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Site Contents

By Dan Beard

"Kite Broken Loose!"  was the cry that used to send a thrill through every youngster and start them all on a hot race after the fugitive kite. Twenty or thirty years ago the runaway kite always became the property of the one who first captured it. Such was the unquestioned though unwritten law among the boys, and it appears from the items that occasionally appear in the papers that to this day there is a strong tendency on the part of the boys, and even men, to adhere strictly to this old law. 

One of Mr. Eddy's tandem teams of kites broke away and the kite-string slid over the neck of a man working on a coal barge. The coal-heaver, upon putting up his hands to investigate the cause of the tickling of his neck, to his great astonishment found himself holding a team of funny tailless kites, which were bobbing around in the sky.

When Mr. Eddy demanded his runaways he had considerable difficulty in persuading the man to give up the prize.

A Team of Eight Kites Loose.

In July, 1894, the same gentleman lost a team of eight kites which he was flying it Bayonne. One kite caught in a tree and the rest broke away and sailed over the Kill von Kull. Then the bottom kite struck the ground, and again the upper ones broke away, leaving their unfortunate comrade. 

The six remaining kites went scudding over Staten Island until the dangling string caught on a telegraph wire and brought the six runaways up standing. Mr. Eddy had to journey by train and boat before he could cover the distance traveled by the fugitives and effect their capture.

A Runaway's Experience.

The writer once saw a kite pull the stick the twine was fastened to from the hands of a boy who was perched upon the roof of a tenement-house. The building was near the East River on the New York side, a good wind was blowing and the kite lifted the stick over the intervening housetops until it dangled over the water. Here the lack of resistance caused the kite to settle, and down came the stick into the water. 

The water offered sufficient resistance to the stick to send the runaway kite up again, and the stick was towed diagonally across the river until it reached the Brooklyn side, where the string became tangled in the rigging of a ship that was being loaded sugar. When last seen the runaway tenement-house was bravely flying from the ship.

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