[WHO WON THE BICYCLE?]
BY MATTHEW WHITE, JUN.
"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Bimb! bang! boom!" and as they shouted out the school cheer, a group of Vilney boys flung up their caps and danced about to catch them again in a fashion that showed they felt much too jolly to keep them decorously on their heads.
It was the first Friday after the fall opening of the High School, and the cause of the cheering was the fact that the next day was the date of the Boys' Olympic Games at the Fair Grounds. The entertainment was quite a novel one, as none but school-boys were allowed to take part, and the prizes offered were pocket-knives, archery sets, tennis outfits, and last, but by no means least, an elegant full-nickel bicycle of the finest make. Cups, silver services, gold medals, and embroidered banners were all cast into the shade by the latter magnificent inducement, to be presented to the winner of the three-mile bicycle race.
The games had been organized and the prizes provided by a wealthy young bachelor who had lately come to reside in the town, and who was exceedingly fond of boys. Nearly every member of the Vilney High School was entered for one or more of the contests, and Olympic Games had been the absorbing topic of conversation for weeks.
One especially interested was Alec Barsbey. He was the son of a farmer who seemed never to make more than enough to support his family, minus luxuries, which perhaps may be accounted for by the fact that he ought not to have been a farmer at all, but a lawyer or minister, for he was so extremely fond of books. Alec inherited his father's taste for learning—a taste which Mr. Barsbey resolved should be cultivated by the best schooling, to be followed by a college course. He was now in his fifteenth year, nearly ready to enter upon the latter, but the severe study had begun to tell upon his health, when he luckily conceived a strong and sudden fondness for bicycling (for as a rule he did not care for sports or games), and on his friend Murray Hart's machine took now and then an invigorating "spin."
Murray lived just across the road from the Barsbeys, and when the rage for "wheels" broke out in town, he was among the first to own one. However, being also the happy possessor of a pony, he divided his time out-of-doors between the two, and as he was a fast friend of Alec's, he was only too happy when he could prevail upon the latter to accept the loan of his machine.
But if the Barsbeys were poor in purse, they were wealthy in a spirit of independence, and it was only after repeated urgings on the part of Murray that Alec could be induced to ride another's property. Yet even with the limited amount of practice he allowed himself, he speedily became an expert "'cyclist," although this fact was not an unmixed pleasure to him, as it only increased his desire to have a machine of his own, which in the present state of the Barsbey finances was quite out of the question.
Now, however, the Olympic Games presented a possible means of obtaining a splendid one, and Alec made haste to hire at the "bi" head-quarters a trusty wheel on which to practice and ride the race.