Little Sky-High | Page 9

very
full of dislike, he went towards the bridge that led to the Beautiful Isle
to catch them. But something very wonderful happened."
"Oh, what did happen?" said Lucy. "I can hardly wait to learn."
"The Good Spirit of the air saw the grim old mandarin stealing away
toward the bridge to cross to the Beautiful Isle of the Orange-tree, and
he changed the prince and princess into two birds and they flew away.
See them flying there at the top of the plate!"
"I will give you the plate," said Mrs. Van Buren to Lucy; "for it was
your grandmother's plate, and her name was Lucy, and she would be
glad, were she living, to have you delight in a legend like that. It is
good to think that a loving Spirit hovers over us when evil draws near
us--I like the parable of the plate. I thank you for the story, Sky-High.
Your country has good stories."
"The story of the mandarin plate," said the little Chinaman, "is also told
in my country in a more tragic way; that the lovely girl is the
mandarin's daughter, and that he slays the lovers, and that it is their
souls that are seen flying away in the two birds. But it is the other story
that our scholars like."

VII.
SKY-HIGH'S KITE.
Charles and Lucy wished to give Sky-High a surprise. They had come
into possession of a kite which had been described to them as
marvelous, and they got their mother's permission to take the little
Chinaman to Franklin Park to see them fly it for the first time.
Franklin Park is not far from Milton Hill; and the street-cars readily

carry the crowds of children to the pleasure-grounds of the immense
common of woods, fields, great rocks and elms, and whole prairies of
grass. It is quite free--the dwellers of close Boston and its bowery
suburbs own the vast pleasure-place--the people could hardly have
more privileges there did each one hold a deed of it. Little Sky-High
thought this wonderful when it was explained to him.
The Van Burens had ample grounds of their own, but Mrs. Van Buren
and the children liked to go to Franklin Park. Mrs. Van Buren liked to
sit in the great stone Emerson arbor on Schoolmaster's Hill, and watch
the white flocks of English sheep wander to and fro and feed, guarded
and guided by shepherd-dogs, and to gaze away in an idle reverie at the
Blue Hills under the purple charm of distance.
No one jeered now when the Van Buren children appeared in the street
with the little Chinaman. Nobody cried, "Rat-tail!" Nobody cried,
"Washee-washee-wang!" He often rode with them in the carriage.
People looked at him, to be sure, but only with interest--the fame of his
accomplishments in the English language had gone abroad.
It was a beautiful early summer day, the white daisies waving in the
west wind. Crossing the field, from a little green hill the children
prepared to send up the new kite. Out of his narrow black eyes little
Sky-High looked at it, as they took it from the package and sent it up. It
seemed simply a frame-work, but presently the American flag rolled
out in the sky, as though it hung alone, or had bloomed there.
Sky-High beheld it with pleasure. Great was America! He was
contented to sit and watch it for hours, or as long as the children
pleased. It was not until sunset that the starry kite was hauled down
through the golden air, and Lucy and Charles prepared to return home.
On the way the little serving-man said, "I have a kite in my trunk. You
let me fly it for you some day? You come with me here?"
So another breezy day the Van Buren children came to the Park with
Sky-High. Lucy danced about in the green world for very
light-heartedness.

"You stay at the overlook," said Sky-High, pointing to the wild-flower
embankment surrounded by burning azalias, "and I will show you how
Chinese boys fly kites."
He had brought a thin package under his arm, and while Lucy and
Charles waited at the embankment he ran like a thing of air out into the
open field.
It was a glorious June day; and the great elms with their fresh young
foliage were glimmering thick in the fiery sky, and like an emerald sea
was the grass on the field, where hundreds of children were playing ball
and other games.
Sky-High threw to the air a bundle of red with a few light angles and
circles of bamboo, and it began at once to rise and expand. It went up
into the mid-air, and fold after fold rolled out, and there appeared a
great dragon.
All the children