How Robin's Kite Learned to Fly

1916

For The Children

One cloudy, rainy, day, little boy Robin said: "Oh, I feel so sick because it rains. I think I want to make a kite."

Grandmother lifted her spectacles from her nose and smiled with her twinkly blue eyes.

"I know where there is a big sheet of strong wrapping paper," she said.

Grandfather laid down his book.

"I can find some splints in the wood-basket for you," he said.

So Robin brought out his own pair of shiny scissors that hung on a nail in the kitchen. He found his own little jar of paste. Then he spread out all his things on the kitchen table and went to work. Snip, snap, went the scissors. Scritch, scratch, went grandfather's jack-knife, whittling splints from the kindlings in the wood basket. Splash went the paste brush, and there was little boy Robin's kite all done, with a long newspaper tail and a long string to fly it by.

By that time the rain was all over and the sun was peeping out.

"I am going out to fly my kite," said little boy Robin.

Mother helped him put on his red cap and his red mittens. Grandfather waved his hand from the kitchen window, and little boy Robin ran up and down the garden path with his new kite. But, oh, the kite would not fly at all! It just tramped along the ground after Robin, dragging its tail in the wet grass and looking very unhappy.

"It hasn't learned how to fly yet," said little boy Robin, "and I can't show it how." Then he sat down on a stone and squeezed out two big tears.

An old gray mole came along just then and stopped in front of Robin.

"What's up, little boy," he said.

"Oh," sobbed Robin, "I have a little new kite and it doesn't know how to fly."

"If I should be out when the wind goes by,
I'll tell him. He teaches the kites to fly."
said the old gray mole. Then he hurried off to dig long tunnels under the garden beds and presently forgot all about his promise. Robin waited, but the wind did not come by.

Pretty soon along came a cheerful brown sparrow.

"What is the trouble, little boy?" chirped the sparrow.

"My kite doesn't know how to fly," said little boy Robin.

The cheerful sparrow began to hop up and down in the garden path in front of the kite. He spread his wings and flapped them, and said: —

"This way and that way, just stand up and try.
That's the way father taught me how to fly."

The kite just lay very still, and presently the cheerful sparrow flew off to gather straw and hen's feathers for a new nest.

Little boy Robin cried two more tears, until a withered last year's leaf heard him and rustled, —

"Look at the tops of the garden trees,
Something is coming — a new little breeze!"

Robin looked up very high. Surely, the tops of the trees were moving. He kept very still, for he did not wish to frighten the new little breeze. At last down came the breeze to the ground and began tugging at the kite's tail, but still the kite would not fly. Off went the breeze and came back with two other little breezes, who pushed and pulled, too; but the kite would not fly.

"I'll make that kite fly if it takes me all day.
Let's go to the woods where the west wind's at play,"
said the first little breeze.

So the three little breezes hurried off to find the old west wind, and they told him all about the kite in little boy Robin's garden that would not fly.

"Oh, ho," said the old west wind, "we'll see about that directly."

Down the road went the old west wind, with the three little breezes in front to show him the way. Over the gate he rushed and pulled off little boy Robin's red cap and tossed it into the currant bushes. Then in half a minute he made the kite stand and spread its tail, and off it flew as far as the string would let it go. Why, it even wanted to go on farther. You can't think how it tugged and tugged.

So Robin ran up and down the garden path with the kite flying high behind him. The old gray mole came out of his tunnel to see. The brown sparrow stopped with a bill full of nest stuff to watch. The withered last year's leaf followed merrily along the path. And little boy Robin waved his red mitten to grandfather in the kitchen window to tell him that the little new kite had learned how to fly. — Caroline S. Bailey, in Kindergarten Review.

Note: Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.