close Boston and its bowery
suburbs own the vast pleasure-place--the people could hardly have more
privileges there did each one hold a deed of it. Little Sky-High thought
this wonderful when it was explained to him.

The Van Burens had ample grounds of their own, but Mrs. Van Buren and
the children liked to go to Franklin Park. Mrs. Van Buren liked to sit
in the great stone Emerson arbor on Schoolmaster's Hill, and watch the
white flocks of English sheep wander to and fro and feed, guarded and
guided by shepherd-dogs, and to gaze away in an idle reverie at the Blue
Hills under the purple charm of distance.

No one jeered now when the Van Buren children appeared in the street
with the little Chinaman. Nobody cried, "Rat-tail!" Nobody cried,
"Washee-washee-wang!" He often rode with them in the carriage. People
looked at him, to be sure, but only with interest--the fame of his
accomplishments in the English language had gone abroad.

It was a beautiful early summer day, the white daisies waving in the
west wind. Crossing the field, from a little green hill the children
prepared to send up the new kite. Out of his narrow black eyes little
Sky-High looked at it, as they took it from the package and sent it up.
It seemed simply a frame-work, but presently the American flag rolled
out in the sky, as though it hung alone, or had bloomed there.

Sky-High beheld it with pleasure. Great was America! He was contented to
sit and watch it for hours, or as long as the children pleased. It was
not until sunset that the starry kite was hauled down through the golden
air, and Lucy and Charles prepared to return home.

On the way the little serving-man said, "I have a kite in my trunk. You
let me fly it for you some day? You come with me here?"

So another breezy day the Van Buren children came to the Park with
Sky-High. Lucy danced about in the green world for very light-heartedness.

"You stay at the overlook," said Sky-High, pointing to the wild-flower
embankment surrounded by burning azalias, "and I will show you how
Chinese boys fly kites."

He had brought a thin package under his arm, and while Lucy and Charles
waited at the embankment he ran like a thing of air out into the open
field.

It was a glorious June day; and the great elms with their fresh young
foliage were glimmering thick in the fiery sky, and like an emerald sea
was the grass on the field, where hundreds of children were playing ball
and other games.

Sky