"I can't get it up again this way," he said to Laddie. "I've got to pull it all the way down, and then send it up again. And I'll make it go terrible high this time, 'cause I've got a lot of string."
"When mine comes down I'm going to send it up higher," said Laddie. But his kite was still well up in the air.
Russ pulled and pulled on his string, and finally he had his kite where he could see it. It was floating over the street near the vacant lot, and Russ was pulling it toward him, when, all of a sudden, something happened.
A woman, with a large hat on, was walking along the street, right under Russ's kite. Suddenly the kite swooped down, until the dangling tail touched the woman's hat. Russ, not seeing what had taken place, kept on pulling on the string, winding it in. And, of course, you can easily guess what happened.
"Stop! Stop it, little boy!" called the woman. "Stop pulling on your kite string!"
"What for?" asked Russ, who had been looking at the stick on which he was winding his cord, wondering if it would be large enough to hold it all.
"Because you're pulling off my hat!"
And that is just what Russ was doing. The tail of the kite had become tangled in the trimming on the woman's hat, and Russ was pulling it off her head.
"Oh, please stop, little boy!" she cried, and she had to run along, following the kite across the street.
Then Russ stopped winding the string, and the woman, putting up her hands, took hold of the kite tail, so it did not quite pull off her hat. But it almost did.