long strings. One little boy about eight years 
old, who had been wanting a kite for a long 
time, had received one that morning. for his 
birthday present. Proudly he took it out into 
the street in the hope that he might get it sent 
up high like the kites of the big boys. But - 
before it had gone very high it made a sudden 
dive and fell into one of the big apple trees in 
John Baukman’s lot. Old John chanced to see 
it, so, picking up a ladder, he walked down to the 
apple tree, leaned it against a limb, and, climbing 
up, took down the kite, while the little boy and 
his friends watched from the other side of the 
fence. Then John stamped on the kite and, 
throwing the broken stays and pasted paper over 
the fence, told the boys to “be gone.” The little 
owner of the kite cried as if his heart would 
break, and the older boys made faces at John 
Baukman. They told him what they would do 
to him when they grew to be men. 
Just then someone called John from the 
house and he went back to find that the sheriff, 
whose visit he had so long dreaded, had 
arrived to take charge of the property, and 
AS 
