"Broke right in the middle, where you notched your big sticks together."
"Just where it needs to be strongest," said Joe, knowingly.
"No, it doesn't. Look at mine."
It was the biggest kite they had ever seen, and it came down square at the bottom; but it was not a great deal wider than Parley's. The curious part of it was the cross-sticks and fore-bands. What did he need of so many?
"So many?" said Sim. "Why, the bands take the strain of the wind. If you put it all on the sticks, they'd bend or break. Don't you see? There's a band tied every two inches, and they all come together out here in the centre knot. It just balances on that."
"Your tail's a light one."
"It's long enough, and it spreads enough to catch the wind. It isn't the mere weight you want in a tail, if your kite's balanced. The wind blows against the tail as hard as anywhere else."
"Won't yours ever dive?"
"Of course it will, with a cross puff of wind; but it'll come right up again. That won't happen very often. I'll send her up. You wait and see."
The other kites were all up now, except Parley's broken one, and most of them were cutting queer antics, because, as Sim explained, their fore-bands were tied wrong, and their tails "did not fit them."