When the teacher saw that the younger pupils weren’t working but only staring open-mouthed at Sture, she came back to see what he was doing.
So began the schooling of Sture Modig.
The teacher quickly discovered he could do, easily, almost any task in reading or reckoning she could set. He asked to borrow several books reserved for pupils in the twelve-to fifteen-year-old range, and she willingly, but with some trepidation, agreed. Sture ran home that afternoon, barefooted, barebacked, with the books wrapped, along with his shoes, inside the rough shirt his mother had made for him. The shirt didn’t get dirty because his shoes had scarcely touched the ground.
Sture immediately went out to help his father with the milking. He showed his parents the books he had been given, and since neither of them could read English well, they thought it was only natural and were glad that at last Sture was doing something normal just like any other child.
That evening after dinner, after helping his mother with the dishes, then helping his father sharpen posts for a new fence they were putting across one of the fields, Sture read his new books. He read each of them twice. One was about Ancient Greece and the conflict between Sparta and Athens. Sture was not sure with which side he felt the more sympathy. He liked the Athenians for their love of learning, but the austerity and efficiency of the Spartans appealed to him more.
The other book was an algebra book. The intricate beauty of the equations delighted him. It made him think of his feelings about how everything in nature seemed to fit.
At school, Sture quickly became assistant to the teacher. In reality, he became the teacher. He had natural patience and could help the students understand. He possessed a sixth sense for their individual minds, much like that he had for the cows and other animals.
Although he was always smiling and pleasant, even to the slowest of the students, some of the older boys became resentful. This was what Sture’s father had tried to warn him about. The warning was not very necessary.
When the older boys tried to gang up on Sture in the schoolyard, they learned something new about Sture Modig. First, he was truly modig, brave. None of them spoke Swedish and could therefore not know this. They found out how Sture, without seeming to try, smiling all the time, could dodge like a rabbit, butt like a goat, run like a deer. If cornered he could squirm like a snake, scratch like a cat, and kick like a mule. There was no way to hurt this peculiar eight-year-old little blond boy. After a while they learned to leave him alone.
Then, in time, they joined the younger students in admiring and respecting him. It’s hard to hate or hurt anyone with a smile like the young Sture Modig’s. It radiated from him, let you know he saw you, knew you, felt for all your feelings.
In the classroom, before the year was out, Sture was helping even the oldest of the students. He seemed to have a special skill in finding the stumbling blocks to learning for each individual and making the problem clear.
Miss Henderson, his teacher, stayed on. Her beau had found a proper piece of land, had bought it, and was building a barn on it, but she decided to stay another year at the school, mostly to see what would happen with Sture. She decided she’d wait until her fiancé had built the house and it was furnished.
At home, Sture became more and more interested in mechanical things. He managed to rig a crude pump run by a simple windmill to bring water from the well up to the kitchen. He worked out a system of gate latches between fields that were easily opened by a man but could not be budged by a cow. Earlier, they had only used a piece of wire wrapped around the posts. This took time to unwind, open, then rewind.
In the barn, he built a primitive forge and began making simple utensils and tools for the farm. It was there he designed the plow that made it possible for him to do plowing despite his light weight.
The plow his father used was pulled by a horse or mule and was an ordinary plowshare cutting into the ground and turning it over on the moldboard. It was attached to a pair of handles. This plow took considerable strength and skill to manage. It had to be forced into the ground, using the animal’s strength to pull it through, and at the same time had to be kept straight. Sture had previously tried many times to plow so he could help his father with this most strenuous work, but it was impossible.
On his forge in the barn, he fashioned and tempered a new kind of blade. It was shaped like an upside-down T, a winged blade. The crossbar of the T was so angled it cut naturally into the earth by the pulling force of a mule or horse. Once down there, it tended to stay down and turned the earth up in two natural easy curls.
Sture then designed and carved plow handles, modeled on his father’s but to his own size and longer to give him more leverage.
When he attached this new plow to a mule, it worked perfectly. With a minimum of downward pressure he got the blade into the soil, then, leaning on the handles and with the help of the winged blade under the earth, he could keep it down and at the same time it had less tendency to tip or turn.
Sture’s father couldn’t believe his eyes when one Saturday morning he woke to find the upper part of the south pasture already plowed. Sture had wakened at three in the morning and gone out to plow so he could surprise his father with the new invention. Sture was twelve years old now, and though not particularly large, was very strong for his age.
Sture next enlarged and improved his windmill to generate electricity. None of the other farms outside Manawa had electricity. Sture pounded out his vanes on his tiny forge, then read electricity manuals until he could wind a small electric generator with copper wire. It was enough to provide a dim, flickering light in the barn and in the kitchen. He gave this to his mother and father as a birthday gift to them on his own thirteenth birthday.
At about this time, Miss Henderson, Sture’s teacher, realized there was nothing more for Sture to learn from her. She applied for his admission to the high school, where she herself had gone, in Manawa, fifteen miles away. She included samples of his work and, despite his age, Sture was accepted.
It was a hard decision for Sture’s parents. They were so dependent upon him for everything, not only his incredible skills and willingness, joy in work, but his light spirit. However, they knew it would be a terrible waste not to give Sture every opportunity to be part of the great American dream; he had to go to gymnasium, high school. It was something beyond their wildest imaginings for themselves.
Sture insisted he could go to the high school and not miss more than an hour’s work each day on the farm. His only request was for a bicycle. His parents couldn’t refuse this. The farm was so much more prosperous owing to his constant contribution and effort, they must afford it.
Sture walked the more than thirty miles to Oshkosh, on Lake Winnebago, where there would be a chance to buy a bicycle.
This is the year 1908, and in Oshkosh, Sture sees his first automobile. He chases it down the street just to hear it, see it, smell it. The miracle of its running by itself, without a cow, mule, or horse pulling it, fascinates him. He’s heard about automobiles but never seen one.
He also finds a bicycle shop. He spends all the afternoon watching bicycles being repaired, seeing the various types, different kinds of tires, steering systems. The men who run the shop begin to be a bit annoyed by this young boy standing around, watching their every move.
One of them goes over to Sture.
“Hey, you kid! What’re you hangin’ aroun’ here for? What d’ya want, anyhow? You’ve been moping outside this shop all day. This ain’t no circus, ya know.”
Sture smiles his all-caring smile at him. He’s tried to be careful but he knows that, just like any animal, a man, if he’s watched too long, too closely, will become skittish.
“I would like to buy a bicycle but I want to look and see what kinds there are to buy.”
“You know we’re not giving them away, young fella. These bicycles cost a lot of money.”
“Yes, I know. But I think I can pay. I only want to learn about them before I b
uy.”
“You see that bicycle there?”
The man points to a black two-wheel, wheels-same-size, chain-driven-rear-wheel, pneumatic-tire bike leaning against the wall. It isn’t new but has been recently repaired and refurbished.
“That there bicycle costs twelve dollars. You wanna buy it, kid?”
Sture walks over to the bicycle and looks carefully at the machine. He fingers the chain, pushes on the rubber of the tires, takes hold of the handlebars, and shakes to check the rigidity of the frame.
The man has gotten the attention of his fellow workers. It’s late summer and they’re mostly in sleeveless undershirts, stained with sweat and grease. He nods his head and winks at the other workers.
“But, kid, if you got the cash, I think we could let you have that there bicycle for only eleven dollars and fifty cents!”
The man is convinced the boy only wants to hang around as so many boys do.
Sture is examining that bicycle as if it’s a cow or a sick calf. With his fingers he’s running all over it, checking the bolted and welded joints, sighting down the length of it for any torque or warp.
“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.”
Stu
re 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.