“We give only one show like that a day,” returned Ted, grinning. “You can hold the kite awhile if you want to.”
“Thanks!” exclaimed the lame boy. “I like kites. I can make ’em, only they don’t have the right things over at the Home. I can make a dandy one that goes up without a tail.”
“Can you?” cried Jimmie. “That’s great! Make one, will you? I’ve got lots of paper and sticks.”
So after Hal had held the kite with the tail for a while, feeling how hard it pulled, the children all went to the Dell home, and there made a kite without a tail, Hal teaching his new chums how to do it. There are only two sticks used in a tailless kite, instead of three, and the cross-stick is bent like a bow, and held that way with a string before the paper is pasted on.
It took the rest of that day to make the kite without a tail, and then it was time for Hal to go back to the Home. But he promised to come the following day and see the others fly it.
“I can hold it, while one of you runs with the string,” explained the lame boy. “Sometimes, if the wind is just right, you don’t have to run with these kites at all. They’re easier to fly than the others. You’ll like ’em.”
“We’re glad you came over,” said Jimmie, and he and Ted felt that, after all, it was not so bad to be lame when one could make such fine kites.
“Say, you’d better tell your grandmother to get her chocolate cake ready,” Hal called to Ted just before starting away.
“Why?”
“Because that party, or entertainment, or whatever you want to call it, that they’re going to have to raise money for the Home will be given in two weeks. I thought I’d tell you in plenty of time, so your grandmother wouldn’t have to hurry,” he added with a laugh.