Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1879 — THE KITE THAT FLEW A BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE KITE THAT FLEW A BOY.

“ KiTE«rat« almost over, little Ning It was thejrat fan-maker who was speaking* Pongee Wongee; and he looked window while Ning was making hisehopsticks fly in and out of a bowl of nee. “ Almost; jmclb,” he said, sorrowfully. ’ - '?:■ It was in China land. The trees werddbQvered with gold, purple and scarlet raaves, that looked like tiny kites. Sd%Jj|gpeat wind would set them to flyinmjjw as little mandarins spinning the air in their bright robes of Wk, and then would come winter. Wio could fly kites in .winter? Little Ning Tingfeat in a high chair, for his legs were and the table before him was tall. Tft '•“Look out, Ning Ting,” said his mother. “ You will tumble out of that chair. Why, you almost went over then! You are sleepy, and you gave a tremendous nod.”;’ /“Did I? Oh! I won’t go over, mother.” “Yes, you will; and fat boys, you know, when they begin to go, go with a rush.*’ ‘tOtit Iwon’t tumble. lam only thinkI to say he was thinking of something wrong. He did want to have one more good time kite-flying, and there was a kite in the next house belonging to his little neighbor Foo Choo, a big blue and red and white kite, and the covering was soft, bright silk. Little Ning Ting had been an honest bey, but a big temptation came to him that day. How would it do to get Foo Choo’s kite and fly it a day, a week, all the time—yes, keep it? Here the sleepy Ning Ting gave a fearful bob with his head. If he had not been put together strong, he would certainly have bobbed his head off. What was he thinking about? That kite? He had a great mind to go and get it. “ No, no, that won’t do!” He heard a voice. Uncle Pongee Wongee seemed to be speaking. “Don’t you remember, little Ning Ting, what I told you one day when making a fan for the Emperor of China himself? It is wrong to do sin, and it is wrong also to think sin. That is the way temptation grows. It comes as a thought, and, if we don’t turn it out of doors, by-and-by it will turn us out. Don’t have anything to do with a wrong thought. Don’t play in your mind with temptation. It will get the better of you, hurry you off a captive and hold you in its power. Don’t think sin. Stop at the beginning.” “Ob, nonsense!” said Ning Ting to himself. “Uncle Pongee Wongee has got very strict since going to the chapel of the missionary man.” Little Ning Ting now gave another tremendous nod, and the tired boy bobbed so that his mother almost exE acted to see his head with its yellow air go right off and roll like a ripe, round pumpkin across the table. “ Ning Ting, you will be over. Look out!”

“Oh! I won’t mother. I am only thinking.” At last Ning Ting had a horrid thought, and began *to act in accordance with it. He stole softly, when no one was looking, to Foo Choo’s shed, where he kept the bright silk kite. “ Was anybody looking?” No. He stole around the corner of the shed (anybody looking?), stole through the door, stole up a little ladder. There on the floor of a little room where Foo Choo’s father kept hay in winter and hay-seed in summer was the kite. Anybody looking now? Yes, he was about taking the kite Whish-sh-sh! Ning Ting almost dropped the kite in his fear. A big black cat with big yellow eyes ran from behind the kite, and went tearing down the ladder. “What a fright you gave me, old puss! But what a pretty Kite! How I wish it could be mine! But there, I won’t steal it. I will only take it out and fly it. How I wish it could be mine!” Ning Ting went out softly. Was Foo Choo’s granny looking? He hoped not. She had a disagreeable voice if boys were naughty, and he hated disagreeable voices. “ Take that kite back!” Was it Foo Choo’s granny? No, .it must have been Uncle Pongee Wongee speaking inside of him. “ Ning Ting, look out! Danger, danger!” “Nonsense, nonsense! 1 haven’t stolen the kite, I am only going to play with it,” exclaimed Ning Ting. In the big lonely field back of his house, with the help of a beggar-boy who came along, he began to fly the kite. How easily it went up! And what a big one it was! How it pulled on the stnng—yes, pulled on the string —lifting him up two or three feet! Wasn’t it exciting? But th? kite let him down again, and he was on the ground in a moment. Ning Ting thought he would try that once more, and let the kite pull him up, it was such exciting fun! “Danger, danger!” called the Pongee Won gee inside of him. “ But I haven’t stolen the kite, I am only playing with it,” was Ning Ting’s answer. At last Ning Ting ventured to let the kite draw him up again. This time, he went higher than he intended. He rose above the second story of his house, but his foot catching in the

spout, that held him. He sat down on the spout and breathed more freely. Was not that a narrow escape? But what fun it was also! “ I guess now I will go for the top of' the apple-tree in the yard. I can easily hit the top of that. Nice kite this is! I have a great mind to keep it,” Off through the air he went sailing, and sat down in the top of the appletree. Who were those under the tree? They were Foo Choo and his brother Dundee. Horrors! “ What if Foo Choo should see me!” thought Ning Ting. But Foo Choo did not see that lump of fat up among the red apples. “ Dundee/’ called out Foo Choo. “ Have you seen my kite?” * “No; is it gone?” u “ I guess so, for I can’t find it anywhere.” The voice of Pongee Wongce was again heard: “Little Ning, you had better carry that kite back. Better still,, own right up to Foo Choo now. When we are in a wrong course, we ought to stop right where we are and own our wrong-doing.” Ning Ting, though* kept still, and Foo Choo and Dumfee went away. “Bail old Pongee Wongee, don’t trouble me any more,” said Ning Ting. Then a blacker thought than ever came into Ning Ting’s soul. “I will not carry back this kite at all. I will keep it. It is nice fun sailing about so. Ho for another apple-tree! Get up, horsee!” Away went Ning Ting. “Splendid, is it not?” he said. “ I will stop in that apple-tree.” To his surprise, though, he went over the apple-tree. He was traveling faster now. “ However, I will stop in that mapletree,” he said. But he went over it! “ What if I shouldn’t stop at all?” he said to himself. “Not at all, not at all, not at all”—the idea going rotmd and round in his little head like a wheel. “ It would be dreadful.”, “ But there is a tall elm-tree, and it is in Pongee Wongee’s yard. I will go for that. And there is dear Pongee Wongee down in the yard.” • .... Yes, the fat fan-maker was down in the yard, looking up toward the sky, his specs shining like two small suns directed toward another and bigger sun in the heavens. I » Oh, dear! Ning Ting missed the elmtree, shooting rapidly above it. “ Pongee Wongee, good Pongee Wongee, help!” shouted Ning. “ What is that up in the air -a boy, or a goose flying toward a warmer home? It can’t be a boy. It must be a goose.” Yes. it was a foolish little goose. “ And there’s a kite; amFis the goose flying the kite, or the kite flying the goose?” . It was a kite flying a goose? Up higher and higher Ning Ting went, through a cloud,’ through a rainstohn, through a snow-storm, out of the temperate zone into the frigid zone, higher and higher, higher and higher, through more snow, sleet, hail, ice, till Ning Ting was stiff with the cold. And what was the kite doing—the horrid kite? It was lowering its bob toward Ning Ting. Was it fishing for him ? The bob came- nearer and nearer, as if it were not a fishing-line, but a living thing, twisting down the air! And it seized Ning by that sensitive place, the pigtail, and all the slips of paper changed to legs that began to Crawl up the pigtail! Fright upon fright! ? ■ Apa now what is this?--the white moon; and is the man in the moon looking out? Yes; and he growls, “ Who is this? Did he run off .with the kite? Didn’t he know the kite would run off with him? Didn’t he know that sin, if we yield to it, masters us at last? Didn’t he know? didn’t he know? Let me put a stop to his foolishness. I will cut the string with this sharp knife—just now!” “ There! Down he drops!*’ Bump! “ Oh-h-h!” “ Why, Ning Ting! what is the matter? You have tumbled from your chair. 1 told you that you would fall.” “ Oh-h-h-h! What made me want to steal, mother?” “You steal? I hope you haven’t stolen.” “ But I never will steal again.” ' > “ You, Ning Ting? J trust you won’t.” “But the man in the moon, he cut the string!” “ Tut, tut! you have been dreaming!” —E. A t - Rand, in S. 8. Times.