Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy

"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."