than yours. What do you want of a rope, with a kite of that size?"

"It isn't a rope."

"It's too heavy, though. Besides, you've tied pieces together with big
knots in them. You can't send up any travellers."

"What's that?"

"I'll show you. Some call 'em messengers."

Just then Parley exclaimed, "Sim! Sim! mine's broke! it's coming down!"

"Broke right in the middle, where you notched your big sticks together."

"Just where it needs to be strongest," said Joe, knowingly.

"No, it doesn't. Look at mine."

It was the biggest kite they had ever seen, and it came down square at
the bottom; but it was not a great deal wider than Parley's. The curious
part of it was the cross-sticks and fore-bands. What did he need of so
many?

"So many?" said Sim. "Why, the bands take the strain of the wind. If you
put it all on the sticks, they'd bend or break. Don't you see? There's a
band tied every two inches, and they all come together out here in the
centre knot. It just balances on that."

"Your tail's a light one."

"It's long enough, and it spreads enough to catch the wind. It isn't the
mere weight you want in a tail, if your kite's balanced. The wind blows
against the tail as hard as anywhere else."

"Won't yours ever dive?"

"Of course it will, with a cross puff of wind; but it'll come right up
again. That won't happen very often. I'll send her up. You wait and
see."

The other kites were all up now, except Parley's broken one, and most of
them were cutting queer antics, because, as Sim explained, their
fore-bands were tied wrong, and their tails "did not fit them."

"The Chinese could teach us. But, the way we make kites, there's as much
in the tail as in anything else."

"Oh, but our kites are covered with paper, and you've put some old silk
on yours."

"Of course I have. It isn't much heavier. The Chinese use thin paper
that's as good as silk. It won't wet through."

"Wet? Oh, Sim, it looks as if a storm is coming now."

So it did, and Sim's big kite was going up, up, up very fast, and he was
letting the strong brown string run rapidly off from a sort of reel he
held in his hand.

"Pull in your kites, boys," shouted Parley. "Let's cut for home."

"I want to see Sim fly his."

"You all pull in yours, and we'll go into the cattle shed. It's only a
shower. I can fly mine from the door."

The shed was close at hand, and the door was a wide one. In three
minutes more, just as the first drops came do