mparted considerable liveliness to the community, which, however,
presently changed to some concern and indignation. It appeared that
the kite was secretly constructed by Li Tee in a secluded part of Mrs.
Martin's clearing, but when it was first tried by him he found that
through some error of design it required a tail of unusual proportions.
This he hurriedly supplied by the first means he found--Mrs. Martin's
clothes-line, with part of the weekly wash depending from it. This fact
was not at first noticed by the ordinary sightseer, although the tail
seemed peculiar--yet, perhaps, not more peculiar than a dragon's tail
ought to be. But when the actual theft was discovered and reported
through the town, a vivacious interest was created, and spy-glasses were
used to identify the various articles of apparel still hanging on that
ravished clothes-line. These garments, in the course of their slow
disengagement from the clothes-pins through the gyrations of the kite,
impartially distributed themselves over the town--one of Mrs. Martin's
stockings falling upon the veranda of the Polka Saloon, and the other
being afterwards discovered on the belfry of the First Methodist
Church--to the scandal of the congregation. It would have been well if
the result of Li Tee's invention had ended here. Alas! the kite-flyer
and his accomplice, "Injin Jim," were tracked by means of the kite's
tell-tale cord to a lonely part of the marsh and rudely dispossessed of
their charge by Deacon Hornblower and a constable. Unfortunately,
the captors overlooked the fact that the kite-flyers had taken the
precaution of making a "half-turn" of the stout cord around a log to
ease the tremendous pull of the kite--whose power the captors had not
reckoned upon--and the Deacon incautiously substituted his own body for
the log. A singular spectacle is said to have then presented itself to
the on-lookers. The Deacon was seen to be running wildly by leaps and
bounds over the marsh after the kite, closely followed by the constable
in equally wild efforts to restrain him by tugging at the end of the
line. The extraordinary race continued to the town until the constable
fell, losing his hold of the line. This seemed to impart a singular
specific levity to the Deacon, who, to the astonishment of everybody,
incontinently sailed up into a tree! When he was succored and cut down
from the demoniac kite, he was found to have sustained a dislocation
of the shoulder, and the c