.

All the boys wanted to ask questions, but they didn't know exactly what
to ask, so they kept still.

"Kiting, are you? Well, just you let me look at your kites, and then you
may look at mine. One at a time, now. Keep back. Make that kite
yourself, Parley?"

"Yes, I made it."

"Had plenty of wood around your house, I guess. Your sticks are bigger
than mine, and your kite is only two feet high, and mine's five. Look at
it."

He turned the back of his kite toward them as he spoke, and they saw
that the frame-work of it was made of a number of very slender slips of
what looked like ash or hickory wood.

"Mine's made of pine," said Parley. "And yours'll break, too."

"No, it won't. Well, maybe yours'll fly. Set it agoing. There's plenty
of wind."

Parley obeyed, and, mainly because there was indeed a good deal of wind,
his heavy-made kite began to go up.

"Joe," said Sim Vedder, "hand me that kite of yours."

"Mine's a di'mond. I don't know how to make any other."

"Do you suppose it'll stand steady, with those fore-bands so close
together? No, it won't. Up with it, and see how it'll wiggle. Bob Jones,
is that yours?"

The third kite was meekly handed to him, for the more the boys stared at
Sim's big kite, the more they believed he knew what he was talking
about.

"It isn't a bad kite, but those fore-bands are crossed too low. It'll
dive all over."

"There's plenty of tail, Sim. It can't dive."

"Tail!--and a bunch of May-weed at the end of it! How's a kite of that
size to lift it all? I'll show you," replied Sim.

He was unfastening the fore-bands as he spoke, and now he crossed them
again over his little finger, and moved them along till the kite swung
under them, almost level.

"That'll do. Now I'll tie 'em hard, and you can cut off your May-weed.
There'll be tail enough without it. When I was in China--"

"Was you ever in China?"

"Yes, I was. That was when I was a sailor. I saw kites enough there.
They spend money on 'em, just as we do on horses; make 'em of all shapes
and sizes. Don't need any tails."

"Kites without tails?"

"Well, some of 'em have, and some of 'em haven't. It's a knack in the
making of 'em. I've seen one like a dragon, and another like a big
snake, and they floated perfectly. Only a thin silk string, either."

"String's got to be strong enough to hold a kite," said Parley Hooker.
"Look at yours."

"Yes, mine's strong; it's made of fine hemp. But it isn't any heavier