Some of their neighbours were already at work flying
kites from the roofs of the houses or from windows, but our friends wanted
more room than that, and went up to a piece of higher ground behind their
street. Here they joined a crowd of kite-flyers. Every one was out to-day
with his kite, old and young, men of sixty, with yellow, wrinkled faces,
down to toddlers of three, who clutched their strings and flew their little
kites with as much gravity and staidness as their grandfathers. Before long
O Hara San came up with the baby on her back, and he had a bit of string
in his tiny fist and a scrap of a kite not much bigger than a man's hand
floating a few yards above his head.
But Taro was a proud boy this afternoon. He was about to fly his first big
fighting kite. It was made of tough, strong paper, stretched on a bamboo
frame five feet square, a kite taller than his own father. The day before
Taro had pounded a piece of glass up fine and mixed it with glue. The
mixture had been rubbed on the string of his kite for about thirty feet
near the kite-end and left to dry. Now, if he could only get this string
to cut sharply across the string of another kite, the latter cord would be
severed, and he could proudly claim the vanquished kite as his own.
Kites of every colour and shape hovered in the air above the wide open
space. There were square kites of red, yellow, green, blue, every colour
of the rainbow; many were decorated with gaily-painted figures of gods,
heroes, warriors, and dragons.
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