rheumatic tires on his bicycle, and he said they were great inventions because they made the wheel boy – boy – well, boy something, I don't remember what."

"Boyant?" asked the little bicycle, scratching its cyclometer with its pedal.

"Yes – that was it," said Jimmieboy. "He said the rheumatic tires made the thing boyant, and I asked him what that meant. He said boyant was a word meaning light and airy – like a boy, you know, and that boyancy in a bicycle meant that it could jump over almost anything."

"That is so," said Bikey. "That's what they have those tires for, but they can't jump over a lawn mower – unless" – Here Bikey paused and glanced anxiously around. It was evident that he had some great secret in his mind.

"Unless what?" asked Jimmieboy, his curiosity at once aroused.

"Unless a patent idea of mine, which you and I could try if you wanted to, is good."

Bikey's voice sank into a whisper.

"There's millions in my idea if it'll work," he continued. "Do you see this?" he asked, holding up his front wheel. "This tire I have on is filled with air, and it makes me seem light as air – but it's only seeming. I'm heavy, as you found out when you tried to get me to jump over the lawn mower, but if I could only do a thing I want to you could go sailing over a church steeple as easily as you can ride me over a lawn."

"You mean to say you'd fly?" asked Jimmieboy, delighted at the idea.

"No – not exactly," returned Bikey. "I never could fly and never wanted to. Birds do that, and you can buy a bird for two dollars; but a bicycle costs you anywhere from fifty to a hundred, which shows how much more valuable bicycles are than birds. No, I don't want to fly, but I would like to float."

"On water?" asked Jimmieboy.

"No, no, no; in the air," said the little bicycle impatiently – "like a balloon. Wouldn't that be fine? Anybody can float on the water, even an old cork; but when it comes to floating in the air, that's not only fun but it means being talented. A bicycle that could float in the air would be the finest thing in the world."

"That's very likely true," said Jimmieboy, "but how are you going to do it? You can't soar."

"Not with my tires filled with air," replied Bikey, "but if you'll take the hose from the gas stove and fasten one end to the supply valve of my tires, the other to the gas fixture, fill the tires up with gas and get aboard I'll bet you we can have a ride that'll turn out to be a regular sky-scraper."

It sounded like an attractive proposition, but Jimmieboy wanted to know something more about it before consenting to trifle with the gas pipe.

"What good'll the gas do?" he asked.

"Why, don't you know that gas makes balloons go up?" said Bikey. "They just cram the balloon as full of gas as they can get it and up she sails. That's my idea. Fill my rubber tires with gas and up we'll go. What do you say?"

"I'll do it," cried Jimmieboy with enthusiasm. "I'd love more than anything else to go biking through the clouds, for to tell the truth clouds look a great deal softer than grocery carts and lawn mowers, and I wouldn't mind running into one of them so much. Skybicycling" —

"Pooh! What a term," retorted Bikey. "Skybicycling! Why don't you use your mind a little and call it skycycling?"

Jimmieboy laughed.

"Perhaps skycling would be better than that," he suggested.

"Or skiking," smiled the little bicycle. "If it works you know I'll be simply grand. I'll be a sort of Christopher Columbus among bicycles, and perhaps I'll be called a skicycle instead of bicycle. Oh, it would be too beautiful!" he added, dancing joyously on his hind wheel.

"It will indeed," said Jimmieboy, "but let's hurry. Seems to me as if I could hardly wait."

"Me too," chuckled Bikey. "You go up and get the rubber tube, fasten it to the gas pipe, and inside of ten minutes we'll be off – if it works."

So Jimmieboy rushed off to the attic, seized a piece of rubber tubing that had been used to carry the supply of gas to his little nursery stove in the winter, and running back to where Bikey was waiting fastened it to the fixture in the hall.

"Now," said Bikey, unscrewing the cap of his pneumatic tire, "hold the other end there and we'll see how it goes."

Jimmieboy hastened to obey, and for five minutes watched his strange little friend anxiously.

"Feel any lighter?" he said.

"Yes," whispered Bikey, almost shivering with delight. "My front wheel is off the floor already. I think twenty feet more will be enough there, and when you've filled up the hind tire – ta – ta – ti – tum – ti – too – ha – ha! Then we'll go skiking."

The plan was followed out, and when both tires had taken in as much gas as they could hold Bikey called hoarsely to Jimmieboy: —

"Quick! Quick! Jump aboard or I'll be off without you. Is the door open?"

"No," said Jimmieboy, clambering into the saddle, after turning off the gas and screwing the caps firmly on both tires, "b – but the par – par – parlor window is."

"Good," cried Bikey. "We'll sail through that! Give the right pedal a good turn; now – one – two – three – we're off!"

And they were off. Out of the hall they flew, through the parlor without touching the floor, and then sailed through the window out into the moonlight night.

"Isn't it great," cried Bikey, trembling with delight.

"Greatest that ever was," said Jimmieboy. "But, hi! Take care, turn to the left, quick."

A great spike of some sort had loomed up before them.

"Excuse me," said Bikey, giving a quick turn. "I was so happy I wasn't looking where we were going. If you hadn't spoken we'd have got stuck on that church steeple sure enough."

II

WHEELING ON THE BIG RING OF SATURN

"Hadn't we better go a little higher?" asked Jimmieboy. "There's a lot of these tall steeples about here, and it wouldn't be any fun if we pricked a hole in one of these tires on a weather vane."

"We are going higher all the time," said Bikey. "There isn't a steeple in the world can touch us now. What we want to keep away from now are eagles and snow clad Alps."

"Ho! snow clad Alps," laughed Jimmieboy. "There aren't any Alps in America, they're all in Europe."

"Well, where are you? You don't suppose we've been standing still all this time, do you? If you'd studied your geography lessons as well as you ought to you'd be able to tell one country from another. You are wheeling directly over France now. In ten minutes we'll be over Germany, and in fifteen, if you turned to the south, you'd simply graze the top of Mont Blanc."

"Let's," said Jimmieboy. "I want to see a glazier."

"A what?" asked Bikey.

"A glazier," answered Jimmieboy. "It's a big slide."

"Oh, you mean a glacier," said Bikey, shaking all over with laughter. "I thought you meant a man to put in a pane of glass, and it struck me that Mont Blanc was a curious place to go looking for one. Shall we turn south?"

"If you don't mind," said Jimmieboy. "Seems to me we might coast down Mont Blanc, and have a pretty good time of it."

"Oh, if that's what you're after, I won't do it," said Bikey. "Coasting isn't a good thing for beginners like you, particularly on the Alps. Take a hill of your own size. Furthermore, we haven't come out to explore the earth. I was going to take you off to the finest bicycle track you ever saw. I never saw it either, but I've seen pictures of it. It's a great level gold road running about another world called Saturn. We call it Saturn's ring down home, but I've ideas as to what it is."

"Seems to me I've heard papa speak of Saturn. It's got eight moons, I think he said. One for every day of the week, and two for Sunday," said Jimmieboy.

"That's the place," said Bikey. "You don't need a lamp on your wheel when you go out at night there. They've got moonlight to burn. If you'll pedal ahead now as hard as you can we can get there in time for one turn and then come back; and I tell you, my boy, that coming back will be glorious. It will be down grade all the way."

"How far off is Saturn?" asked Jimmieboy.

"I don't know," returned Bikey, "but it's a long walk from your house. The ring is 18,350 miles from Saturn itself. That's why I think it's a good place for bicycling. Nobody'd take an ice cart or a furniture truck that far just to get in the way of a wheelman, and then as it doesn't go anywhere but just round and round and round, they're not likely to have trolley cars on it. It doesn't pay to run a trolley car nowheres."

It all seemed beautifully reasonable, and Jimmieboy's curiosity grew greater and greater as he pedalled along. Up and on they went, passing through huge fleecy masses of clouds, now and again turning to one side to avoid running into strange little bits of stars, so small that they seemed to be nothing but islands in the ocean of the sky, and far too small to be seen on the earth.

"We can stop and rest on one of those if you want to, Jimmieboy," said Bikey; "are you tired?"

"Not at all," Jimmieboy answered. "Seems to me I could go on this way forever. It's easy as lying down and going to sleep."

Bikey chuckled.

"What are you laughing at?" said Jimmieboy.

"Nothing," said Bikey. "When you said it was easy as sleeping I thought of something – that was all."

"Dear me," said Jimmieboy, ruefully. "I am awake, ain't I? This isn't like all the other experiences, is it?"

"Not at all," laughed Bikey. "Your other adventures have been quite different. But, I say, we're getting there. I can see five moons ahead already."

"I can see six," cried Jimmieboy, quite elated. "Yes, six – and – one more."

"You've got nearly the whole set, as the boy said when he came to the other boy's Nicaragua page in the stamp album. There are only eight altogether – only I think your seventh is Saturn itself."

"It must be," said Jimmieboy. "It's got a hello around it."

"What's that?" asked Bikey.

"I forgot," said Jimmieboy. "You never went to Sunday school, and so of course you don't know what a hello is. It's a thing like a gold hoople that angels wear on their heads."

"I'll have to get one," said Bikey. "I heard somebody say I was an angel of a bicycle. I don't know what she meant, though. What is an angel?"

"It's a – a – good thing with wings," said Jimmieboy.

"Humph!" said Bikey, "I'm afraid I'm not one of those. Don't they ever have wheels? I'm a good thing, but I haven't any wings."

"I never heard of an angel with wheels," said Jimmieboy. "But I suppose they come. Angels have everything that's worth having."

Bikey was silent. The idea of anything having everything that was worth having was too much for him to imagine, for bicycles have very little imagination.

"I wish I could be one," he said wistfully, after a moment's silence. "It must be awfully nice to have everything you want."

Jimmieboy thought so, too, but he was too much interested in getting to Saturn to say anything, so he, too, kept silent and pedalled away as hard as he could. Together and happily they went on until Jimmieboy said: —

"Bikey, what's that ahead? Looks like the side of a great gold cheese."

"That," Bikey answered, "is exactly what you think it is. It's the ring of Saturn, and, as the saying goes, for biking Saturn is quite the cheese. In two minutes we'll be there."

And in two minutes they were there. In less, in fact, for hardly eight seconds had passed before a great, blinding light caused Jimmieboy to close his eyes, and when he had opened them again he and Bikey were speeding along a most beautiful road, paved with gold.

"I thought so," said Bikey, "we're on the ring. And isn't it smooth?"

"It's like riding on glass," said Jimmieboy. And then they stopped short.

A peculiar looking creature had stopped them. It was a creature with a face not unlike that of a man, and a body like a man's, but instead of legs it had wheels like a bicycle. If you can imagine a Centaur with a body like a bicycle instead of a horse you will have a perfect mental picture of this strange creature.

"Excuse me," said the stranger, "but we have to be very particular here. Where do you come from?"

"Earth," said Bikey.

"All right," said the stranger. "Move on, I'm a Saturn policeman and so many wheelmen from the Sun and the Moon and Jupiter have caused disturbances of late that we have had to forbid them coming. You are the only Earth people who have been here, and of course are not included in our rules, but I will have to go along with you to see that you do not break any of them."

"We're very glad to meet you," said Bikey, "and if you'll tell us your rules we will be very glad to obey them."

"Well," said the creature with wheels instead of legs, "the first rule is that nobody shall ride a wheel standing on his head. There was a person over here from Mars last week who actually put his head in the saddle and wheeled his pedals with his hands."

"How utterly absurd!" said Jimmieboy.

"Wasn't it?" said the Saturnian; "and my! how mad he got when I interfered – asked whether this was a free country and if anybody had rights, and all sorts of stuff like that. Now there's another rule we have, and that is that coasting backward cannot be permitted. We used to allow that until a man from Jupiter ran slap bang into another man who lived at the extreme end of the handle of the Great Dipper, who was coasting backward from the other direction. They came together so hard that we couldn't get 'em apart, and we have had to keep 'em here ever since. They can't be separated, and the Dipper man won't go to Jupiter, and the Jupiter man won't go to Dipperville – consequently they stay here. They're a fearful nuisance, and it all came from coasting backward."

"It's a very good rule," said Jimmieboy, "but in our world I don't think we'd need a rule like that, because, while our bicycle riders do lots of queer things, I don't think they'd do that."

"I hope not," said the Saturnian, "because there isn't any use in it, any more than in that other trick our visiting bicyclists try to play here. They take those bicycles built for two, you know, and have what they call tugs of war with 'em. One fellow takes the hind wheel and the other the front wheel, and each begins to work for all he is worth to pull the other along. We had to stop that, too, because the last time they did it the men were so strong that the bar was pulled apart and both tuggers went flying off on one wheel so fast that they have never managed to get back – not that we want them back, but that we don't want people to set bicycling down as a dangerous sport. It means so much to us. We get all our money from our big ring here; bicyclists come from all parts of the universe to ride around it, and as they pay for the privilege why we get millions of dollars a year, which is divided up among the people. Consequence is, nobody has to do any work and we are all happy. You can see for yourself that it would be very bad for us if people gave it up as dangerous."

"Very true," said Bikey, "and now we know the rules I suppose we can go ahead."

"Yes," said the policeman, "only you must go to the Captain's office and get a permit. It'll cost you $2,000 for one season."

"Two thousand dollars?" echoed Jimmieboy, aghast.

"That's what I said," said the policeman.

"But," said Jimmieboy, ruefully, "I haven't got more than five cents with me."

"Then," said the policeman, "you can get a permit for five cents' worth – that's one-forty thousandth part of a season."

"And how long is a season?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Forty thousand years," said the policeman. "You can ride a year for five cents."

Bikey laughed.

"That'll be long enough," he said. "And where can I find the Captain?"

"I'm him," said the Saturnian. "Give me the five cents and it will be all right."

So Jimmieboy handed over his nickel, and in a moment he and Bikey were speeding along over a beautiful golden road so wide that he could not see the other side of it, and stretching on and on to the fore for thousands of miles.

III

A SUDDEN STOP AT THE TYRED INN

"This is a great place," said Bikey as they sped along. "I've coasted on pretty much every kind of coasting thing there is, and I think I never struck anything like this before. It beats the North Pole all hollow."

"You never coasted on the North Pole, did you?" queried Jimmieboy.

"Oh, didn't I just!" laughed Bikey. "It's made of ice, that North Pole is, and it's so slippery that you can even slide up it – that's awful slippery, when you come to think of it – and as for coming down, well, you'd almost think you were falling off a roof."

"But, wasn't it dangerous?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Not at all," laughed Bikey. "Sliding up you run into the air, and that isn't very hard, and coming down you land in a great snow bank – but this place here is much pleasanter, because it's warmer, and you don't have to exert yourself. That's the great thing about this track. We aren't going at all, though we seem to be – it's the track that makes my wheels go round. It's just a-whizzing, this track is, but we are standing perfectly still. If you should step off on to the road you'd whizz back out of sight in two seconds."

"Well, I won't step off, then," said Jimmieboy a little fearfully; "I don't want to be left up here all by myself."

Silently they went on for at least five minutes, when what should they see before them but a great stone wall, built solidly across the road.

"Hi!" cried Bikey. "Put on the brake – hurry up."

"There isn't one," shrieked Jimmieboy. "I – b – bub – busted it on the lawn mower the day of the accident."

"Back pedal then – back pedal," roared Bikey.

"C – can't gug – get my feet on 'em, they're going so fast," cried Jimmieboy.

"Then p – pup – punk – puncture my tire – take a nail or a pin or anything – or we'll be dashed to pieces."

"Huh! haven't gug – got a nail or a pup – pin or anything," wept Jimmieboy.

"Then we are lost," said Bikey; but just then his tires punctured themselves and they came to a full stop two feet from the stone wall and directly in front of a little hotel, from the front door of which swung a bright red sign on which was the following inscription: —

THE TYRED INNFORTHE TIRED OUT

"My!" ejaculated Bikey as he and Jimmieboy tumbled in a heap before the inn. "That was the narrowest escape I ever had. If we hadn't stopped we'd have been smashed all to bits – leastways I would have – you might have cleared the wall all right."

"Good morning, Biklemen," said a fat, pudgy little old fellow, appearing in the doorway of the inn and bowing profoundly.

"What's that you say?" asked Bikey looking up. "I didn't catch that last word."

"Biklemen," repeated the fat little fellow. "It's a word I invented myself to save time and it signifies gentlemen who ride bicycles. Instead of saying 'good morning, gentlemen who ride bicycles,' I say 'good morning, biklemen, is there anything I can do for you?'"

"Well, I should say there was," retorted Bikey. "Just look at my tires, will you? There are twenty-six punctures in the front one and eighteen in the hind one. I should think you'd have better sense than to sprinkle the road with tacks in this way."

"Why, what an ungrateful creature you are," cried the landlord of the Tyred Inn, for that was who the pudgy little old fellow was. "If it hadn't been for those tacks I'd like to know where you'd be at this moment. You'd have smashed into that stone wall and busted yourself and your rider all to pieces."

"That's so, Bikey," said Jimmieboy. "Those tacks saved our lives."

"Of course they did," said the landlord. "And even if you had a right to growl about 'em, you haven't any right to growl at me because the government compels me to keep that part of the road sprinkled with 'em."