A LONG last summer Ruben Hoskins, that is Ezra
Hoskins' boy, he cum home from college and
bro't one of them new fangled bisickle masheens
hum with him, and I think ever since
that time the whole town of Punkin Centre
has got the bisickle fever. Old Deacon
Witherspoon he's bin a-ridin' a bisickle to
Sunday school, and Jim Lawson he couldn't
ride one of them 'cause he's got a wooden
leg; but he jist calculated if he could git it
hitched up to the mowin' masheen, he could
cut more hay with it than any man in Punkin
Centre. Somebody sed Si Pettingill wuz
tryin' to pick apples with a bisickle.

Wall, all our boys and girls are ridin'
bisickles now, and nothin' would do but I
must learn how to ride one of them. Wall,
I didn't think very favorably on it, but in
order to keep peace in the family I told them
I would learn. Wall, gee whilikee, by gum.
I wish you had bin thar when I commenced.
I took that masheen by the horns and I led
it out into the middle of the road, and I
got on it sort of unconcerned like, and
then I got off sort of unconcerned like.
Wall, I sot down a minnit to think it
over, and then the trouble commenced.
I got on that durned masheen and it