The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-06-15
SELECTED STORY.
The Through BY Daylight,

ed the first bicycle in q ,ansville; but
Csrroty Dobbin had the next one.
The night Bert rode his wheel home
all the boys and most OF the men gath
cred in front of the store to see the
glittering, new.fangled machine.
Among the spectators were Benja-
min Franklin Dobbin-Carroty, for
short, out of Difference TO his hair
Everybody laughed when Carroty ell
bowed his way forward to look at the
bicycle. The lad had the name of be
ing "queer stick" and his neighbors
had fallen into the habit of being anus.
ed by everything he did. His was a
<fgure to provoke laughter. He had
outgrown his clothes to such an extent
that it was asserted in the village he
dared not take then off for fear of
never being able to get them on again.
OF course this was an exaggerated
statement; but they undoubtedly were
close fit, and below his skin-tight
jeans trousers stretched an astonishing
length of bare, mud-stsined, brier-
scratched leg, with corresponding
length of wrist and arm Oh the other
side of the zone of clothing.
AS he stopped over the wheel, his
thin, freckled face had a rapt look, aud
his eyes cleaned with pleasure. He
stood off and studied the machine with
his head on one side, he touched it
tenderly and reverently, he moved the
handle-bars, he lifted the whole thing
and held it while he made first one
wheel, then the other revolve.
"Size it up, Carroty, and take the
pattern. Maybe you can make one
like it'll" laughed the loungers on the
store porch.
Carroty was too absorbed to notice
their chatting. SITS out and out the
prettiest thing I've ever SEEM" he
said, earnestly, as Bert stepped for
ward and prepared to mount.
Somehow the honest admiration of
the ragged little fellow pleased Bert
more than the half-envious comments
of his associates.
perhaps some time l will let you
try it, Csrroty," he said, pleasantly.
"I'm going to have one of my own"
the boy returned, calmly.
Bert raised his eyebrows doubtingly,
for he knew the Dobbins were much
too poor for such luxury as bicycle.
On the morning following his view of
Bert's wheel, Carroty remarked 10 his
younger brother, Jakey, that he believ-
ed he would make a bicycle, and Jakey
said: "Do, Carroty."
Back of the Dobbins' house stood
small, vine-covered building where Car
roty's grandmother spun and wove long
ago. The "loom-house," like every
thing else about the place, was falling
to pieces. Carroty had propped-up the
sunken roof, nailed few boards across
the perilous floor, and built work
bench at one side. Here the boy,
who was remarkably handy with tools,
carried on his occupation of "making
things; and here, with some odds and
ends of boards, nails and screws and
bits of leather and wire, he started in
to make bicycle.
Day after day Carroty sawed and
hammered and measured and expert
mented, while Jakey sat in the window
and watched him. There was no one
but Jakey to take an interest in the
great work. The mother had been dead
for three years, and the father was
carpenter with job down the valley
which took him away at daybreak, and
from which he did not return until
val a. Dut ohCN . ihlOlOob hONSh hbSs
ged. In the moments of WEAKNESS and
depression that came TO the young me-
chanic in his difficult task, Jakey was
always ready with words of encourage
ment.
"Other folks make 'em. You can do
anything anybody else can" he would
say, with inspiring confidence.
II am going to do it! l will do itW
Carroty would answer through clinched
teeth.
Such a spirit, go encouraged, was
bound to succeed. In course of time
the bicycle was finished and christened
the Through by Daylight. 1t was not
handsome, but it looked strong. 1t
was diamond frame wheel about the
height of Bert Shepherds, which Car
roty had 80 carefully examined. The
frame and the wheels were built of
inch-and-a half pine boards neatly join
ed; the seat was the leg of one of Mr..
Dobbin's wedding boots laced over a
frame, and furnished with spring bor-
rowed from the old haircloth sofa in
the parlOr. At first it was without
sprocket-wheel or pedals, and could be
used only for coasting down hills.
There are plenty of hills about Zoans-
vile, and Carroty said it would be bet
ter to ride part of the way than not to
ride at all.
The trial trip was free from the
bitches that 30 often mar trial trips.
The wheel could be mounted, and it
would run. Carroty's great namesake
battling the lightning, Robert Fulton
when that first steamboat stirred the
waters OF the Hudson, Edison and Tes-
Ia at moments when success has crown
ed long and arduous labor, may have
experienced such ecstasy, such tri-
umph, such exaltation as thrilled the
boy with his bare feet braced on the
clothespin coasters, his hands grasping
the unplaned handle-bars, wobbling
down hill on bicycle of his own con.
structiOn.
The Dobbins lived at the top of hill
three-quarters of mile long. Abou,
half way down stood the big yellow
house and bigger yellow barn of Squire
Yorke, person of importance whom
Carroty regarded with great awe.
The squire was leaning over his gate