Wendy Darling

“ Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance. "Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her. ”

“ In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in unwonted silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear Nana barking, and John whimpered, "It is because he is chaining her up in the yard," but Wendy was wiser.
"That is not Nana's unhappy bark," she said, little guessing what was about to happen; "that is her bark when she smells danger."
Danger!
"Are you sure, Wendy?"
"Oh yes."
Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. ”

“ ALL children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end. ”

“ She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling’s kiss. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees, but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her. ”

“ O Wendy's mother, if I was to wake up and feel there was a beard!" "Peter," said Wendy the comforter, "I should love you in a beard;" and Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her. "Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man." "But where are you going to live?" "With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it high up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights." "How lovely," cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darling tightened her grip. "I thought all the fairies were dead," Mrs. ”

“ Wendy said.
But John whistled. “Hullo,” he said, “there’s a man inside it.”
“It’s father!” exclaimed Wendy.
“Let me see father,” Michael begged eagerly, and he took a good look. “He is not so big as the pirate I killed,” he said with such frank disappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was asleep; it would have been sad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael say.
Wendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in the kennel.
“Surely,” said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, “he used not to sleep in the kennel?” ”

“ He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on sternly, "I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets." ”

“ Darling said threateningly.
"Come on, father," said John.
"Hold your tongue, John," his father rapped out.
Wendy was quite puzzled. "I thought you took it quite easily, father."
"That is not the point," he retorted. "The point is, that there is more in my glass than in Michael's spoon." His proud heart was nearly bursting. "And it isn't fair; I would say it though it were with my last breath; it isn't fair."
"Father, I am waiting," said Michael coldly.
"It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting." ”

“ Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant smile:
“I do believe it is that Peter again!”
“Whatever do you mean, Wendy?”
“It is so naughty of him not to wipe,’’ Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.
“What nonsense you talk, precious! No one can get into the house without knocking.” ”

“ At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. ”

“ I am a descendant."
"Descendants are only children," said John.
"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Wendy. "Now these three children had a faithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and chained her up in the yard, and so all the children flew away."
"It's an awfully good story," said Nibs.
"They flew away," Wendy continued, "to the Neverland, where the lost children are."
"I just thought they did," Curly broke in excitedly. "I don't know how it is, but I just thought they did!"
"O Wendy," cried Tootles, "was one of the lost children called Tootles?" ”

“ Wendy You see Darling, a fairy only lives as long a time as a feather is blown about the air on a windy day. But fairies are so little that a short time seems a good while to them. As the feather flutters they have quite an enjoyable life, with time to be born respectably and have a look round, and to dance once and to cry once and to bring up their children – just as one can go a long way quickly in a motor car. And so motor cars help us to understand fairies.
Jane Everybody grows up and dies except Peter, doesn't they? ”

“ HE WOULD LIVE IN THE KENNEL UNTIL HIS CHILDREN'S RETURN
Scarcely, however, had she closed her eyes when three little figures flew in at the window and nestled cosily in their beds. Then softly Wendy called to her mother. But when Mrs. Darling looked round she simply couldn't believe that the children were really there. So many times before she had dreamt of their return, that it was not till they all three crowded round her that she realised that they had indeed come home. Oh! ”

“ It was Jane's nursery now, for her father had bought it at the three per cents. from Wendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs. Mrs. Darling was now dead and forgotten.
There were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and her nurse's; and there was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age, and at the end she had been rather difficult to get on with; being very firmly convinced that no one knew how to look after children except herself. ”

“ There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom’s school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling’s friends, but if they did come she first whipped off Michael’s pinafore and put him into the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John’s hair. ”

“ "That fiend!" Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names. ”

“ Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. ”

“ And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her still. ”

“ Wendy Don't be anxious Nana. This is how I planned it if he ever came back. Every Spring Cleaning, except when he forgets, I'll let Jane fly away with him to the darling Never Never Land, and when she grows up I hope she will have a little daughter, who will fly away with him in turn – and in this way may I go on for ever and ever, dear Nana, so long as children are young and innocent.
(Gradual darkness – then two little lights seen moving slowly through the heavens)
CURTAIN
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1928. ”

“ "No, no," Mr. Darling always said, "I am responsible for it all. I, George Darling, did it. Mea culpa, mea culpa" He had had a classical education. ”