ites, two-stick kites, and
house kites. A bow kite could be made with half a barrel hoop carried
over the top of a cross, but it was troublesome to make, and it did not
fly very well, and somehow it was thought to look babyish; but it was
held in greater respect than the two-stick kite, which only the smallest
boys played with, and which was made by fastening two sticks in the form
of a cross. Any fellow more than six years old who appeared on the
Commons with a two-stick kite would have been met with jeers, as a kind
of girl. The favorite kite, the kite that balanced best, took the wind
best, and flew best, and that would stand all day when you got it up,
was the house kite, which was made of three sticks, and shaped nearly in
the form of the gable of a gambrel-roofed house, only smaller at the
base than at the point where the roof would begin. The outline of all
these kites was given, and the sticks stayed in place by a string
carried taut from stick to stick, which was notched at the ends to hold
it; sometimes the sticks were held with a tack at the point of crossing,
and sometimes they were mortised into one another; but this was apt to
weaken them. The frame was laid down on a sheet of paper, and the paper
was cut an inch or two larger, and then pasted and folded over the
string. Most of the boys used a paste made of flour and cold water; but
my boy and his brother could usually get paste from the printing-office;
and when they could not they would make it by mixing flour and water
cream-thick, and slowly boiling it. That was a paste that would hold
till the cows came home, the boys said, and my boy was courted for his
skill in making it. But after the kite was pasted, and dried in the sun,
or behind the kitchen stove, if you were in very much of a hurry (and
you nearly always were), it had to be hung, with belly-bands and
tail-bands; that is, with strings carried from stick to stick over the
face and at the bottom, to attach the cord for flying it and to fasten
on the tail by. This took a good deal of art, and unless it were well
done the kite would not balance, but would be always pitching and
darting. Then the tail had to be of just the right weight; if it was too
heavy the kite kept sinking, even after you got it up where otherwise it
would stand; if too light, the kite would dart, and dash itself to
pieces on the ground. A very pretty tail was made by tying twists of
paper across a string a foot apart, till ther