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, his 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 buy.’
‘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