THE RUNAWAY KITE
The sunset pictures made a better showing as lithographs than even their
young creator could have hoped, and the _Issaquena County Weather
Review_ became a source of personal pride to every one in the
neighborhood. The farmers and planters vied with each other in giving
information of weather happenings and the little publication was never
short of "copy."
"Dan'l," said Fred to his chief assistant, one day, "I'm going to print
an article on 'Weather Superstitions.'"
"Yas, suh," said the darky, wondering what was coming.
"And you're going to write it."
"Ah write it? Sho', now, you'se jokin', Mistah Fred. Ah can't even write
my own name."
"I know that. You don't need to write, Dan'l. You're going to collect
every rhyme and proverb and saying about the weather you can hunt up in
the neighborhood. Get Mammy Crockett to tell you all she knows. Then you
must repeat it to me. I'll write it down word for word, and it'll be
your article."
"If yo' wrote it down, it wouldn't be mine," objected Dan'l.
"Oh, yes, it would," the editor-in-chief assured him, "some of the
greatest authors in the world dictate their books."
So Dan'l went all around the neighborhood, announcing that he was a
"sho' enough autho' now," and so full of delight that there was no
holding him in at all. He proved a good collector of superstitions,
moreover, and when at last the article came out in the _Review_, it was
so complete and so original that it was reprinted in one of the big
Folk-Lore Magazines.
The visit of the journeyman printer had been of great value. Fred had
been shown just how the work should be done and his pride was involved
in keeping the paper up to the standard. Moreover, the Irishman had
secured a large box of discarded type from a printing firm in Vicksburg,
and had forwarded this to the boys. Fred returned the courtesy by
mailing Mike a copy of the _Review_ regularly, and Mike occasionally
sent a package of the printing trade magazines that he found lying
around the shop. Fred picked up many hints from these and thus secured
quite a good start in his knowledge of the printing trade.
The "official photographer" had been equally successful. One day, while
up on the levee trying to take a satisfactory picture of an elusive
"mackerel sky," which was changing from moment to moment, he met a
stranger. This stranger was sitting on a log that projected into the
river, holding a rod and line, and landing fish with an accustomed
skill.
"What in blazes are you trying to photograph?" he said after a while, as
he watched the lad focussing his camera earthwards on what looked like a
piece of black glass, which projected from the stand.
"Clouds, sir," answered Ralph.
"When I try to photograph clouds I look at the sky, not on the ground,"
the stranger remarked. "What's that contrivance you've got on your
camera stand, anyway?"
"It's just a broken piece of looking glass," said the boy, "but I
painted it on the back with black enamel."
"What for?"
"So that I could get at the clouds easier, sir," the boy replied. "I
read how to do that in a book I've got."
"I don't see why black glass should make any difference," said the
fisherman, getting up from the log and coming over to where the boy was
standing.
"It does, sir. If you look on the glass," said Ralph, "you'll see. The
clouds are ever so much sharper."
The stranger looked in. Even the fleecy white clouds, scarcely visible
in the blue sky overhead, stood out a clear white against the blackness
of the mirror. The blue sky was not reflected in the glass.
"That's queer," said the stranger, "the blue hardly shows at all. I
wonder why?"
"It said in the book," Ralph explained, "that the blue didn't show up so
much because it was partly polarized. I couldn't quite understand what
that meant. As far as I could make out, the blue color of the sky is due
to waves that are scattered sideways instead of coming straight down
like the white light does."
"I suppose it is polarized," said the fisherman, "but it hadn't ever
occurred to me that the sky wouldn't be reflected in a black mirror.
You're right, though. The clouds do stand out well! You ought to be able
to get some good pictures from your mirror."
"I have got a lot, sir," said Ralph. "I've made three cloud photographs
every day, rain or shine, for over two months now."
"Every day?"
"Yes, sir, before breakfast, after dinner, and just before I begin my
evening chores."
"What's the idea of that?"
Finding a ready listener, Ralph plunged into the story of the
Mississippi Weather League and of his crippled friend, Anton.
"It's a mighty useful piece of work," the fisherman commented, when the
lad had finished, "and I'm especially interested in these cloud
photographs of yours. I need some. Have you any prints of them?"
"Yes, sir," was the reply, "heaps."
"If they're really any good, I might be able to use a few," the
fisherman continued. "I'm writing a series of articles for an outdoor
magazine and I want some Mississippi River pictures pretty badly. Mine
haven't come out particularly well."
"I'll show you all I've got," eagerly replied Ralph, and, a little
later, he took the stranger home with him.
There he displayed, not only his cloud photographs, but also all the
snap-shots he had made with his camera during the three years he had
owned it. The magazine writer was highly delighted, for many of the
pictures were exactly what he needed, and when he went away he took with
him thirty photographs, for which he paid Ralph, as he said, the
"regular price" of three dollars apiece.
"That's what they'd have to pay if they bought them from any of the news
photo houses," he remarked, "and you might as well get the same."
To Ralph this ninety dollars was a fortune. He offered to turn the
entire sum over to the League, or at least that part of it which had
been paid for the cloud photographs. Ross vetoed this offer, on the
ground that the League itself had not earned the money. Instead, Ralph
put away some of the cash and with the rest he bought a new lens for his
camera. With this lens he was able to take cloud pictures even better
than his former ones.
A few weeks later, at the next Monthly Feast of the League, Ralph came
proudly forward with a collection of over one hundred cloud
photographs.
"I don't see, fellows," he said, "why we all couldn't have a shot at
observing the clouds. I was talking to Anton the other day, and he
didn't seem to know anything about the names of the clouds at all. I dug
'em up from a book I've got at home. I was thinking that it would be
rather jolly if each member of the League had a set of cloud photographs
for himself, with the right names of the clouds and all that sort of
thing on the back. It isn't much trouble to make prints."
"I'd like to have a set, Ralph," said Ross promptly. "I hate to feel
like a dub and not know about the clouds. It's like not knowing any of
the stars."
"There certainly ought to be a set in the office of the _Review_,"
declared its editor-in-chief.
"I've been wondering," began Anton, "whether Mr. Levin wouldn't pick out
the best ones and tell us exactly what they are. I had an awful job
trying to get Ralph to bring his pictures to-day; he said he wanted to
wait until he had perfect ones."
"You'll wait a long time, my boy," the Forecaster put in, "if you wait
until you have a perfect set. I don't know of such a set anywhere in
the world. Clayden, in England, has got some fine examples--"
"It's his book I've got," interrupted Ralph.
"There are a few good pictures in that," the weather expert said.
"Loisel, in France, has some good examples and our own Weather Bureau
has done quite a little cloud work. But those I've seen of yours, Ralph,
are quite good. If you like, I'll go over them for you and pick out the
ones that are the most characteristic. Your plan to give a set to each
of the boys is quite worth while. Let's see the pictures, Ralph."
The "official photographer" pulled out, from a bulging inside pocket, a
large bundle of photographic prints and spread them on the table. The
collection included both the pictures Ralph had taken with his new lens
and some of the old ones intensified in the way that his visitor had
showed him. They made a striking contrast, in their vivid black and
white, to the cloud pictures, printed in a pale blue, issued by the
Weather Bureau.
"I think Ralph's pictures are away ahead of the Weather Bureau ones,"
declared Fred.
The Forecaster shook his head.
"Some of them are prettier pictures," he said, "but the Weather Bureau
sheet is chosen to help observers classify the clouds. If you notice
that blue sheet of cloud forms that Washington has issued, you'll notice
that they are very carefully selected and that you really can tell the
various types of cloud from them. At the same time, clouds are hard to
classify, because, at any given time, you're looking at a stretch of
sky--counting the separate layers of cloud--several hundred square miles
in extent, and, generally, there are many different types of cloud in
the sky at the same time."
"How many kinds of clouds does the Weather Bureau name?" asked Anton.
"Ten," was the reply. "There are lots of variations in those main
groups, but that's enough to begin on. The general idea of the
classification is by the heights of clouds, the Cirrus group being the
highest, from about six to ten miles, the Alto group, ranging from two
to six miles, and the Cumulus and Stratus groups below that. Here," he
continued, picking out a photograph that showed only a few faint specks
of white, "is a true Cirrus. It is the highest of the clouds, and, as
you can see from the photograph, it is delicate and fibrous. This one,
that looks like the ghosts of feathers, is another form.
"Cirrus clouds always appear to move slowly, because they're so high up.
As a matter of fact, they fly along at the rate of from one hundred to
two hundred miles an hour, and generally in an easterly direction. This
photo that looks as if the clouds were a whole pile of spiders' webs,
all mixed up, is the second class of clouds, known as Cirro-Stratus. Did
you happen to notice, Ralph, whether there was a halo round the sun when
you took this?"
"Yes, sir, there was," the boy answered, "but it hasn't showed up on the
plate. I've got some halo pictures at home, but I didn't think of
bringing them along. I just brought my cloud stuff this time."
"Well," said the Forecaster, "suppose you put one of those in here as an
example of cirro-stratus. There couldn't be a halo without it. All the
upper clouds are made of ice crystals and it is the refraction of the
sunlight through these ice crystals that forms most halos. By the way,
boys, don't confuse a halo with a corona. They're quite easy to tell
apart, because a halo, unless it is one of the unusual white ones,
always has red as the inside color and a corona always has the red on
the outside."
"How can I tell them apart on a photograph plate, sir?" asked Ralph.
"That doesn't show any colors."
"By their distance from the sun," the meteorologist replied. "Halos are
seldom seen except at distances of about twenty-two degrees and
forty-six degrees from the sun. There are lots of others, but they are
rare. You'll soon learn to catch those distances by eye. Coronas are
usually much smaller.
"I think one of the most striking forms of cirro-stratus is the polar
'band,' which stretches from one side of the sky to the other, like a
wide white road."
"Ah knows that one, Mistah Levin," put in Dan'l. "Noah, he done stretch
that road for the animals to get out of the Ark."
The Forecaster glanced at the aged darky.
"You certainly did manage to pick up a lot of queer superstitions in
that article of yours, Dan'l. I've heard that cloud called a Noah's Ark
cloud, but I never knew why."
"Yas, suh; oh, yas, suh," Dan'l repeated earnestly, "Noah, he done make
that cloud, jest like the rainbow was made to convince Noah that there
weren't goin' to be no more floods."
"A high cirro-stratus which looks as if some cream had been poured on
the blue sky and hadn't mixed properly yet," the Forecaster continued,
"is cirro-nebula. It's very hard to photograph, and even when you do get
it on a plate, it doesn't look like much.
"Now the third one in the classification is very familiar. That's the
well-known mackerel sky. What's the rhyme about that, Dan'l?"
Proud at being thus appealed to, the darky quoted triumphantly:
"Mackerel scales and mares' tails,
Make lofty ships carry low sails."
"That's correct," said the weather expert, "because those clouds
foretell wind. Sometimes the cloud flakes are less solid and look like
the foam in the wake of a steamer.
"Beneath them come the alto clouds, which are made up of drops of
moisture instead of crystals of ice. The fourth class, called
alto-stratus, is a thick sheet of gray or bluish color, sometimes thin
enough to let the sun shine through. When lower and in heavy roundish
masses it's called alto-cumulus, which is the fifth on the list, and
when it is lower still and looks like a lot of great blue-gray footballs
wedged closely together it is known as strato-cumulus."
He shuffled the prints rapidly, selecting types of clouds as he did so,
and pencilling on the back the character of the cloud.
"Then comes the cumulus, the big round cloud, that looks like masses of
fluffy cotton wool piled on top of each other. These are the 'woolpack
clouds,' which, in summer time, throw deep shadows on the grass. It is
this cloud which, when it comes between you and the sun, gives rise to
the old saying that 'every cloud has its silver lining.'"
"Those aren't the thunder clouds, sir, are they?" the photographer
asked.
"No," the Forecaster answered. "The thunderstorm clouds are called
cumulo-nimbus. They're heavy masses of cloud rising in the forms of
mountains or towers. Isn't there a rhyme about clouds and towers,
Dan'l?"
"Yas, suh, there's a rhyme," the old darky replied, and he quoted:
"When clouds resemble domes an' towers
The earth is wet with frequent showers."
"That, boys," the weather expert said, "is another true proverb, because
the description applies to thunderstorm clouds, when the rain is likely
to fall in frequent showers."
"It doesn't look like a regular rainy sky, though, Mr. Levin," said
Anton. "I thought rainy skies were usually heavy and gray."
"They are," the Forecaster answered, "and the Weather Bureau gives all
the rain clouds the general name of Nimbus, which simply means a thick
layer of dark clouds, without shape and with ragged edges, through which
rain or snow falls steadily. Sometimes, when there is a powerful wind in
the cloud layer, the lower edges of the clouds are broken apart, or
loose clouds are seen traveling fast under the overlying gray. Sailors
call this scud."
"Mr. Levin, suh," broke in Dan'l, "Ah knows a rhyme for scud, too," and
he quoted:
"Scud above and scud below
Shows there's goin' to be a blow."
"Well," said the Forecaster, hesitating, "that's not quite as good as
some of the others, because you don't see scud until the wind has
already come. As a whole, though, it's right, because it implies that
the atmospheric currents are powerful, and if the rain disappears, a
wind is likely to follow. I noticed you missed the rhyme about the rain
before the wind, in your article, Dan'l," he continued.
"Yas, suh!" the darky answered, "Ah don't know that one."
"It runs like this," the Forecaster answered:
"When the rain comes before the wind,
Be sure to take your topsails in,
When the wind comes before the rain,
You can put them on again."
"That's a good one, too, because high winds and steady rain seldom go
together.
"The last type of clouds, which is Number Ten in the Weather Bureau
Classification, is called Stratus. It really looks like a lifted fog,
which sometimes it is. Indeed, there is no essential difference between
clouds and fogs, anyway, except that fogs are formed at the surface and
clouds above it."
"All clouds are fogs, sir?" said Anton, in a surprised voice.
"Yes, my boy. Clouds are visible water vapor. Their visibility depends
largely on condensation, just as rain depends largely on the
dew-point."
"What's the dew-point, sir?"
"The dew-point," the Forecaster explained, "is the temperature at which
the air becomes so full of vapor that it can't hold any more without
letting it down as rain or snow. It's never the same any two days in
succession, because the air can hold more water vapor when it is warm
than when it is cold."
"Is that why muggy days are so uncomfortable?" asked Ross.
"Yes. When the air is full of water vapor, it hasn't the same readiness
to absorb it. When you perspire on a dry, hot, windy day, the air
absorbs it right away, but on a day that's humid or muggy, the air can't
hold any more, so it doesn't evaporate and the perspiration trickles
down your back and into your eyes. A moist climate feels hotter in the
summer and colder in the winter than a dry one, although, in reality, it
isn't as hot or as cold. Every moist climate is a cloudy climate, and
Ireland--which is called the Green or Emerald Isle because there's so
much rain that none of the vegetation ever dries up--has some of the
most beautiful clouds in the world."
"Is there any place in the United States without clouds?" asked Ralph.
"There's no place in the world that's absolutely cloudless," was the
answer, "but clouds in some deserts are few and far between. There's one
well known hotel, in the Southwest, that advertises 'free board every
day that the sun doesn't shine.' It's a safe offer, too, for last year
they only lost two days on it. There are some clouds there, but not such
as to obscure the sun.
"In a cloudless country, boys, there are great extremes of temperature,
as much as forty to fifty degrees between noon and midnight. You'll get
sunstroke in the early part of the afternoon and shiver under blankets
in the evening. That's because there are no protecting layers of clouds
to equalize the radiation. The air, especially high up, is very cold.
Don't forget that the upper clouds are all made of ice crystals."
"I've been wondering," said Anton, "how you can find out that it's so
cold high up in the air if no one can live up there?"
"Balloonists have often passed through clouds of ice crystals and snow,"
the Forecaster answered, "though, of course, they've not been as high as
the upper clouds. Many observations have been made by releasing small
sounding balloons with an instrument attached, letting them go as high
as they could, until they burst and fell to the ground. But much of our
upper-air exploring has also been done with kites."
"Kites? Like Franklin's?"
"Not quite," said the Forecaster; "our weather kites aren't built like
that. They look more like a box. I'm expecting one here, every day."
"Here?"
"Yes, boys," the Forecaster answered, "right here. There's a young chap
I know who used to work with William A. Eddy, of New Jersey, the father
of scientific kite-flying in this country. I wrote to young Osborne, and
sent him a copy of the _Issaquena County Weather Review_, the one with
the sunset articles and pictures in it."
"Osborne, sir!" ejaculated the editor-in-chief, "I got his subscription
just a week ago."
"Did you?" said the Forecaster, interested. "That's nice of him! He
wrote to me that he was constantly improving his kite models and that he
had a couple of old ones which he now seldom flew. He sent me their
records, too, so I know they must be good kites. He wanted to know if
the Mississippi League of the Weather wouldn't do some kite-flying and
send him records of the observations."
"Would we?" cried the enthusiastic Monroe. "I should say we would!"
"It means quite a bit of trouble," the weather expert warned them;
"scientific kite-flying needs machinery."
"Why, sir?" asked Ross. "Can't we do it by hand?"
"No," was the reply, "you can't. How would you reel the kite home? It's
a very different thing sending up a Japanese paper kite on a string a
few hundred feet in the air, and making an ascent of a couple of miles
with a weather kite. For one thing, the weather kite is flown with wire
and an especially strong kind of wire at that."
"Where will we get the wire?"
"I've advanced the money for it," the Forecaster answered, "and for the
shipment of the kites. I thought, perhaps, after a while, we might hold
a kite contest and charge an admission fee, because, as you know, I
think the League should be on a self-supporting basis. I'll render you a
bill, then, and you can pay me."
"Thanks ever so much, sir," said Ross. "That's fine. We'll do it. But
who's to have charge of the kite-flying?"
"That's your affair," the Forecaster answered. "I've nothing to do with
the inner workings of the League."
"I've been wondering," said Anton, "if Tom oughtn't to do it. He's our
wind expert."
Tom flushed with pleasure at the suggestion.
"I haven't done much on the wind stuff," he admitted; "there didn't seem
anything to do but to take measurements and things."
"I seem to remember reading them weekly in the _Review_," the Forecaster
remarked.
"Oh, I've done it all regularly enough, but it didn't seem to be of much
use," the boy said.
"You'll find that it will be of a great deal of use in the League's kite
work," the weather expert rejoined.
"I think Anton's right," put in Ross. "Hands up those who think Tom
ought to do it."
Every hand shot up in the air.
Tom shuffled his feet on the ground and squirmed uneasily.
"All right," he said, "I'll try. You'll tell us what to do, Mr. Levin."
The next few weeks were busy ones for the Mississippi League of the
Weather. The building of the kite reel, more than anything else, gave
the boys a sense of the power of the new force that they were going to
handle. The _Weather Review_ announced the expected arrival of the two
kites, and the interest of the neighborhood was aroused.
Not since the days of the Civil War had anything given the farmers of
the district as much to talk about as did the weekly issues of the
_Issaquena County Weather Review_, and the people of the county took the
keenest interest in all the doings of the League. Fred had been anxious
to make the paper bigger and more important, as soon as it became
flourishing, but he was held back in this by the conservative and
laconic Bob. The wireless expert showed him that as long as the paper
was kept small and easy to get out, it could be kept good. As a result,
everything had to be condensed, and every bit of the little sheet was
interesting. Twice the _Review_ was quoted in important meteorological
journals and various weather periodicals were sent as exchanges to the
office. It meant a lot of work for the editor-in-chief, but Fred's
father, realizing that the post was an excellent training for his son,
released him from all his Saturday chores.
At last the word came that the kites had actually arrived. A farm wagon
was sent in to fetch the wooden cases, and that wagon, when it drove
into town, had every member of the League on board, all excited and
chattering like so many magpies. Rex and Lassie, the pair of four-legged
members of the League, also came along to give dignity to the occasion.
Permission had been secured from Tom's father to use part of the pasture
as a kite-flying station, and, bright and early the next Saturday, the
League gathered at the wind-measurer's home to see the cases unpacked.
Mr. Levin also came, to give advice and suggestions.
"What's the direction of the wind, Tom?" he asked.
The boy glanced up at his home-made weather-vane, which had been
adjusted so that it was right to the fraction of a degree.
"South-southeast, sir," he said.
"Is it steady or veering?" the weather expert continued. He was anxious
that Tom should feel the importance of his wind observations. "What was
it this morning?"
"I'll see, sir," said Tom, and hurried into the house for his book on
wind observations, which he had kept faithfully, though, in all the five
months of the League's work, there had been no opportunity to make use
of them.
"It was south--a quarter--east this morning," he answered quite
importantly.
"And what is the present velocity?" came the next query.
Tom ran up the short ladder to the dial of his Robinson anemometer or
wind-measurer. This consisted of four cup-shaped pieces of metal
fastened to four arms at right angles to each other, and set
horizontally in a socket. The force of the wind on the open cup-shaped
sides was so much stronger than on the convex or rounded sides that the
anemometer whirled around quite rapidly.
"Say," said one of the boys as he watched Tom, "I didn't know he had all
this down so pat! It's great!"
"Fourteen miles an hour, sir," said Tom, as he ran down the ladder, "by
the anemometer dial."
"Well," the Forecaster replied, "fourteen miles an hour is a good enough
breeze for kite-flying. How about it, boys? Shall we try a flight
to-day?"
"Oh, let's!" the boys exclaimed.
"Very well," said the Forecaster, "we'll put the kites together. Have
any of you ever seen a weather kite?" he queried.
"I've seen a picture of one, sir," said Fred. "I saw it in one of the
Weather Bureau booklets. It looked like a box with the ends knocked out.
Are these like that?"
"Yes," the weather expert replied, "all over the world the Hargrave or
box kite is used. There's a little difference in the methods of bracing
the frames, but the principle of them all is the same."
"Are they the best kites for lifting, sir?" asked Anton. "I saw a
picture, once, of a man being carried along the ground by a kite, but it
didn't look like this. It was like a lot of little triangles all piled
one on top of the other."
"That's a different kind," the Forecaster answered, "it's called a
tetrahedral kite, and was invented by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. They
will lift a man quite easily. Owing to the form of construction, they're
much heavier and harder to handle and they won't go up as high. The box
kites fly higher and more easily. They'll go up even in the lightest
wind, and that's quite important, boys, because you must remember that
sometimes there's quite a strong wind in the upper layers of the air
when there's only a zephyr below. As you see, boys, this kite consists
simply of four long sticks arranged in a square, with one third of the
length at either end covered with a specially treated and tightly
stretched muslin."
He was working rapidly as he talked, and, before long the kite was
assembled, the wire attached and wound on the reel and all was ready for
launching.
"Will that wire hold it, sir?" asked Ross, as he noted the extremely
fine line that the Forecaster was using.
"Certainly, it's piano wire. It's only a thirty-second part of an inch
in diameter, but it will stand a pull of nearly three hundred pounds.
That's more than you could pull. More even than Monroe could pull, and
he's the strongest of you."
"Couldn't I hold one of those small kites, sir?" asked Monroe.
"Yes," the Forecaster said, "you could with a well-made hand reel, and
if the wind wasn't too strong. But your arms would soon give out. Of
course, the pull of a kite depends on the amount of square feet of sail
area. Anton," he added, turning to the crippled lad, "you're the
mathematician of the League, measure that kite and tell us how many
square feet of sail area it has."
Anton took a foot rule from his pocket and measured the kite rapidly.
"A trifle over thirty-six feet, sir," he said. "I can give you the
fractions, if you like."
"No, that's near enough," said the Forecaster. "Thirty-six feet of sail
area in a fourteen mile wind will lift nearly twenty pounds of wire and,
probably, will have a pull of about sixty pounds. I don't think you'd
care to stand a sixty-pound drag very long, Monroe. We'll let our new
reel do the work."
"About how high could we make this kite go, sir?" asked Tom. "Does that
depend on the wind?"
"No," the Forecaster answered, "it depends on the sail area of the kite
and the weight of the wire. Ten square feet of sail area will lift three
pounds or, a thousand feet of wire. There are over five thousand feet to
a mile, and a kite usually ascends at about an angle of forty-five
degrees. So, if you allow for sag and so forth, you'd have to put out
eight or nine thousand feet of wire to reach a mile, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," said Tom, "I guess that's how it would go."
"It's an awful lot of line," commented Fred.
"Therefore," said the Forecaster, "if ten square feet will lift a
thousand feet of wire, for eight thousand feet, you'd need eighty
square feet of sail area."
"Then even the two of these together aren't big enough to go up a mile!"
cried Tom.
"A mile is pretty high, my boy," said the Forecaster; "you've never seen
a kite go up a quarter as far."
"What's the highest flight that ever was made?" queried Tom.
"America holds the World's Record," was the answer. "The United States
Weather Bureau sent up a string of kites at Mount Weather, in Virginia,
that ascended higher than four miles and a quarter, 21,385 feet above
the reel, to be exact."
"How many kites did they use?" Tom asked.
"Eight," the Forecaster answered, "with a lifting surface of five
hundred and forty-four square feet of sail area. There wouldn't have
been much chance for you, Monroe, if you'd tried to hold that bunch in
your hand. The kites would have picked you off the ground and whisked
away with you like a piece of rag tied to the tail of a Japanese kite.
There," he concluded as he stepped back, "I think we're ready now. Tom,
how's the wind?"
The official wind-measurer ran up the ladder to his dial, calculated
rapidly and answered:
"Freshening, sir. It's about seventeen miles an hour, now."
"That's all right," the weather expert declared. "Tom, you start her
off."
"What do I do, sir?" asked the boy.
"Just toss the kite in the air," the Forecaster answered.
"Don't I have to run with it?"
"Not a step, except when the wind is very light. Off with you!"
Tom carried the kite about a hundred feet, the line paying out as he
went, and waited the word. The boys clustered around the reel excitedly.
Monroe went along with Tom. Rex also wanted to follow, but as Ross was
afraid that he might jump at the kite and tear it with his teeth, though
in play, he called the terrier back.
"Ross," then said the Forecaster, "you take the time of the flight, and
Anton, I think you'd better watch the reel and see that the line doesn't
foul."
The excitement of the boys grew intense. The box kite looked so unlike
any of the kites that they had flown that some wondered whether it
would go up in the air. Fred, in his capacity as editor, having seen a
picture of a box-kite up in the air, was quite arrogant in his
assurances that it would really fly.
"Are you ready?" the Forecaster said, watching the whirling anemometer.
"Throw!"
At the word, Tom gave the kite a light toss in the air, against the
direction of the wind, as indicated.
The kite swayed from side to side, but having four surfaces to the wind,
did not swoop and dive like the flat kites. Only half a dozen times did
it dart from side to side, then the current of the wind caught it at the
right angle and it began to climb up into the air.
Tom waved his cap at it with an excited cheer, in which all the boys
joined.
The first kite-flight of the League was on!
Smaller and smaller grew the kite, climbing until it was almost out of
sight. The rattle of the reel, as the wire ran out, was music in the
boys' ears. When the half-mile mark on the wire was passed, the
Forecaster said:
"I think that's enough for a first flight, boys. Better pull her in."
Some of the boys begged that the kite might be allowed to go up a
little higher, but the home-made reel was a trifle rickety and would
need strengthening. Winding the reel by hand took quite a long time, but
the kite came to the ground, safely, unharmed.
From that time on, kite-flying became a passion with the boys. The
official measurements of the Weather Bureau kites were secured, together
with diagrams showing exactly how the kites were to be built. Before a
month was over, every member had a kite, and, as kite-races were to be
held, every boy had to build his kite himself, absolutely without any
outside help. It was nothing less than amazing to see how these kites,
all built on the same pattern by different boys, behaved differently. It
seemed almost as if the characters of the boys appeared in their kites.
Bob's was the slowest and most powerful, Anton's the fastest but behaved
poorly in a strong wind, Monroe's was absolutely useless in a zephyr.
Tom, who up to that time, had felt that his share in the work of the
League was extremely small, now found himself of great importance. He
thought of kites in every spare minute of the day and dreamed of kites
at night. His father had to forbid the mention of the word "kite" at
meal-times. The lad made fliers of every shape and pattern, and his
kites were usually so stable that it was upon his model that the
meteorograph was fastened which registered the pressure, humidity and
temperature of the air and the velocity of the wind, according to the
request of the young fellow who had sent the League the two first kites.
The _Issaquena County Weather Review_ was compelled to run a regular
weekly feature of "Kite Records" and few were the weeks without a
flight.
At last came the fateful Saturday, the last Saturday in October, the day
set for the kite races. Many of the boys had made new kites for the
occasion and all had overhauled them. Secret practice flights had been
made and the rivalry was keen. What was the wind going to be like? Would
the day be fine? It was hinted that Tom had some special secret, but
what it was no one knew, unless, perhaps, the Forecaster. The event had
been quite widely advertised--had it not appeared in the _Review_!--and
the neighborhood gathered as though to a country fair. The roped
inclosure was full of people and the dimes which rattled into the dried
gourd more than paid up the club's indebtedness for the wire and the
shipment of the kites.
There were all kinds of races, races for speed, to see whose kite would
reach a certain height the soonest; races for steadiness; races for
altitude. Anton created great excitement by sending up one of the
puppies in a basket attached to a parachute fastened to a kite which was
released when he pulled a string. It was a big parachute and a small
puppy, so that no one feared for the pup's safety.
Ross then came forward with his big kite. It could not be entered in the
races, because all the kites for racing had been of standard size.
"What are those little balls?" one of the boys asked, pointing to
bundles covered with paper and attached to a leading string, which were
fastened at fifty-foot intervals to the leading wire.
"You'll see," said Ross, and up went the big kite. It flew steadily and
well and when a couple of hundred yards above the ground, he made it
fast to one of the stakes. Then, while every one watched, he gave the
leading string a sharp tug, and then a succession of pulls, breaking
loose each of the little bundles attached to the leading wire. And, as
the people looked, first one and then another American flag burst out of
its covering, the lowermost and largest bundle being a big Stars and
Stripes that floated out gallantly above the kite-ground.
"Now," said Ross, turning to the Kite-Master, as the boys had begun to
call Tom, "out with your secret! What is it?"
Tom turned to the Forecaster.
"Is it all right for to-day?" he asked.
The weather expert looked keenly at the sky, glanced at the weather-vane
and the whirling anemometer, and nodded his head.
"I think so," he said. "The weather's a little gusty, but this is the
time to try. Nothing venture, nothing have!"
At the word, Tom ran off into the house. The boys watched him, wondering
what new contrivance the Kite-Master was going to produce.
He reappeared in a moment, carrying with him a new kite, a little larger
than the others, but of the same usual pattern. This was not
particularly exciting. He laid the kite down on the ground and ran into
the house again. In a moment, he was out again with another.
"Going to fly them tandem?" asked Ross.
Tom did not answer. He laid that one on the ground and returned into the
house again.
"Do you suppose he's got three?" Anton asked. This was amazing riches,
three kites. All the boys knew what a tremendous amount of careful and
exacting work went into the making of even one of them.
Out darted Tom and laid a third and then a fourth kite on the ground.
The four great kites, each of them with the forward part white and the
rear section painted black, made a noble showing in the afternoon sun.
Ralph, with his ever-ready camera, stepped forward.
"Wait a minute," said Tom, "I've got another one," and he darted into
the house to get it. He returned a moment later with a fifth kite,
similar in every detail to the other four and then, readily enough,
posed beside the kites for his picture. Overhead flew the Stars and
Stripes.
"I want that for the _Review_," said Fred.
"What are you going to do, Tom?" asked Ross.
Tom hesitated a moment and then announced:
"I'm going to try for a world's record!"
The audacity of this startled the boys for a moment, and then a shout
went up, while word was passed around the crowd that Issaquena County
was going to try for the kite record of the world.
The first kite, which no one but Tom and the Forecaster had yet seen in
flight, took the air and was off. Tom gave it four hundred feet of line
and then fastened his second kite, which he let run up until eight
hundred feet more of the line was out. The wind was now stronger,
registering twenty-two miles an hour. The three lower kites were run in
tandem, about two hundred feet of line apart. When the last of the five
kites was still on the ground, the topmost one was out of sight, and the
kites were carrying only a fraction of the weight of wire that their
lifting surface could bear.
"I'm afraid of it, sir," said Tom, his finger on the wire that was
running from the reel, "it doesn't feel right."
"Probably your lower kite is in gusts," the Forecaster answered. "Let
her go up, there may be calmer wind higher. Fasten on your three small
ones, now, Tom; you might as well have all the sail area that you can."
The eighth kite was started on its journey upwards. Only those with the
strongest eyes now could see the second group of three, the first pair
was far out of sight.
With Anton carefully measuring the angle of altitude and giving Tom the
figures in a low voice, Tom, watching the registering apparatus on the
reel, suddenly announced:
"Two miles up!"
The reel rattled merrily as the line was paid out, the brake keeping it
at exactly a uniform pressure under Tom's skillful guiding.
"Two miles and a half!"
The crowd began to press around the reel. Nothing was visible in the
air, now, nothing but a thin piece of wire leading up into the sky. Had
no one known that the kites were there, high above the clouds, it would
have seemed like black magic. Some of the superstitious negroes began to
mutter among themselves.
"Three miles!"
The boys yelled in delight.
"Up with her, Tom!" cried Fred.
"It's the amateur world's record!" announced the Forecaster.
The words were scarcely out of his lips when there came a sudden sharp
crack. The kite-wire snapped close by the reel and as it curled on
itself the coils appeared to run up into the sky.
"Gone! My kites are gone!" cried Tom, and a perfect howl of
disappointment went up from all the boys.
"Gone!" cried the Forecaster, "of course they're gone, but we're going
after them!"
Throwing himself on the back of an old mule which a darky had ridden to
the kite ground, he started full tilt after the disappearing wire, the
whole membership of the League streaming at his heels.