Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/243



ONELY had just made a new box-kite for himself, and having borrowed the entire stock of wrapping-string from the bake-shop to give it ample wind-room, it now hung a little dot of white high up in the tremulous blue of the early afternoon sky.

It was the end of June, and the last day of school. In an hour or two the turbulent classes would be tumbling joyously out to their final freedom, and great undertakings would soon be on foot, and plans made, and journeys projected, and grave secrets passed from friend to trusted friend. Already timid little boys, in the general carnival spirit which crept over the sleepy little gray kitten of a town, were flipping notes across the aisle to properly indignant little girls, who wrote "Smarty" on a slip of paper and flipped it back. Already young orators were stutteringly delivering themselves of their disjointed recitations, and an ink-well or two was being emptied down