ometimes the kite-string would break, and the kite would
waver and fall like a bird shot in the wing; and the owner of the kite,
and all the fellows who had no kites, would run to get it where it came
down, perhaps a mile or more away. It usually came down in a tree, and
they had to climb for it; but sometimes it lodged so high that no one
could reach it; and then it was slowly beaten and washed away in the
winds and rains, and its long tail left streaming all winter from the
naked bough where it had caught. It was so good for kites on the
Commons, because there were no trees there, and not even fences, but a
vast open stretch of level grass, which the cows and geese kept cropped
to the earth; and for the most part the boys had no trouble with their
kites there. Some of them had paper fringe pasted round the edges of
their kites; this made a fine rattling as the kite rose, and when the
kite stood, at the end of its string, you could hear the humming if you
put your ear to the twine. But the most fun was sending up messengers.
The messengers were cut out of thick paper, with a slit at one side, so
as to slip over the string, which would be pulled level long enough to
give the messenger a good start, and then released, when the wind would
catch the little circle, and drive it up the long curving incline till
it reached the kite.

[Illustration: KITE TIME.]

It was thought a great thing in a kite to pull, and it was a favor to
another boy to let him take hold of your string and feel how your kite
pulled. If you wanted to play mumble-the-peg, or anything, while your
kite was up, you tied it to a stake in the ground, or gave it to some
other fellow to hold; there were always lots of fellows eager to hold
it. But you had to be careful how you let a little fellow hold it; for,
if it was a very powerful kite, it would take him up. It was not certain
just how strong a kite had to be to take a small boy up, and nobody had
ever seen a kite do it, but everybody expected to see it.

IX.

CIRCUSES AND SHOWS.

WHAT every boy expected to do, some time or other, was to run off. He
expected to do this because the scheme offered an unlimited field to the
imagination, and because its fulfilment would give him the highest
distinction among the other fellows. To run off was held to be the only
way for a boy to right himself against the wrongs and hardships of a
boy's life. As far as the Boy's Town was concerned, no boy had anyth