This done, he placed himself, with the string in his hand, on the spot where he supposed the one who got up the kite must have stood while putting the hoop over the point of the lightning-rod. That is to say, he walked from the church in such a direction, and to such a distance, that the string he held in his hand formed a continuous and (but for the sag) straight line with the string that held the kite to the hoop.
He expected, on arriving at this point, to raise his hand, give a jerk or two at the string, and see the hoop slide up and off the rod, from the tendency—caused by the kite's pulling at one end of the string, and himself at the other—to take up the sag.
His theory was perfect, but the plan did not work; probably because the wind had died down a little, and the kite was flying lower than when it was first put up.
When he saw that the hoop was not to be lifted by this means, he cast about for a further expedient, the crowd meanwhile expressing disappointment and impatience.
Carrying the string entirely across the square, he stopped in front of the house that was in line with it, and asked permission to ascend to the roof, which was granted. Breaking off the string, and telling Ned to stand there and hold the end, he put the ball into his pocket, took a pebble in his hand, and went up through the house and came out at the scuttle.
Tying the pebble to the end of the string, he threw it down to his brother, who tied the end of the string to the end he had been holding. Phaeton then drew it up, and once more pulled at the hoop.
It stuck a little at first; but as he alternately pulled and slackened, it was started at last, and began to slide up the lightning-rod; whereupon the crowd set up a shout, and a great many people remarked that they knew all the while the boy would succeed.
But the hoop only rose to a point about half way between its former resting-place and the tip of the rod, and there it remained. No sleight-of-hand that Phaeton could exercise would make it rise another inch. If the wind had freshened, so as to make the kite sail higher, the hoop would have slid to the top of the rod at once. But the wind did not freshen, and there was no taller building anywhere in line with the string than the one Phaeton was standing on.
The crowd expressed disappointment again, some of them groaned, and remarked that they had been confident all the while the boy couldn't do it.
"Ned," said Phaeton, "come up here."