When you have reached the point in bicycling where you can balance the
machine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your next
task--how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind it on
your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and grasping the
tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg, stiffen your
left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a general in
indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the saddle, and
then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but you fall off.
You get up and do it again; and once more; and then several times.
By this time you have learned to keep your balance; and also to steer
without wrenching the tiller out by the roots (I say tiller because it IS
a tiller; "handle-bar" is a lamely descriptive phrase). So you steer
along, straight ahead, a little while, then you rise forward, with a
steady strain, bringing your right leg, and then your body, into the
saddle, catch your breath, fetch a violent hitch this way and then that,
and down you go again.
But you have ceased to mind the going down by this time; you are getting
to light on one foot or the other with considerable certainty. Six more
attempts and six more falls make you perfect. You land in the saddle
comfortably, next time, and stay there--that is, if you can be content to
let your legs dangle, and leave the pedals alone a while; but if you grab
at once for the pedals, you are gone again.
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