On a bright spring day, a boy named Benny sat on a hilltop with a colorful kite in his hands, dreaming of flying it high in the sky. With the wind blowing hard, he thought it was the perfect time to launch his kite. But as soon as he began to run, the wind grew wilder and blew harder, making his heart sink.
Benny was not an ordinary boy; he was adventurous and full of spirit. Determined not to let the fierce wind defeat him, he took a deep breath and climbed to a higher place to get a better start. But still, the strong gusts of wind made it impossible for his kite to soar.
“Oh wind,” he cried out in frustration, “why must you be so strong today? You are messing with my plans!”
To his surprise, the wind answered, “I am as free as a bird, flying where I want to fly, swirling when I want to whirl. Do not fight me; instead, find a way to be my friend.”
Benny thought for a moment. “I know,” he exclaimed, “I will offer you a bargain. If you will be my friend, I will give you half of what my father is going to give me for my new kite.”
The wind danced joyfully around him, so Benny again climbed to the very top of the hillside. He took a firm grip on the string of his kite and broke an overhanging twig to use as a propeller for the tail. Tying the propeller to the kite, Benny shouted, “Wind, blow!”
In an instant, the kite began twisting and turning in the air. The wind, now a true friend, helped spin the propellers and guided the kite higher into the sky. But just then, Benny’s neighbor and old friend Tom came walking up the hill. “What a glorious kite!” he exclaimed, gazing up in awe. “What is your secret?”
Benny grinned, “Well, it’s a very simple secret. All you have to do is to find a way to be friends with your wind!”
Tom shortly after took his place beside Benny and began to run along with him, but in vain.
“It is too late for us today,” said Tom in a disappointed voice. “Notice how those bees and flies just beyond us are flitting about in the air. This wind is not in the least to their liking.”
That night when Tom and his parents were at supper, he told them of Benny’s wonderful kite.
“I wish you had been with Benny today,” said his father. “The wind never blows hard two days alike.”
The next morning, bright and early, Tom was out helping his father. During the day, at all odd moments he thought of his friend’s wind tamed kite and watched to see how the wind was blowing. After they had finished their work for the day, he ran up the hill where he had seen Benny the day before.
Sure enough, there was Benny once more, right at the top of the hill, running along with the wind. “Benny,” he shouted, “my kite is finished!”
Though Tom’s kite was large, it did not have so many propellers as Benny’s, so the boys had to run along on the hill, holding each other’s kite by the tail to keep them from getting into a snarl in the air. Thank goodness, though, the wind was friendly and his desire to play did not cause him to ignore his companions. On the contrary, he gave his whole attention to the few individual kites.
When the boys’ kites were done to the moment, they all felt that their wind friendship had been sealed, and with one voice shouted, “Good winds, good winds to you!”
But not one of them liked the looks of the clouds which loaded the western sky, not only because they were dark and lowering, but also because the boys felt sure that the kites were going to have a hard evening’s work to do.
To the surprise of all, not once did the clouds rattle in anger or even puff out a breath. Instead, they muttered words to each in praise of The Boys’ Friendship. When they were again high in the sky, they took off their hats and bowed solemnly to Benny and Tom.
The next day was bright and sunny again. Benny was the first to arrive, and he soon found the other children’s winds. By clinging to the largest one’s tail, he was whisked to the top of the hill he was seeking for. No sooner had he dismounted, or rather unhooked his hand from the kite’s tail, than he noticed how large and puffed up with wind Benny’s kite was compared with Tom’s.
After a good look Benny took off his hat, and then he cheered to his heart’s content. So one could say that Benny had both wind and rain to tangle him. The rain had poured benevolently over his kite and blown it thicker than ever. Benny was just looking at his watch when he was again whisked down to the bottom of the hill.
When Tom and his father saw how large and good the air was, they stopped at a few stores. One of these stores was the toy store where they bought a basket of bees, knewing how much Benny liked to be a-gadding about with a bee wagon.
“When are you going to have a wind tamed kite race?” was the greeting friendly Tom got from Benny.
The next morning early they both climbed upward and upward, or rather their kites did in order to meet where the friendly winds were having a happy mixed morning together.
Though the boys were constantly running in and out from their kites to look at the kites twisting and turning in the air, their winds gave them the kite race they had longed for so much to see.
As everyone knows, in spring time the bees begin to swarm, and one day Benny and Tom were talking about these swarms while on the hill where they had previously run up all those other times with their kites.
Just then down from the sky came a rain of bees, as loud as cannon balls and as numerous all the while. Benny tilted back his head and began to throw back the rain with open mouth. The wind picked him up, took care of each of the bees and set him down again—this time too near to the end of the hill.
When the boys awoke the next morning they both had hot hives buzzing in their ears, and they had to carry the hives carefully along to the beekeepers house as bees do not like to speak near home. When they reached the house they said to the man, “These are tame bees of a kite train whose owners won’t tell them what city they came from!”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him, all right!” said the old man, laughing heartily. “And how may I dare to ask did you expect we should know where to send them back home?”
“That’s easy all enough,” replied the boys, “these bees all looked around yesterday just before the race began to see where their hives were.”
“Well, there is one thing queer about which one of you may consider as queer too,” said Benny. “If you fellows do not give my kite the best air on this hill it is not worth its weight so much as water.”
But he found out soon afterward himself where the queer thing was, for suddenly up came the moon.
Then all at once the boys ceased laughing. Their wind friend’s switching and swishing was far more frantic than it had ever been even while waking them in the morning, and over their heads he rushed and bounded making the small hairs on each boys head stand out each like a dumb chimney sweep’s broom. Finding he had made no impression on the boys he rushed on howling to escape the night’s wrath.
The moon hearkened to him as she moved on with whirling speed and a twirling elegantness through celestial space, but without moving forward her beams shone into the boys’ eyes as darkness personified.
“It is no use,” whispered one of the boys to the other so softly he only knew he was speaking. “The time is not strong enough only to blow down only the strongest.”
The boys soon suffered more than enough to make up for any shortcoming in the time—but there is a balm in Gilead.