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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1332 ***
+
+PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
+
+By J. M. Barrie
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     Peter Pan
+     The Thrush’s Nest
+     The Little House
+     Lock-Out Time
+
+
+
+
+Peter Pan
+
+If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
+little girl she will say, “Why, of course, I did, child,” and if you
+ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, “What
+a foolish question to ask, certainly he did.” Then if you ask your
+grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she
+also says, “Why, of course, I did, child,” but if you ask her whether he
+rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a
+goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name
+and calls you Mildred, which is your mother’s name. Still, she could
+hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was
+no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in
+telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people
+do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
+
+Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
+always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age
+is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a
+birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The
+reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days’
+old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens.
+
+If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows
+how completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard
+this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape,
+but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples,
+and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly
+remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with that
+memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as
+soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way
+up the chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would
+press their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before
+they were human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few
+weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders, where their wings used to be. So
+David tells me.
+
+I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story:
+First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding
+being that it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with his
+additions, and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more
+his story or mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald
+narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all,
+for this boy can be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits about the
+ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences
+of David’s, recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking
+hard.
+
+Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars. Standing
+on the ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the
+Kensington Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that
+he was now a little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over the
+houses to the Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly without wings,
+but the place itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all fly if we
+were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter
+Pan that evening.
+
+He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby’s Palace and the
+Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick.
+He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and thought he
+was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his early days, and
+when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he
+missed it was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand, which,
+of course, a bird never does. He saw, however, that it must be past
+Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies about, all too busy
+to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready, milking their cows,
+drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the water-pails made him
+thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped,
+and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of
+course, it was only his nose, and, therefore, very little water came up,
+and that not so refreshing as usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he
+fell flop into it. When a real bird falls in flop, he spreads out his
+feathers and pecks them dry, but Peter could not remember what was
+the thing to do, and he decided, rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the
+weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
+
+At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch, but
+presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long before
+morning, shivering, and saying to himself, “I never was out in such a
+cold night;” he had really been out in colder nights when he was a bird,
+but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm night to a bird
+is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown. Peter also felt strangely
+uncomfortable, as if his head was stuffy, he heard loud noises that made
+him look round sharply, though they were really himself sneezing. There
+was something he wanted very much, but, though he knew he wanted it, he
+could not think what it was. What he wanted so much was his mother to
+blow his nose, but that never struck him, so he decided to appeal to the
+fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal.
+
+There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
+round each other’s waists, and he hopped down to address them. The
+fairies have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil
+answer to a civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran
+away the moment they saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair,
+reading a postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he heard
+Peter’s voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
+
+To Peter’s bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from
+him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away,
+leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail upside down
+and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies
+were running this way and that, asking each other stoutly, who was
+afraid, lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds
+of Queen Mab’s palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that the royal
+guard had been called out.
+
+A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
+holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing. Peter
+heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the
+Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he
+was the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more
+wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he pursued them
+with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and
+even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly
+into a side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.
+
+Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he
+remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had
+flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not troubled him
+at the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing was shunning
+him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did
+not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a
+blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith
+in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you
+cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can’t
+is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have
+wings.
+
+Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine,
+for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there
+are stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a
+bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was to the island that Peter now
+flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on
+it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at home, as the
+birds call the island. All of them were asleep, including the sentinels,
+except Solomon, who was wide awake on one side, and he listened quietly
+to Peter’s adventures, and then told him their true meaning.
+
+“Look at your night-gown, if you don’t believe me,” Solomon said,
+and with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the
+sleeping birds. Not one of them wore anything.
+
+“How many of your toes are thumbs?” said Solomon a little cruelly, and
+Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The
+shock was so great that it drove away his cold.
+
+“Ruffle your feathers,” said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried most
+desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose
+up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window-ledge,
+he remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
+
+“I think I shall go back to mother,” he said timidly.
+
+“Good-bye,” replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
+
+But Peter hesitated. “Why don’t you go?” the old one asked politely.
+
+“I suppose,” said Peter huskily, “I suppose I can still fly?”
+
+You see, he had lost faith.
+
+“Poor little half-and-half,” said Solomon, who was not really
+hard-hearted, “you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
+days. You must live here on the island always.”
+
+“And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?” Peter asked tragically.
+
+“How could you get across?” said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
+however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by
+one of such an awkward shape.
+
+“Then I sha’n’t be exactly a human?” Peter asked.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor exactly a bird?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What shall I be?”
+
+“You will be a Betwixt-and-Between,” Solomon said, and certainly he was
+a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
+
+The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled them
+every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds
+that were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at him at
+once, then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds came out
+of other eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when
+they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get the young one to break
+their shells a day before the right time by whispering to them that now
+was their chance to see Peter washing or drinking or eating. Thousands
+gathered round him daily to watch him do these things, just as you watch
+the peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the crusts
+they flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the
+mouth. All his food was brought to him from the Gardens at Solomon’s
+orders by the birds. He would not eat worms or insects (which they
+thought very silly of him), so they brought him bread in their beaks.
+Thus, when you cry out, “Greedy! Greedy!” to the bird that flies away
+with the big crust, you know now that you ought not to do this, for he
+is very likely taking it to Peter Pan.
+
+Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds were always begging him
+for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very good-natured,
+he could not refuse, so by Solomon’s advice he had hidden what was left
+of it. But, though he was now quite naked, you must not think that he
+was cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and the reason
+was that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird
+ways. To be easily pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing
+something, and to think that whatever he was doing was a thing of vast
+importance. Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their
+nests; soon he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well
+as a blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made
+nice little water-troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young
+ones with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and
+knew an east-wind from a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the
+grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks.
+But the best thing Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad
+heart. All birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as
+they were the only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him
+to teach Peter how to have one.
+
+Peter’s heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long,
+just as the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in
+instrument, so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore
+of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the
+ripple of the water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, and
+he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the
+birds were deceived, and they would say to each other, “Was that a fish
+leaping in the water or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe?”
+ and sometimes he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would
+turn round in their nests to see whether they had laid an egg. If you
+are a child of the Gardens you must know the chestnut-tree near the
+bridge, which comes out in flower first of all the chestnuts, but
+perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the way. It is because
+Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has come, and the chestnut
+being so near, hears him and is cheated.
+
+But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes
+fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also, and the
+reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens,
+though he could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he
+could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but
+oh, how he longed to play as other children play, and of course there
+is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him
+news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears started in Peter’s
+eyes.
+
+Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. The reason was that he
+could not swim. He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the island
+knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. They were quite
+willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was, “You sit down
+on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick out like that.”
+ Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick out he sank. What
+he really needed to know was how you sit on the water without sinking,
+and they said it was quite impossible to explain such an easy thing as
+that. Occasionally swans touched on the island, and he would give them
+all his day’s food and then ask them how they sat on the water, but as
+soon as he had no more to give them the hateful things hissed at him and
+sailed away.
+
+Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the Gardens.
+A wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated high over
+the island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the manner of a
+bird that has broken its wing. Peter was so frightened that he hid, but
+the birds told him it was only a kite, and what a kite is, and that it
+must have tugged its string out of a boy’s hand, and soared away. After
+that they laughed at Peter for being so fond of the kite, he loved it
+so much that he even slept with one hand on it, and I think this was
+pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved it was because it had
+belonged to a real boy.
+
+To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt
+grateful to him at this time because he had nursed a number of
+fledglings through the German measles, and they offered to show him how
+birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of the string in their
+beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after them and
+went even higher than they.
+
+Peter screamed out, “Do it again!” and with great good nature they did
+it several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, “Do it
+again!” which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it was
+to be a boy.
+
+At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
+them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred
+flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop
+off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the
+air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold
+of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this
+the birds said that they would help him no more in his mad enterprise.
+
+Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of
+Shelley’s boat, as I am now to tell you.
+
+
+
+
+The Thrush’s Nest
+
+Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to
+be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people
+who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that
+and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens,
+he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the
+Serpentine.
+
+It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to Solomon
+Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a message from a
+lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her have a good one.
+They always ask for the best one he has, and if he likes the letter he
+sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones
+indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at another time he sends a
+nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch him in. He likes you to
+leave it all to him, and if you mention particularly that you hope he
+will see his way to making it a boy this time, he is almost sure to send
+another girl. And whether you are a lady or only a little boy who wants
+a baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearly. You
+can’t think what a lot of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
+
+Shelley’s boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
+counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
+their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided
+that it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought this
+because there was a large five printed on it. “Preposterous!” cried
+Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which
+drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a play-thing.
+
+But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it
+was at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
+ordinary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at last
+contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible ways,
+and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. But, first, he had
+to tell the birds of the value of Shelley’s boat; and though they were
+too honest to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, and they
+cast such black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain of his cleverness,
+that he flew away to the end of the island, and sat there very depressed
+with his head buried in his wings. Now Peter knew that unless Solomon
+was on your side, you never got anything done for you in the island, so
+he followed him and tried to hearten him.
+
+Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow’s good
+will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in office
+all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and devoting his
+green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs
+which had taken his fancy, and for years he had been quietly filling his
+stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bathing person which had
+been cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of it contained a
+hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper
+and a bootlace. When his stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he
+would be able to retire on a competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He
+cut it off his bank-note with a sharp stick.
+
+This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
+together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently
+why thrushes only were invited.
+
+The scheme to be put before them was really Peter’s, but Solomon did
+most of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people
+talked. He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the
+superior ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this
+put them into good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the
+quarrels between birds are about the best way of building nests. Other
+birds, said Solomon, omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a
+result they did not hold water. Here he cocked his head as if he had
+used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come
+to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, “We don’t build nests to
+hold water, but to hold eggs,” and then the thrushes stopped cheering,
+and Solomon was so perplexed that he took several sips of water.
+
+“Consider,” he said at last, “how warm the mud makes the nest.”
+
+“Consider,” cried Mrs. Finch, “that when water gets into the nest it
+remains there and your little ones are drowned.”
+
+The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in
+reply to this, but again he was perplexed.
+
+“Try another drink,” suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name, and
+all Kates are saucy.
+
+Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. “If,” said he, “a
+finch’s nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces,
+but a thrush’s nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan’s back.”
+
+How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests
+with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, “We don’t place our nests on
+the Serpentine,” they did what they should have done at first: chased
+her from the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had been
+brought together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their young friend,
+Peter Pan, as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to cross to
+the Gardens, and he now proposed, with their help, to build a boat.
+
+At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
+scheme.
+
+Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous
+boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush’s
+nest large enough to hold Peter.
+
+But still, to Peter’s agony, the thrushes were sulky. “We are very busy
+people,” they grumbled, “and this would be a big job.”
+
+“Quite so,” said Solomon, “and, of course, Peter would not allow you
+to work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable
+circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been
+paid before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be paid
+sixpence a day.”
+
+Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
+celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into
+arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but
+not a thrush’s nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon
+ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland.
+The stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators
+but get puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and
+ladies often ask specially for them. What do you think Solomon did? He
+sent over to the housetops for a lot of sparrows and ordered them to lay
+their eggs in old thrushes’ nests and sent their young to the ladies and
+swore they were all thrushes! It was known afterward on the island as
+the Sparrows’ Year, and so, when you meet, as you doubtless sometimes
+do, grown-up people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves
+bigger than they are, very likely they belong to that year. You ask
+them.
+
+Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They
+stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
+sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and
+then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence.
+It must have been a fine sight.
+
+And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
+deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
+thrush’s nest! From the very beginning of the building of it he slept by
+its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it was
+lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps in
+his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round in it, for it
+is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he curls round like a
+kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green,
+being woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls
+are thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which
+came off the thrushes while they were building.
+
+The other birds were extremely jealous and said that the boat would not
+balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully steady; they said the
+water would come into it, but no water came into it. Next they said that
+Peter had no oars, and this caused the thrushes to look at each other
+in dismay, but Peter replied that he had no need of oars, for he had a
+sail, and with such a proud, happy face he produced a sail which he had
+fashioned out of this night-gown, and though it was still rather like a
+night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full,
+and all the birds asleep, he did enter his coracle (as Master Francis
+Pretty would have said) and depart out of the island. And first, he knew
+not why, he looked upward, with his hands clasped, and from that moment
+his eyes were pinned to the west.
+
+He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with them
+to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens beckoning to
+him beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face was flushed, but
+he never looked back; there was an exultation in his little breast that
+drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the English mariners who
+have sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
+
+At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to the
+place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing one of
+the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary breeze, to
+his no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the result that he was
+drifted toward the far shore, where are black shadows he knew not the
+dangers of, but suspected them, and so once more hoisted his night-gown
+and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring wind, which
+bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to be broke
+against the bridge. Which, having avoided, he passed under the bridge
+and came, to his great rejoicing, within full sight of the delectable
+Gardens. But having tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end
+of a piece of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold
+off, seeking for moorage, and, feeling his way, he buffeted against a
+sunken reef that cast him overboard by the greatness of the shock, and
+he was near to being drowned, but clambered back into the vessel. There
+now arose a mighty storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he
+had never heard the like, and he was tossed this way and that, and
+his hands so numbed with the cold that he could not close them. Having
+escaped the danger of which, he was mercifully carried into a small bay,
+where his boat rode at peace.
+
+Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on pretending to disembark,
+he found a multitude of small people drawn up on the shore to contest
+his landing; and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past
+Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and
+also a company of them carried an arrow which some boy had left in the
+Gardens, and this they were prepared to use as a battering-ram.
+
+Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, called out that he was not an
+ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be their
+friend, nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was in no temper
+to draw off there-from, and he warned them if they sought to mischief
+him to stand to their harms.
+
+So saying; he boldly leapt ashore, and they gathered around him with
+intent to slay him, but there then arose a great cry among the women,
+and it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby’s
+night-gown. Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that
+their laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by saying
+that such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their
+weapons on observing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelligence
+they set great store, and they led him civilly to their queen, who
+conferred upon him the courtesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and
+henceforth Peter could go whither he chose, and the fairies had orders
+to put him in comfort.
+
+Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the
+antiquity of the language that it took place a long time ago. But Peter
+never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him under the
+bridge to-night (but, of course, we can’t), I daresay we should see
+him hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in the
+Thrush’s Nest. When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to paddle.
+I shall tell you presently how he got his paddle.
+
+Long before the time for the opening of the gates comes he steals back
+to the island, for people must not see him (he is not so human as all
+that), but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly as real
+children play. At least he thinks so, and it is one of the pathetic
+things about him that he often plays quite wrongly.
+
+You see, he had no one to tell him how children really play, for the
+fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing,
+and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a great deal,
+when the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they really
+knew. They told him the truth about hide-and-seek, and he often plays
+it by himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond could not explain to
+him what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every night
+the ducks have forgotten all the events of the day, except the number of
+pieces of cake thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and say that
+cake is not what it was in their young days.
+
+So Peter had to find out many things for himself. He often played ships
+at the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on
+the grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he wondered what
+you play at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they
+are boats. This hoop always sank at once, but he waded in for it, and
+sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim of the pond, and he was
+quite proud to think that he had discovered what boys do with hoops.
+
+Another time, when he found a child’s pail, he thought it was for
+sitting in, and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of
+it. Also he found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite as
+if it was having a game by itself, and he caught it after an exciting
+chase. But he thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told him that
+boys kick balls, so he kicked it; and after that he could not find it
+anywhere.
+
+Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator. It was
+under a lime-tree, near the entrance to the Fairy Queen’s Winter Palace
+(which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts), and Peter
+approached it warily, for the birds had never mentioned such things to
+him. Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then, as it gave
+no answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously. He gave it a little
+push, and it ran from him, which made him think it must be alive after
+all; but, as it had run from him, he was not afraid. So he stretched out
+his hand to pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so
+alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat. You must
+not think, however, that he was a coward, for he came back next night
+with a crust in one hand and a stick in the other, but the perambulator
+had gone, and he never saw another one. I have promised to tell you also
+about his paddle. It was a child’s spade which he had found near St.
+Govor’s Well, and he thought it was a paddle.
+
+Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes? If so, I think it
+rather silly of you. What I mean is that, of course, one must pity him
+now and then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence. He
+thought he had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you
+have it is almost quite as good as really to have it. He played without
+ceasing, while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He
+could be neither of these things, for he had never heard of them, but do
+you think he is to be pitied for that?
+
+Oh, he was merry. He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as you
+are merrier than your father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top,
+from sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences of
+the Gardens? That is how Peter leaps them.
+
+And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen who walk home at night
+write to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens, but
+it is really Peter’s pipe they hear. Of course, he had no mother--at
+least, what use was she to him? You can be sorry for him for that, but
+don’t be too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell you is how he
+revisited her. It was the fairies who gave him the chance.
+
+
+
+
+The Little House
+
+Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which
+is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for
+humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and
+they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it
+you never see it. This is because it is not there when you lie down, but
+it is there when you wake up and step outside.
+
+In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really
+it, but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out
+Time. David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away among the
+trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw
+it the night he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of
+his father’s office. Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted
+because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light,
+she saw hundreds of them all together, and this must have been the
+fairies building the house, for they build it every night and always
+in a different part of the Gardens. She thought one of the lights was
+bigger than the others, though she was not quite sure, for they jumped
+about so, and it might have been another one that was bigger. But if it
+was the same one, it was Peter Pan’s light. Heaps of children have seen
+the fight, so that is nothing. But Maimie Mannering was the famous one
+for whom the house was first built.
+
+Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night that she
+was strange. She was four years of age, and in the daytime she was
+the ordinary kind. She was pleased when her brother Tony, who was a
+magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to him
+in the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was flattered
+rather than annoyed when he shoved her about. Also, when she was batting
+she would pause though the ball was in the air to point out to you
+that she was wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in the
+daytime.
+
+But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt
+for Maimie and eyed her fearfully, and no wonder, for with dark there
+came into her face a look that I can describe only as a leary look.
+It was also a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony’s uneasy
+glances. Then he would make her presents of his favourite toys (which
+he always took away from her next morning) and she accepted them with a
+disturbing smile. The reason he was now become so wheedling and she so
+mysterious was (in brief) that they knew they were about to be sent to
+bed. It was then that Maimie was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do
+it to-night, and the mother and their coloured nurse threatened her, but
+Maimie merely smiled her agitating smile. And by-and-by when they were
+alone with their night-light she would start up in bed crying “Hsh! what
+was that?” Tony beseeches her! “It was nothing--don’t, Maimie, don’t!”
+ and pulls the sheet over his head. “It is coming nearer!” she cries;
+“Oh, look at it, Tony! It is feeling your bed with its horns--it is
+boring for you, oh, Tony, oh!” and she desists not until he rushes
+downstairs in his combinations, screeching. When they came up to whip
+Maimie they usually found her sleeping tranquilly, not shamming, you
+know, but really sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel,
+which seems to me to make it almost worse.
+
+But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens, and then
+Tony did most of the talking. You could gather from his talk that he
+was a very brave boy, and no one was so proud of it as Maimie. She would
+have loved to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister. And
+at no time did she admire him more than when he told her, as he often
+did with splendid firmness, that one day he meant to remain behind in
+the Gardens after the gates were closed.
+
+“Oh, Tony,” she would say, with awful respect, “but the fairies will be
+so angry!”
+
+“I daresay,” replied Tony, carelessly.
+
+“Perhaps,” she said, thrilling, “Peter Pan will give you a sail in his
+boat!”
+
+“I shall make him,” replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of him.
+
+But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were
+overheard by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from which
+the little people weave their summer curtains, and after that Tony was a
+marked boy. They loosened the rails before he sat on them, so that down
+he came on the back of his head; they tripped him up by catching his
+bootlace and bribed the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty
+accidents you meet with in the Gardens occur because the fairies have
+taken an ill-will to you, and so it behoves you to be careful what you
+say about them.
+
+Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things,
+but Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which day he was to
+remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, “Just
+some day;” he was quite vague about which day except when she asked
+“Will it be today?” and then he could always say for certain that it
+would not be to-day. So she saw that he was waiting for a real good
+chance.
+
+This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow,
+and there was ice on the Round Pond, not thick enough to skate on but
+at least you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones, and many
+bright little boys and girls were doing that.
+
+When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond,
+but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said
+this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that
+night. It read half-past five. Poor ayah! she is the one who laughs
+continuously because there are so many white children in the world, but
+she was not to laugh much more that day.
+
+Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to the
+time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o’clock for
+closing time. But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the
+fairies, and so did not see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they
+had changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night. She said
+there was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as
+they trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their
+little breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a fairy ball.
+Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
+
+He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him. Her eager
+eyes asked the question, “Is it to-day?” and he gasped and then nodded.
+Maimie slipped her hand into Tony’s, and hers was hot, but his was cold.
+She did a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and gave it to him!
+“In case you should feel cold,” she whispered. Her face was aglow, but
+Tony’s was very gloomy.
+
+As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her, “I’m afraid
+Nurse would see me, so I sha’n’t be able to do it.”
+
+Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing but their
+ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear, and she said
+aloud, “Tony, I shall race you to the gate,” and in a whisper, “Then you
+can hide,” and off they ran.
+
+Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she known him
+speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he hurried that he might
+have more time to hide. “Brave, brave!” her doting eyes were crying when
+she got a dreadful shock; instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the
+gate! At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as if all her lapful
+of darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for very disdain
+she could not sob; in a swell of protest against all puling cowards she
+ran to St. Govor’s Well and hid in Tony’s stead.
+
+When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she thought her
+other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight came on, and scores
+and hundreds of people passed out, including the last one, who always
+has to run for it, but Maimie saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight
+and glued them with passionate tears. When she opened them something
+very cold ran up her legs and up her arms and dropped into her heart.
+It was the stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then from
+another part _clang_, then _clang_, _clang_ far away. It was the Closing
+of the Gates.
+
+Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a voice
+say, “So that’s all right.” It had a wooden sound and seemed to come
+from above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree stretching out
+its arms and yawning.
+
+She was about to say, “I never knew you could speak!” when a metallic
+voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the
+elm, “I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?” and the elm replied, “Not
+particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg,” and he
+flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they drive off.
+Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were
+doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the Baby Walk and
+crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which shrugged its shoulders
+but did not seem to mind her.
+
+She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured pelisse
+and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed except her
+dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self was hidden far
+away inside so many warm garments that in shape she seemed rather like a
+ball. She was about forty round the waist.
+
+There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived in
+time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and set
+off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly, but
+that was because they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across the
+walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
+crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees and
+shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never
+known what they were for until to-night.
+
+She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy
+fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way
+he did it was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut
+like umbrellas, deluging the little plants beneath with snow. “Oh, you
+naughty, naughty child!” Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it
+was to have a dripping umbrella about your ears.
+
+Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
+chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly “Hoity-toity,
+what is this?” that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole
+vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
+
+“Of course it is no affair of ours,” a spindle tree said after they had
+whispered together, “but you know quite well you ought not to be here,
+and perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think
+yourself?”
+
+“I think you should not,” Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
+they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. “I wouldn’t ask it
+of you,” she assured them, “if I thought it was wrong,” and of
+course after this they could not well carry tales. They then said,
+“Well-a-day,” and “Such is life!” for they can be frightfully sarcastic,
+but she felt sorry for those of them who had no crutches, and she said
+good-naturedly, “Before I go to the fairies’ ball, I should like to take
+you for a walk one at a time; you can lean on me, you know.”
+
+At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby
+Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round
+the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and
+treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though
+she could not understand a word they said.
+
+They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that she had not
+taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others
+jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a
+lady to cry out. So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be off
+to the ball, but she no longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more
+fear was that it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember,
+Maimie was always rather strange.
+
+They were now loath to let her go, for, “If the fairies see you,” they
+warned her, “they will mischief you, stab you to death or compel you
+to nurse their children or turn you into something tedious, like an
+evergreen oak.” As they said this they looked with affected pity at an
+evergreen oak, for in winter they are very envious of the evergreens.
+
+“Oh, la!” replied the oak bitingly, “how deliciously cosy it is to stand
+here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked creatures shivering!”
+
+This made them sulky though they had really brought it on themselves,
+and they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of the perils that faced
+her if she insisted on going to the ball.
+
+She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual
+good temper at present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the
+Duke of Christmas Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy, very poorly of a
+dreadful complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he had tried
+many ladies in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them.
+Queen Mab, who rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls
+would bewitch him, but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained cold.
+This rather irritating doctor, who was his private physician, felt the
+Duke’s heart immediately after any lady was presented, and then always
+shook his bald head and murmured, “Cold, quite cold!” Naturally Queen
+Mab felt disgraced, and first she tried the effect of ordering the court
+into tears for nine minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and decreed
+that they should wear fools’ caps until they thawed the Duke’s frozen
+heart.
+
+“How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools’ caps!”
+ Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very recklessly, for the
+Cupids hate to be laughed at.
+
+It is always easy to discover where a fairies’ ball is being held,
+as ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
+Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
+their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty on
+the snow.
+
+Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
+anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
+surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just
+time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms and
+pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front and
+six behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held
+up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a
+lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about. She
+was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was her
+neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course
+showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified
+it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their
+skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you
+cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies’
+busts in the jewellers’ windows.
+
+Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a passion,
+tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt
+them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the
+doctor had said “Cold, quite cold!”
+
+Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over a
+dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb
+out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most kindly
+went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and
+explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor street
+singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
+
+“Of course,” she said, “I am rather plain,” and this made Maimie
+uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
+plain for a fairy.
+
+It was difficult to know what to reply.
+
+“I see you think I have no chance,” Brownie said falteringly.
+
+“I don’t say that,” Maimie answered politely, “of course your face is
+just a tiny bit homely, but--” Really it was quite awkward for her.
+
+Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar. He had gone
+to a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London
+were on view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return home
+instead of being dissatisfied with Maimie’s mother he had said, “You
+can’t think, my dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face again.”
+
+Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously,
+indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose
+her. So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to
+follow lest the Queen should mischief her.
+
+But Maimie’s curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
+Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until
+she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
+
+The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed
+of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming
+a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of little
+people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared
+to the glorious creatures within that luminous circle who were so
+bewilderingly bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she
+looked at them.
+
+It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
+Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: yet out of love
+his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks of the
+Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way darling
+ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as they were
+told to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
+
+Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke’s heart and
+hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly
+sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools’ caps in obscure
+places and, every time they heard that “Cold, quite cold,” bowed their
+disgraced little heads.
+
+She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you
+now why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got
+wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which
+he had to break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
+
+The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance, so
+heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are sad
+and remember them again when they are merry. David tells me that fairies
+never say “We feel happy”: what they say is, “We feel _dancey_.”
+
+Well, they were looking very undancy indeed, when sudden laughter broke
+out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived and was
+insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
+
+Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she
+had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie
+herself who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his
+grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart,
+which for convenience sake was reached by a little trap-door in his
+diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, “Cold, qui--,” when he
+stopped abruptly.
+
+“What’s this?” he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch, and
+then put his ear to it.
+
+“Bless my soul!” cried the doctor, and by this time of course the
+excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right
+and left.
+
+Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled
+and looked as if he would like to run away. “Good gracious me!” the
+doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire, for
+he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
+
+The suspense was awful!
+
+Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, “My Lord Duke,” said the physician
+elatedly, “I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace
+is in love.”
+
+You can’t conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the
+Duke and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of
+the Lord Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of
+her gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in everything.
+Thus in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you
+leap into each other’s arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman
+has to be present.
+
+How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and
+immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were
+ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring.
+Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools’ caps
+from their heads and cast them high in the air. And then Maimie went
+and spoiled everything. She couldn’t help it. She was crazy with delight
+over her little friend’s good fortune, so she took several steps forward
+and cried in an ecstasy, “Oh, Brownie, how splendid!”
+
+Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all in
+the time you may take to say “Oh dear!” An awful sense of her peril
+came upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a
+place where no human must be between the locking and the opening of the
+gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she saw a thousand
+swords flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
+
+How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head.
+Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again.
+Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew
+she was in the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she must
+never cease to run, and she thought she was still running long after she
+had dropped in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes
+falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought
+her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her
+head. And when she heard talking through her dreams she thought it was
+mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at her as she slept.
+But it was the fairies.
+
+I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to mischief
+her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as “Slay
+her!” “Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!” and so on, but the
+pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should march in front,
+and this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and
+demand a boon.
+
+Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie’s
+life. “Anything except that,” replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
+fairies chanted “Anything except that.” But when they learned how Maimie
+had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their
+great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and
+set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front
+and the canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her
+footprints in the snow.
+
+But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed impossible
+to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the
+form of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood on her body and
+read her a long address of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They
+also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, and they
+saw she was in danger of perishing of cold.
+
+“Turn her into something that does not mind the cold,” seemed a good
+suggestion of the doctor’s, but the only thing they could think of
+that does not mind cold was a snowflake. “And it might melt,” the Queen
+pointed out, so that idea had to be given up.
+
+A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but
+though there were so many of them she was too heavy. By this time all
+the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids
+had a lovely idea. “Build a house round her,” they cried, and at once
+everybody perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a hundred
+fairy sawyers were among the branches, architects were running round
+Maimie, measuring her; a bricklayer’s yard sprang up at her feet,
+seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation stone and the Queen
+laid it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings
+were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and turning
+lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the glaziers were putting
+in the windows.
+
+The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely. One of
+her arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but they
+built a verandah round it, leading to the front door. The windows were
+the size of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it
+would be easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as
+is their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness,
+and they were all so madly in love with the little house that they could
+not bear to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many
+little extra touches, and even then they added more extra touches.
+
+For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.
+
+“Now we fear it is quite finished,” they sighed.
+
+But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the
+chimney.
+
+“That certainly finishes it,” they cried reluctantly.
+
+“Not at all,” cried a glow-worm, “if she were to wake without seeing a
+night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light.”
+
+“Wait one moment,” said a china merchant, “and I shall make you a
+saucer.”
+
+Now alas, it was absolutely finished.
+
+Oh, dear no!
+
+“Gracious me,” cried a brass manufacturer, “there’s no handle on the
+door,” and he put one on.
+
+An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat.
+Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on
+painting it.
+
+Finished at last!
+
+“Finished! how can it be finished,” the plumber demanded scornfully,
+“before hot and cold are put in?” and he put in hot and cold. Then an
+army of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and
+bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the
+right of the verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses and
+clematis on the walls of the house, and in less time than five minutes
+all these dear things were in full bloom.
+
+Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at last finished
+true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the dance. They
+all kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the last to go was
+Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop a pleasant dream
+down the chimney.
+
+All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs
+taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream
+was quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was
+breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then
+she called out,
+
+“Tony,” for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no
+answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened like
+the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the
+Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the nursery she
+wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and
+then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her that she was in
+the middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had
+happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away
+from the fairies, but however, she asked herself, had she got into this
+funny place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, and
+then she saw the dear house in which she had passed the night. It so
+entranced her that she could think of nothing else.
+
+“Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!” she cried.
+
+Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now knew
+that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it began to
+grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce believe it
+was shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her now. It
+always remained as complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller,
+and the garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer,
+lapping house and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little
+dog’s kennel, and now of a Noah’s Ark, but still you could see the smoke
+and the door-handle and the roses on the wall, every one complete.
+The glow-worm fight was waning too, but it was still there. “Darling,
+loveliest, don’t go!” Maimie cried, falling on her knees, for the little
+house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still quite complete.
+But as she stretched out her arms imploringly the snow crept up on all
+sides until it met itself, and where the little house had been was now
+one unbroken expanse of snow.
+
+Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
+eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, “Don’t cry, pretty human, don’t
+cry,” and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy
+regarding her wistfully. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
+
+
+
+
+Lock-out Time
+
+It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost
+the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever
+there are children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and
+at that time there was not a fairy in the place; then the children were
+admitted, and the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can’t
+resist following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because
+they live in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed
+to go, and also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bit
+cunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!
+
+When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember
+a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you
+can’t write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children
+who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they
+said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a
+fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended
+to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually
+pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies’ Basin,
+and there are so many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that
+a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dress
+exactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white when
+lilies are in and blue for blue-bells, and so on. They like crocus and
+hyacinth time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, but
+tulips (except white ones, which are the fairy-cradles) they consider
+garish, and they sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, so
+that the beginning of the tulip weeks is almost the best time to catch
+them.
+
+When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but
+if you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite
+still, pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without
+knowing that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers
+they have had such an adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is all
+covered with ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil), with
+flowers growing in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers,
+but some of them are fairies. You never can be sure of them, but a good
+plan is to walk by looking the other way, and then turn round sharply.
+Another good plan, which David and I sometimes follow, is to stare them
+down. After a long time they can’t help winking, and then you know for
+certain that they are fairies.
+
+There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a
+famous gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once
+twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls’
+school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth
+gowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they
+all stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths.
+Unfortunately, what the governess had heard was two gardeners coming to
+plant new flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a handcart with
+flowers in it, and were quite surprised to find the bed occupied. “Pity
+to lift them hyacinths,” said the one man. “Duke’s orders,” replied the
+other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug up the boarding-school and
+put the poor, terrified things in it in five rows. Of course, neither
+the governess nor the girls dare let on that they were fairies, so they
+were carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which they escaped in the
+night without their shoes, but there was a great row about it among the
+parents, and the school was ruined.
+
+As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are
+the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you
+can’t see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you
+can’t see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never
+heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not
+mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has,
+but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours
+with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured
+glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences, but the
+queen sometimes complains because the common people will peep in to see
+what she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hard
+against the glass, and that is why their noses are mostly snubby. The
+streets are miles long and very twisty, and have paths on each side made
+of bright worsted. The birds used to steal the worsted for their nests,
+but a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the other end.
+
+One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they
+never do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first
+time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping
+about. That was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy,
+you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask
+them what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are
+frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have
+a postman, but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box,
+and though they have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the
+youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress, and when
+she has called the roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back.
+It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest
+is always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess, and
+children remember this, and think it must be so among humans also, and
+that is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother
+furtively putting new frills on the basinette.
+
+You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts
+of things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand up
+at sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for instance,
+or to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when
+she is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this down
+to naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she is doing as
+she has seen the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, and
+it takes about two years to get her into the human ways. Her fits of
+passion, which are awful to behold, and are usually called teething,
+are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation, because we don’t
+understand her, though she is talking an intelligible language. She is
+talking fairy. The reason mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean,
+before other people know, as that “Guch” means “Give it to me at once,”
+ while “Wa” is “Why do you wear such a funny hat?” is because, mixing so
+much with babies, they have picked up a little of the fairy language.
+
+Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with
+his hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of their
+phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don’t forget. He had heard
+them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I suggested to him
+that perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering, he says not,
+for these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked of
+nothing but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the birds used
+to go from spot to spot like ladies at shop-windows, looking at the
+different nests and saying, “Not my colour, my dear,” and “How would
+that do with a soft lining?” and “But will it wear?” and “What hideous
+trimming!” and so on.
+
+The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first
+things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry
+when you do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in what
+is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the
+grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing
+round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and
+these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away.
+The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little
+people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not
+so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening
+of the gates. David and I once found a fairy-ring quite warm.
+
+But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
+place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
+close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the
+board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at
+six-thirty for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to get
+begun half an hour earlier.
+
+If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famous
+Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights, hundreds of
+lovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their
+wedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding
+up the ladies’ trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter
+cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where they put
+on their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps, the flowers
+streaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because
+they can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it,
+and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on
+which he blows when Her Majesty wants to know the time.
+
+The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made
+of chestnut-blossom. The way the fairy-servants do is this: The men,
+scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the
+blossom falls like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together by
+whisking their skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that
+is how they get their table-cloth.
+
+They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn
+wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but the
+bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is bread
+and butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to
+end with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The fairies
+sit round on mushrooms, and at first they are very well-behaved and
+always cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so
+well-behaved and stick their fingers into the butter, which is got
+from the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over the
+table-cloth chasing sugar or other delicacies with their tongues. When
+the Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and
+put away, and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in
+front while the Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little
+pots, one of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the other the
+juice of Solomon’s Seals. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers
+who fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon’s Seals juice is for
+bruises. They bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster
+they foot it till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without my
+telling you, Peter Pan is the fairies’ orchestra. He sits in the middle
+of the ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays
+without him. “P. P.” is written on the corner of the invitation-cards
+sent out by all really good families. They are grateful little people,
+too, and at the princess’s coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their
+second birthday and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish
+of his heart.
+
+The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered him to kneel, and then
+said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his
+heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of
+his heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it
+was himself.
+
+“If I chose to go back to mother,” he asked at last, “could you give me
+that wish?”
+
+Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
+should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
+said, “Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that.”
+
+“Is that quite a little wish?” he inquired.
+
+“As little as this,” the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
+other.
+
+“What size is a big wish?” he asked.
+
+She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.
+
+Then Peter reflected and said, “Well, then, I think I shall have two
+little wishes instead of one big one.”
+
+Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather
+shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his
+mother, but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her
+disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve.
+
+They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.
+
+“I can give you the power to fly to her house,” the Queen said, “but I
+can’t open the door for you.”
+
+“The window I flew out at will be open,” Peter said confidently. “Mother
+always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.
+
+“How do you know?” they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could
+not explain how he knew.
+
+“I just do know,” he said.
+
+So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they gave
+him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and
+soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and
+higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops.
+
+It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he
+skimmed away over St. Paul’s to the Crystal Palace and back by the river
+and Regent’s Park, and by the time he reached his mother’s window he had
+quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.
+
+The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
+fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.
+
+Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had
+a good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow
+in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He
+remembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her
+hair a holiday at night.
+
+How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she was
+such a pretty mother.
+
+But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms
+moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted
+to go round.
+
+“Oh, mother,” said Peter to himself, “if you just knew who is sitting on
+the rail at the foot of the bed.”
+
+Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could
+see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say “Mother”
+ ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if it
+is you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry
+and squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, how
+exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is how Peter
+regarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was
+giving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more
+splendid, he thought, than to have a little boy of your own. How proud
+of him they are; and very right and proper, too.
+
+But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
+mother that he has come back?
+
+I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.
+Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked
+longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy
+again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!
+Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped off
+the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They
+were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
+socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was
+about to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.
+Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for
+he heard her say “Peter,” as if it was the most lovely word in the
+language. He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath,
+wondering how she knew that he had come back. If she said “Peter” again,
+he meant to cry “Mother” and run to her. But she spoke no more, she
+made little moans only, and when next he peeped at her she was once more
+asleep, with tears on her face.
+
+It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first
+thing he did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a
+beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself
+out of the way she said “Peter,” and he never stopped playing until she
+looked happy.
+
+He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening
+her to hear her say, “Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play.” However, as
+she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must
+not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had
+quite decided to be his mother’s boy, but hesitated about beginning
+to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant
+to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
+wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to
+the fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might
+go bad. He asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly away
+without saying good-bye to Solomon. “I should like awfully to sail in my
+boat just once more,” he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite
+argued with her as if she could hear him. “It would be so splendid to
+tell the birds of this adventure,” he said coaxingly. “I promise to come
+back,” he said solemnly and meant it, too.
+
+And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
+window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it
+might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and
+then he flew back to the Gardens.
+
+Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his
+second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long.
+One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to his
+particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had his
+last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on.
+Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and another
+comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for his
+mother would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeased
+old Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate.
+Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them at their work,
+such as “Never put off laying to-day, because you can lay to-morrow,”
+ and “In this world there are no second chances,” and yet here was Peter
+gaily putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this out
+to each other, and fell into lazy habits.
+
+But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother,
+he was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution
+with the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the
+Gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick
+him into making such a remark as “I wish the grass was not so wet,” and
+some of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, “I do
+wish you would keep time!” Then they would have said that this was his
+second wish. But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he
+began, “I wish--” he always stopped in time. So when at last he said
+to them bravely, “I wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,”
+ they had to tickle his shoulder and let him go.
+
+He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother was
+crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that a
+hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he felt
+sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this
+time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for
+him.
+
+But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
+inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round another
+little boy.
+
+Peter called, “Mother! mother!” but she heard him not; in vain he beat
+his little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to
+the Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he had
+meant to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how
+differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was
+right; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the
+window it is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1332 ***
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
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+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
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+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1332 ***</div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By J. M. Barrie
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Contents
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> Peter Pan </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> The Thrush&rsquo;s Nest </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> The Little House </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> Lock-out Time </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Peter Pan
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
+      little girl she will say, &ldquo;Why, of course, I did, child,&rdquo; and if you ask
+      her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, &ldquo;What a foolish
+      question to ask, certainly he did.&rdquo; Then if you ask your grandmother
+      whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, &ldquo;Why,
+      of course, I did, child,&rdquo; but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in
+      those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has
+      forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred,
+      which is your mother&rsquo;s name. Still, she could hardly forget such an
+      important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your
+      grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of
+      Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to
+      put on your jacket before your vest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
+      always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age is one
+      week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday, nor
+      is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The reason is that
+      he escaped from being a human when he was seven days&rsquo; old; he escaped by
+      the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows how
+      completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard this
+      story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape, but I
+      told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples, and when
+      he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly remembered a
+      youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with that memory came
+      others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his
+      mother was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way up the
+      chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would press
+      their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before they were
+      human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few weeks, and
+      very itchy at the shoulders, where their wings used to be. So David tells
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story: First,
+      I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding being that
+      it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with his additions,
+      and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more his story or
+      mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald narrative and
+      most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all, for this boy can
+      be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits about the ways and customs
+      of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences of David&rsquo;s, recalled
+      by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars. Standing on the
+      ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the Kensington
+      Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that he was now a
+      little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over the houses to the
+      Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly without wings, but the place
+      itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all fly if we were as
+      dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter Pan that
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby&rsquo;s Palace and the
+      Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick. He
+      was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and thought he was
+      a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his early days, and when
+      he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he missed it
+      was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand, which, of course,
+      a bird never does. He saw, however, that it must be past Lock-out Time,
+      for there were a good many fairies about, all too busy to notice him; they
+      were getting breakfast ready, milking their cows, drawing water, and so
+      on, and the sight of the water-pails made him thirsty, so he flew over to
+      the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped, and dipped his beak in the
+      pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose,
+      and, therefore, very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as
+      usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it. When a real
+      bird falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but
+      Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided, rather
+      sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch, but
+      presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long before
+      morning, shivering, and saying to himself, &ldquo;I never was out in such a cold
+      night;&rdquo; he had really been out in colder nights when he was a bird, but,
+      of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm night to a bird is a cold
+      night to a boy in a nightgown. Peter also felt strangely uncomfortable, as
+      if his head was stuffy, he heard loud noises that made him look round
+      sharply, though they were really himself sneezing. There was something he
+      wanted very much, but, though he knew he wanted it, he could not think
+      what it was. What he wanted so much was his mother to blow his nose, but
+      that never struck him, so he decided to appeal to the fairies for
+      enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
+      round each other&rsquo;s waists, and he hopped down to address them. The fairies
+      have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil answer to a
+      civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran away the moment
+      they saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair, reading a
+      postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he heard Peter&rsquo;s
+      voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Peter&rsquo;s bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from
+      him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away,
+      leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail upside down
+      and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies were
+      running this way and that, asking each other stoutly, who was afraid,
+      lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds of Queen
+      Mab&rsquo;s palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that the royal guard had
+      been called out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
+      holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing. Peter
+      heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the
+      Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he was
+      the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more wistful
+      to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he pursued them with the
+      vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and even the
+      Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly into a
+      side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he
+      remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had
+      flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not troubled him at
+      the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing was shunning him.
+      Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not
+      know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing
+      that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power
+      to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to
+      be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can&rsquo;t is simply that
+      they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine, for
+      the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there are stakes
+      round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a bird-sentinel sits
+      by day and night. It was to the island that Peter now flew to put his
+      strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on it with relief,
+      much heartened to find himself at last at home, as the birds call the
+      island. All of them were asleep, including the sentinels, except Solomon,
+      who was wide awake on one side, and he listened quietly to Peter&rsquo;s
+      adventures, and then told him their true meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at your night-gown, if you don&rsquo;t believe me,&rdquo; Solomon said, and with
+      staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the sleeping
+      birds. Not one of them wore anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many of your toes are thumbs?&rdquo; said Solomon a little cruelly, and
+      Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The shock
+      was so great that it drove away his cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruffle your feathers,&rdquo; said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried most
+      desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose up,
+      quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window-ledge, he
+      remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I shall go back to mother,&rdquo; he said timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Peter hesitated. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you go?&rdquo; the old one asked politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Peter huskily, &ldquo;I suppose I can still fly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      You see, he had lost faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little half-and-half,&rdquo; said Solomon, who was not really
+      hard-hearted, &ldquo;you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
+      days. You must live here on the island always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?&rdquo; Peter asked tragically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could you get across?&rdquo; said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
+      however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by
+      one of such an awkward shape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be exactly a human?&rdquo; Peter asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor exactly a bird?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be a Betwixt-and-Between,&rdquo; Solomon said, and certainly he was a
+      wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled them
+      every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds that
+      were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at him at once,
+      then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds came out of other
+      eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when they tired
+      of sitting on their eggs, used to get the young one to break their shells
+      a day before the right time by whispering to them that now was their
+      chance to see Peter washing or drinking or eating. Thousands gathered
+      round him daily to watch him do these things, just as you watch the
+      peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the crusts they
+      flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the mouth. All
+      his food was brought to him from the Gardens at Solomon&rsquo;s orders by the
+      birds. He would not eat worms or insects (which they thought very silly of
+      him), so they brought him bread in their beaks. Thus, when you cry out,
+      &ldquo;Greedy! Greedy!&rdquo; to the bird that flies away with the big crust, you know
+      now that you ought not to do this, for he is very likely taking it to
+      Peter Pan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds were always begging him
+      for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very good-natured, he
+      could not refuse, so by Solomon&rsquo;s advice he had hidden what was left of
+      it. But, though he was now quite naked, you must not think that he was
+      cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and the reason was
+      that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird ways. To
+      be easily pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing something,
+      and to think that whatever he was doing was a thing of vast importance.
+      Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their nests; soon
+      he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well as a
+      blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice
+      little water-troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young ones
+      with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and knew an
+      east-wind from a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the grass
+      growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks. But the
+      best thing Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad heart. All
+      birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as they were the
+      only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him to teach Peter
+      how to have one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter&rsquo;s heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long, just as
+      the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in instrument,
+      so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore of the island
+      of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the ripple of the
+      water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, and he put them all
+      in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the birds were
+      deceived, and they would say to each other, &ldquo;Was that a fish leaping in
+      the water or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe?&rdquo; and sometimes
+      he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would turn round in
+      their nests to see whether they had laid an egg. If you are a child of the
+      Gardens you must know the chestnut-tree near the bridge, which comes out
+      in flower first of all the chestnuts, but perhaps you have not heard why
+      this tree leads the way. It is because Peter wearies for summer and plays
+      that it has come, and the chestnut being so near, hears him and is
+      cheated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes
+      fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also, and the reason
+      of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens, though he
+      could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he could never be a
+      real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but oh, how he longed to
+      play as other children play, and of course there is no such lovely place
+      to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him news of how boys and
+      girls play, and wistful tears started in Peter&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. The reason was that he
+      could not swim. He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the island
+      knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. They were quite
+      willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was, &ldquo;You sit down
+      on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick out like that.&rdquo;
+       Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick out he sank. What he
+      really needed to know was how you sit on the water without sinking, and
+      they said it was quite impossible to explain such an easy thing as that.
+      Occasionally swans touched on the island, and he would give them all his
+      day&rsquo;s food and then ask them how they sat on the water, but as soon as he
+      had no more to give them the hateful things hissed at him and sailed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the Gardens. A
+      wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated high over the
+      island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the manner of a bird
+      that has broken its wing. Peter was so frightened that he hid, but the
+      birds told him it was only a kite, and what a kite is, and that it must
+      have tugged its string out of a boy&rsquo;s hand, and soared away. After that
+      they laughed at Peter for being so fond of the kite, he loved it so much
+      that he even slept with one hand on it, and I think this was pathetic and
+      pretty, for the reason he loved it was because it had belonged to a real
+      boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt grateful
+      to him at this time because he had nursed a number of fledglings through
+      the German measles, and they offered to show him how birds fly a kite. So
+      six of them took the end of the string in their beaks and flew away with
+      it; and to his amazement it flew after them and went even higher than
+      they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter screamed out, &ldquo;Do it again!&rdquo; and with great good nature they did it
+      several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, &ldquo;Do it
+      again!&rdquo; which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it was
+      to be a boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
+      them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred
+      flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop off
+      when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the air, and
+      he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold of two
+      indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this the
+      birds said that they would help him no more in his mad enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of Shelley&rsquo;s
+      boat, as I am now to tell you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      The Thrush&rsquo;s Nest
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to
+      be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people
+      who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that and
+      five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens, he
+      made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the Serpentine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to Solomon
+      Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a message from a
+      lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her have a good one.
+      They always ask for the best one he has, and if he likes the letter he
+      sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones
+      indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at another time he sends a
+      nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch him in. He likes you to
+      leave it all to him, and if you mention particularly that you hope he will
+      see his way to making it a boy this time, he is almost sure to send
+      another girl. And whether you are a lady or only a little boy who wants a
+      baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearly. You can&rsquo;t
+      think what a lot of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shelley&rsquo;s boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
+      counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
+      their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided that
+      it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought this because
+      there was a large five printed on it. &ldquo;Preposterous!&rdquo; cried Solomon in a
+      rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which drifted upon
+      the island was usually given to Peter as a play-thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it was
+      at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
+      ordinary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at last
+      contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible ways,
+      and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. But, first, he had
+      to tell the birds of the value of Shelley&rsquo;s boat; and though they were too
+      honest to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, and they cast such
+      black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain of his cleverness, that he
+      flew away to the end of the island, and sat there very depressed with his
+      head buried in his wings. Now Peter knew that unless Solomon was on your
+      side, you never got anything done for you in the island, so he followed
+      him and tried to hearten him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow&rsquo;s good
+      will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in office
+      all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and devoting his
+      green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs
+      which had taken his fancy, and for years he had been quietly filling his
+      stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bathing person which had
+      been cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of it contained a
+      hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper
+      and a bootlace. When his stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he
+      would be able to retire on a competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He
+      cut it off his bank-note with a sharp stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
+      together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently why
+      thrushes only were invited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scheme to be put before them was really Peter&rsquo;s, but Solomon did most
+      of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people talked.
+      He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the superior
+      ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this put them into
+      good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the quarrels between
+      birds are about the best way of building nests. Other birds, said Solomon,
+      omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a result they did not hold
+      water. Here he cocked his head as if he had used an unanswerable argument;
+      but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come to the meeting uninvited, and
+      she squeaked out, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t build nests to hold water, but to hold eggs,&rdquo;
+       and then the thrushes stopped cheering, and Solomon was so perplexed that
+      he took several sips of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;how warm the mud makes the nest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Finch, &ldquo;that when water gets into the nest it
+      remains there and your little ones are drowned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in reply
+      to this, but again he was perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try another drink,&rdquo; suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name, and
+      all Kates are saucy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;a
+      finch&rsquo;s nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces,
+      but a thrush&rsquo;s nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan&rsquo;s back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests with
+      mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t place our nests on the
+      Serpentine,&rdquo; they did what they should have done at first: chased her from
+      the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had been brought
+      together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their young friend, Peter Pan,
+      as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to cross to the Gardens,
+      and he now proposed, with their help, to build a boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
+      scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous
+      boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush&rsquo;s nest
+      large enough to hold Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still, to Peter&rsquo;s agony, the thrushes were sulky. &ldquo;We are very busy
+      people,&rdquo; they grumbled, &ldquo;and this would be a big job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; said Solomon, &ldquo;and, of course, Peter would not allow you to
+      work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable
+      circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been paid
+      before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be paid sixpence
+      a day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
+      celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into
+      arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but
+      not a thrush&rsquo;s nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon ran
+      short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland. The
+      stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators but get
+      puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and ladies
+      often ask specially for them. What do you think Solomon did? He sent over
+      to the housetops for a lot of sparrows and ordered them to lay their eggs
+      in old thrushes&rsquo; nests and sent their young to the ladies and swore they
+      were all thrushes! It was known afterward on the island as the Sparrows&rsquo;
+      Year, and so, when you meet, as you doubtless sometimes do, grown-up
+      people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves bigger than they
+      are, very likely they belong to that year. You ask them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They
+      stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
+      sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and then
+      each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence. It
+      must have been a fine sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
+      deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
+      thrush&rsquo;s nest! From the very beginning of the building of it he slept by
+      its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it was
+      lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps in
+      his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round in it, for it
+      is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he curls round like a
+      kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green,
+      being woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls
+      are thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which
+      came off the thrushes while they were building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other birds were extremely jealous and said that the boat would not
+      balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully steady; they said the
+      water would come into it, but no water came into it. Next they said that
+      Peter had no oars, and this caused the thrushes to look at each other in
+      dismay, but Peter replied that he had no need of oars, for he had a sail,
+      and with such a proud, happy face he produced a sail which he had
+      fashioned out of this night-gown, and though it was still rather like a
+      night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full, and
+      all the birds asleep, he did enter his coracle (as Master Francis Pretty
+      would have said) and depart out of the island. And first, he knew not why,
+      he looked upward, with his hands clasped, and from that moment his eyes
+      were pinned to the west.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with them
+      to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens beckoning to him
+      beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face was flushed, but he
+      never looked back; there was an exultation in his little breast that drove
+      out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the English mariners who have
+      sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to the
+      place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing one of the
+      sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary breeze, to his
+      no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the result that he was
+      drifted toward the far shore, where are black shadows he knew not the
+      dangers of, but suspected them, and so once more hoisted his night-gown
+      and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring wind, which
+      bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to be broke
+      against the bridge. Which, having avoided, he passed under the bridge and
+      came, to his great rejoicing, within full sight of the delectable Gardens.
+      But having tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end of a piece
+      of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold off, seeking
+      for moorage, and, feeling his way, he buffeted against a sunken reef that
+      cast him overboard by the greatness of the shock, and he was near to being
+      drowned, but clambered back into the vessel. There now arose a mighty
+      storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he had never heard the
+      like, and he was tossed this way and that, and his hands so numbed with
+      the cold that he could not close them. Having escaped the danger of which,
+      he was mercifully carried into a small bay, where his boat rode at peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on pretending to disembark,
+      he found a multitude of small people drawn up on the shore to contest his
+      landing; and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past
+      Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and also
+      a company of them carried an arrow which some boy had left in the Gardens,
+      and this they were prepared to use as a battering-ram.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, called out that he was not an
+      ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be their
+      friend, nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was in no temper to
+      draw off there-from, and he warned them if they sought to mischief him to
+      stand to their harms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying; he boldly leapt ashore, and they gathered around him with
+      intent to slay him, but there then arose a great cry among the women, and
+      it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby&rsquo;s
+      night-gown. Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that their
+      laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by saying that
+      such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their weapons on
+      observing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelligence they set
+      great store, and they led him civilly to their queen, who conferred upon
+      him the courtesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and henceforth Peter
+      could go whither he chose, and the fairies had orders to put him in
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the
+      antiquity of the language that it took place a long time ago. But Peter
+      never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him under the
+      bridge to-night (but, of course, we can&rsquo;t), I daresay we should see him
+      hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in the Thrush&rsquo;s
+      Nest. When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to paddle. I shall
+      tell you presently how he got his paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long before the time for the opening of the gates comes he steals back to
+      the island, for people must not see him (he is not so human as all that),
+      but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly as real children
+      play. At least he thinks so, and it is one of the pathetic things about
+      him that he often plays quite wrongly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You see, he had no one to tell him how children really play, for the
+      fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing,
+      and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a great deal, when
+      the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they really knew.
+      They told him the truth about hide-and-seek, and he often plays it by
+      himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond could not explain to him
+      what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every night the
+      ducks have forgotten all the events of the day, except the number of
+      pieces of cake thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and say that
+      cake is not what it was in their young days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Peter had to find out many things for himself. He often played ships at
+      the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on the
+      grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he wondered what you play
+      at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they are boats. This
+      hoop always sank at once, but he waded in for it, and sometimes he dragged
+      it gleefully round the rim of the pond, and he was quite proud to think
+      that he had discovered what boys do with hoops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another time, when he found a child&rsquo;s pail, he thought it was for sitting
+      in, and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of it. Also he
+      found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite as if it was
+      having a game by itself, and he caught it after an exciting chase. But he
+      thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told him that boys kick balls,
+      so he kicked it; and after that he could not find it anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator. It was
+      under a lime-tree, near the entrance to the Fairy Queen&rsquo;s Winter Palace
+      (which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts), and Peter
+      approached it warily, for the birds had never mentioned such things to
+      him. Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then, as it gave no
+      answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously. He gave it a little push,
+      and it ran from him, which made him think it must be alive after all; but,
+      as it had run from him, he was not afraid. So he stretched out his hand to
+      pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so alarmed that he
+      leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat. You must not think,
+      however, that he was a coward, for he came back next night with a crust in
+      one hand and a stick in the other, but the perambulator had gone, and he
+      never saw another one. I have promised to tell you also about his paddle.
+      It was a child&rsquo;s spade which he had found near St. Govor&rsquo;s Well, and he
+      thought it was a paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes? If so, I think it rather
+      silly of you. What I mean is that, of course, one must pity him now and
+      then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence. He thought he
+      had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you have it is
+      almost quite as good as really to have it. He played without ceasing,
+      while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He could be
+      neither of these things, for he had never heard of them, but do you think
+      he is to be pitied for that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, he was merry. He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as you
+      are merrier than your father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top, from
+      sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences of the
+      Gardens? That is how Peter leaps them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen who walk home at night write
+      to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens, but it is
+      really Peter&rsquo;s pipe they hear. Of course, he had no mother&mdash;at least,
+      what use was she to him? You can be sorry for him for that, but don&rsquo;t be
+      too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell you is how he revisited her.
+      It was the fairies who gave him the chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      The Little House
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which
+      is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for
+      humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and they
+      have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you
+      never see it. This is because it is not there when you lie down, but it is
+      there when you wake up and step outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really it,
+      but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out Time.
+      David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away among the trees as
+      we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw it the night
+      he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of his father&rsquo;s office.
+      Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted because then she is
+      treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light, she saw hundreds of
+      them all together, and this must have been the fairies building the house,
+      for they build it every night and always in a different part of the
+      Gardens. She thought one of the lights was bigger than the others, though
+      she was not quite sure, for they jumped about so, and it might have been
+      another one that was bigger. But if it was the same one, it was Peter
+      Pan&rsquo;s light. Heaps of children have seen the fight, so that is nothing.
+      But Maimie Mannering was the famous one for whom the house was first
+      built.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night that she was
+      strange. She was four years of age, and in the daytime she was the
+      ordinary kind. She was pleased when her brother Tony, who was a
+      magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to him in
+      the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was flattered rather
+      than annoyed when he shoved her about. Also, when she was batting she
+      would pause though the ball was in the air to point out to you that she
+      was wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in the daytime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt
+      for Maimie and eyed her fearfully, and no wonder, for with dark there came
+      into her face a look that I can describe only as a leary look. It was also
+      a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony&rsquo;s uneasy glances. Then he
+      would make her presents of his favourite toys (which he always took away
+      from her next morning) and she accepted them with a disturbing smile. The
+      reason he was now become so wheedling and she so mysterious was (in brief)
+      that they knew they were about to be sent to bed. It was then that Maimie
+      was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do it to-night, and the mother and
+      their coloured nurse threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled her
+      agitating smile. And by-and-by when they were alone with their night-light
+      she would start up in bed crying &ldquo;Hsh! what was that?&rdquo; Tony beseeches her!
+      &ldquo;It was nothing&mdash;don&rsquo;t, Maimie, don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; and pulls the sheet over his
+      head. &ldquo;It is coming nearer!&rdquo; she cries; &ldquo;Oh, look at it, Tony! It is
+      feeling your bed with its horns&mdash;it is boring for you, oh, Tony, oh!&rdquo;
+       and she desists not until he rushes downstairs in his combinations,
+      screeching. When they came up to whip Maimie they usually found her
+      sleeping tranquilly, not shamming, you know, but really sleeping, and
+      looking like the sweetest little angel, which seems to me to make it
+      almost worse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens, and then Tony
+      did most of the talking. You could gather from his talk that he was a very
+      brave boy, and no one was so proud of it as Maimie. She would have loved
+      to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister. And at no time did
+      she admire him more than when he told her, as he often did with splendid
+      firmness, that one day he meant to remain behind in the Gardens after the
+      gates were closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Tony,&rdquo; she would say, with awful respect, &ldquo;but the fairies will be so
+      angry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay,&rdquo; replied Tony, carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; she said, thrilling, &ldquo;Peter Pan will give you a sail in his
+      boat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall make him,&rdquo; replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were overheard
+      by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from which the little
+      people weave their summer curtains, and after that Tony was a marked boy.
+      They loosened the rails before he sat on them, so that down he came on the
+      back of his head; they tripped him up by catching his bootlace and bribed
+      the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty accidents you meet with
+      in the Gardens occur because the fairies have taken an ill-will to you,
+      and so it behoves you to be careful what you say about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things, but
+      Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which day he was to remain
+      behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, &ldquo;Just some day;&rdquo;
+       he was quite vague about which day except when she asked &ldquo;Will it be
+      today?&rdquo; and then he could always say for certain that it would not be
+      to-day. So she saw that he was waiting for a real good chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow, and
+      there was ice on the Round Pond, not thick enough to skate on but at least
+      you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones, and many bright little
+      boys and girls were doing that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond,
+      but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said
+      this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that
+      night. It read half-past five. Poor ayah! she is the one who laughs
+      continuously because there are so many white children in the world, but
+      she was not to laugh much more that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to the
+      time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o&rsquo;clock for
+      closing time. But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the
+      fairies, and so did not see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they had
+      changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night. She said there
+      was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as they
+      trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their little
+      breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a fairy ball. Never, Tony
+      felt, could he hope for a better chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him. Her eager eyes
+      asked the question, &ldquo;Is it to-day?&rdquo; and he gasped and then nodded. Maimie
+      slipped her hand into Tony&rsquo;s, and hers was hot, but his was cold. She did
+      a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and gave it to him! &ldquo;In case you
+      should feel cold,&rdquo; she whispered. Her face was aglow, but Tony&rsquo;s was very
+      gloomy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid
+      Nurse would see me, so I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be able to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing but their
+      ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear, and she said aloud,
+      &ldquo;Tony, I shall race you to the gate,&rdquo; and in a whisper, &ldquo;Then you can
+      hide,&rdquo; and off they ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she known him
+      speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he hurried that he might
+      have more time to hide. &ldquo;Brave, brave!&rdquo; her doting eyes were crying when
+      she got a dreadful shock; instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the
+      gate! At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as if all her lapful of
+      darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for very disdain she
+      could not sob; in a swell of protest against all puling cowards she ran to
+      St. Govor&rsquo;s Well and hid in Tony&rsquo;s stead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she thought her
+      other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight came on, and scores and
+      hundreds of people passed out, including the last one, who always has to
+      run for it, but Maimie saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight and glued
+      them with passionate tears. When she opened them something very cold ran
+      up her legs and up her arms and dropped into her heart. It was the
+      stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then from another part <i>clang</i>,
+      then <i>clang</i>, <i>clang</i> far away. It was the Closing of the Gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a voice
+      say, &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s all right.&rdquo; It had a wooden sound and seemed to come from
+      above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree stretching out its
+      arms and yawning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was about to say, &ldquo;I never knew you could speak!&rdquo; when a metallic
+      voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the elm,
+      &ldquo;I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?&rdquo; and the elm replied, &ldquo;Not
+      particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg,&rdquo; and he
+      flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they drive off.
+      Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were
+      doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the Baby Walk and
+      crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which shrugged its shoulders
+      but did not seem to mind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured pelisse
+      and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed except her
+      dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self was hidden far
+      away inside so many warm garments that in shape she seemed rather like a
+      ball. She was about forty round the waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived in
+      time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and set
+      off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly, but
+      that was because they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across the
+      walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
+      crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees and
+      shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never
+      known what they were for until to-night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy fairy
+      who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way he did it
+      was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut like umbrellas,
+      deluging the little plants beneath with snow. &ldquo;Oh, you naughty, naughty
+      child!&rdquo; Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it was to have a
+      dripping umbrella about your ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
+      chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly &ldquo;Hoity-toity,
+      what is this?&rdquo; that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole
+      vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is no affair of ours,&rdquo; a spindle tree said after they had
+      whispered together, &ldquo;but you know quite well you ought not to be here, and
+      perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think
+      yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you should not,&rdquo; Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
+      they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t ask it of
+      you,&rdquo; she assured them, &ldquo;if I thought it was wrong,&rdquo; and of course after
+      this they could not well carry tales. They then said, &ldquo;Well-a-day,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Such is life!&rdquo; for they can be frightfully sarcastic, but she felt sorry
+      for those of them who had no crutches, and she said good-naturedly,
+      &ldquo;Before I go to the fairies&rsquo; ball, I should like to take you for a walk
+      one at a time; you can lean on me, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby
+      Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round the
+      very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and
+      treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though she
+      could not understand a word they said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that she had not
+      taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others jagged
+      her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a lady to cry
+      out. So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be off to the ball,
+      but she no longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more fear was that
+      it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember, Maimie was always
+      rather strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were now loath to let her go, for, &ldquo;If the fairies see you,&rdquo; they
+      warned her, &ldquo;they will mischief you, stab you to death or compel you to
+      nurse their children or turn you into something tedious, like an evergreen
+      oak.&rdquo; As they said this they looked with affected pity at an evergreen
+      oak, for in winter they are very envious of the evergreens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, la!&rdquo; replied the oak bitingly, &ldquo;how deliciously cosy it is to stand
+      here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked creatures shivering!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This made them sulky though they had really brought it on themselves, and
+      they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of the perils that faced her if
+      she insisted on going to the ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual good
+      temper at present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the Duke of
+      Christmas Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy, very poorly of a dreadful
+      complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he had tried many ladies
+      in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them. Queen Mab, who
+      rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls would bewitch him,
+      but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained cold. This rather
+      irritating doctor, who was his private physician, felt the Duke&rsquo;s heart
+      immediately after any lady was presented, and then always shook his bald
+      head and murmured, &ldquo;Cold, quite cold!&rdquo; Naturally Queen Mab felt disgraced,
+      and first she tried the effect of ordering the court into tears for nine
+      minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and decreed that they should wear
+      fools&rsquo; caps until they thawed the Duke&rsquo;s frozen heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools&rsquo; caps!&rdquo;
+       Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very recklessly, for the
+      Cupids hate to be laughed at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is always easy to discover where a fairies&rsquo; ball is being held, as
+      ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
+      Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
+      their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty on the
+      snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
+      anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
+      surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just time
+      to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms and
+      pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front and six
+      behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held up by
+      two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a lovely
+      girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about. She was
+      dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was her neck,
+      which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course showed off
+      her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified it. The
+      high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their skin, which
+      lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you cannot imagine
+      anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies&rsquo; busts in the
+      jewellers&rsquo; windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a passion,
+      tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt
+      them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the doctor
+      had said &ldquo;Cold, quite cold!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over a
+      dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb
+      out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most kindly
+      went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and
+      explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor street
+      singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am rather plain,&rdquo; and this made Maimie
+      uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
+      plain for a fairy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was difficult to know what to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you think I have no chance,&rdquo; Brownie said falteringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say that,&rdquo; Maimie answered politely, &ldquo;of course your face is just
+      a tiny bit homely, but&mdash;&rdquo; Really it was quite awkward for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar. He had gone to
+      a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London were on
+      view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return home instead of
+      being dissatisfied with Maimie&rsquo;s mother he had said, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t think, my
+      dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously, indeed
+      she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose her. So
+      she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to follow lest
+      the Queen should mischief her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Maimie&rsquo;s curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
+      Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until she
+      was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed
+      of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming a
+      dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of little people
+      looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared to the
+      glorious creatures within that luminous circle who were so bewilderingly
+      bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she looked at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
+      Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: yet out of love
+      his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks of the
+      Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way darling
+      ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as they were told
+      to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke&rsquo;s heart and hear
+      him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly sorry for
+      the Cupids, who stood in their fools&rsquo; caps in obscure places and, every
+      time they heard that &ldquo;Cold, quite cold,&rdquo; bowed their disgraced little
+      heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you now
+      why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got wedged on
+      the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which he had to
+      break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance, so
+      heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are sad and
+      remember them again when they are merry. David tells me that fairies never
+      say &ldquo;We feel happy&rdquo;: what they say is, &ldquo;We feel <i>dancey</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, they were looking very undancy indeed, when sudden laughter broke
+      out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived and was
+      insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she had
+      really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie
+      herself who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his
+      grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart,
+      which for convenience sake was reached by a little trap-door in his
+      diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, &ldquo;Cold, qui&mdash;,&rdquo; when he
+      stopped abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch, and
+      then put his ear to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless my soul!&rdquo; cried the doctor, and by this time of course the
+      excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right and
+      left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled and
+      looked as if he would like to run away. &ldquo;Good gracious me!&rdquo; the doctor was
+      heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire, for he had to
+      jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suspense was awful!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, &ldquo;My Lord Duke,&rdquo; said the physician
+      elatedly, &ldquo;I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace is
+      in love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      You can&rsquo;t conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the Duke
+      and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of the Lord
+      Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of her
+      gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in everything. Thus
+      in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you leap into
+      each other&rsquo;s arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman has to be
+      present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and
+      immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were
+      ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring.
+      Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools&rsquo; caps from
+      their heads and cast them high in the air. And then Maimie went and
+      spoiled everything. She couldn&rsquo;t help it. She was crazy with delight over
+      her little friend&rsquo;s good fortune, so she took several steps forward and
+      cried in an ecstasy, &ldquo;Oh, Brownie, how splendid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all in
+      the time you may take to say &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; An awful sense of her peril came
+      upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a place
+      where no human must be between the locking and the opening of the gates,
+      she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she saw a thousand swords
+      flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head. Many
+      times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again. Her
+      little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew she was in
+      the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she must never cease
+      to run, and she thought she was still running long after she had dropped
+      in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes falling on her
+      face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought her coverlet of
+      snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her head. And when she
+      heard talking through her dreams she thought it was mother bringing father
+      to the nursery door to look at her as she slept. But it was the fairies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to mischief
+      her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as &ldquo;Slay
+      her!&rdquo; &ldquo;Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!&rdquo; and so on, but the
+      pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should march in front, and
+      this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and demand
+      a boon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie&rsquo;s
+      life. &ldquo;Anything except that,&rdquo; replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
+      fairies chanted &ldquo;Anything except that.&rdquo; But when they learned how Maimie
+      had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their
+      great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and
+      set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front and the
+      canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her footprints
+      in the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed impossible
+      to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the form
+      of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood on her body and read
+      her a long address of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They also
+      cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, and they saw she
+      was in danger of perishing of cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turn her into something that does not mind the cold,&rdquo; seemed a good
+      suggestion of the doctor&rsquo;s, but the only thing they could think of that
+      does not mind cold was a snowflake. &ldquo;And it might melt,&rdquo; the Queen pointed
+      out, so that idea had to be given up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but
+      though there were so many of them she was too heavy. By this time all the
+      ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids had a
+      lovely idea. &ldquo;Build a house round her,&rdquo; they cried, and at once everybody
+      perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a hundred fairy
+      sawyers were among the branches, architects were running round Maimie,
+      measuring her; a bricklayer&rsquo;s yard sprang up at her feet, seventy-five
+      masons rushed up with the foundation stone and the Queen laid it,
+      overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings were run up,
+      the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and turning lathes, and by
+      this time the roof was on and the glaziers were putting in the windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely. One of her
+      arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but they built
+      a verandah round it, leading to the front door. The windows were the size
+      of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it would be
+      easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as is their
+      custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they
+      were all so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear
+      to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many little extra
+      touches, and even then they added more extra touches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we fear it is quite finished,&rdquo; they sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the
+      chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That certainly finishes it,&rdquo; they cried reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; cried a glow-worm, &ldquo;if she were to wake without seeing a
+      night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait one moment,&rdquo; said a china merchant, &ldquo;and I shall make you a saucer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now alas, it was absolutely finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, dear no!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious me,&rdquo; cried a brass manufacturer, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s no handle on the
+      door,&rdquo; and he put one on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat.
+      Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on
+      painting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finished at last!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finished! how can it be finished,&rdquo; the plumber demanded scornfully,
+      &ldquo;before hot and cold are put in?&rdquo; and he put in hot and cold. Then an army
+      of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and bulbs and
+      forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the right of the
+      verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses and clematis on the
+      walls of the house, and in less time than five minutes all these dear
+      things were in full bloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at last finished
+      true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the dance. They all
+      kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the last to go was
+      Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop a pleasant dream
+      down the chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs
+      taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream was
+      quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was
+      breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then she
+      called out,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tony,&rdquo; for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no
+      answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened like
+      the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the
+      Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the nursery she
+      wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and
+      then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her that she was in the
+      middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had
+      happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away from
+      the fairies, but however, she asked herself, had she got into this funny
+      place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, and then she
+      saw the dear house in which she had passed the night. It so entranced her
+      that she could think of nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now knew
+      that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it began to
+      grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce believe it was
+      shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her now. It always
+      remained as complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller, and the
+      garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer, lapping house
+      and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little dog&rsquo;s kennel, and
+      now of a Noah&rsquo;s Ark, but still you could see the smoke and the door-handle
+      and the roses on the wall, every one complete. The glow-worm fight was
+      waning too, but it was still there. &ldquo;Darling, loveliest, don&rsquo;t go!&rdquo; Maimie
+      cried, falling on her knees, for the little house was now the size of a
+      reel of thread, but still quite complete. But as she stretched out her
+      arms imploringly the snow crept up on all sides until it met itself, and
+      where the little house had been was now one unbroken expanse of snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
+      eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, pretty human, don&rsquo;t
+      cry,&rdquo; and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy
+      regarding her wistfully. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Lock-out Time
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the
+      only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are
+      children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and at that time
+      there was not a fairy in the place; then the children were admitted, and
+      the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can&rsquo;t resist
+      following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because they live
+      in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed to go, and
+      also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bit cunning after
+      Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a
+      good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can&rsquo;t
+      write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who
+      declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said
+      this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all
+      the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be
+      something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually pretend to
+      be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies&rsquo; Basin, and there are so
+      many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that a flower is the
+      thing least likely to attract attention. They dress exactly like flowers,
+      and change with the seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue
+      for blue-bells, and so on. They like crocus and hyacinth time best of all,
+      as they are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except white ones,
+      which are the fairy-cradles) they consider garish, and they sometimes put
+      off dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the tulip
+      weeks is almost the best time to catch them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but if
+      you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite still,
+      pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without knowing that
+      they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers they have had
+      such an adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is all covered with
+      ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil), with flowers growing
+      in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers, but some of them
+      are fairies. You never can be sure of them, but a good plan is to walk by
+      looking the other way, and then turn round sharply. Another good plan,
+      which David and I sometimes follow, is to stare them down. After a long
+      time they can&rsquo;t help winking, and then you know for certain that they are
+      fairies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous
+      gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once twenty-four
+      of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls&rsquo; school out for
+      a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth gowns, when she
+      suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they all stood still on an
+      empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths. Unfortunately, what the governess
+      had heard was two gardeners coming to plant new flowers in that very bed.
+      They were wheeling a handcart with flowers in it, and were quite surprised
+      to find the bed occupied. &ldquo;Pity to lift them hyacinths,&rdquo; said the one man.
+      &ldquo;Duke&rsquo;s orders,&rdquo; replied the other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug
+      up the boarding-school and put the poor, terrified things in it in five
+      rows. Of course, neither the governess nor the girls dare let on that they
+      were fairies, so they were carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which
+      they escaped in the night without their shoes, but there was a great row
+      about it among the parents, and the school was ruined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are the
+      exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you can&rsquo;t
+      see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you can&rsquo;t
+      see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never heard of
+      anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not mean that
+      they are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so
+      much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with a light
+      behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and is
+      quite the loveliest of all royal residences, but the queen sometimes
+      complains because the common people will peep in to see what she is doing.
+      They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hard against the glass,
+      and that is why their noses are mostly snubby. The streets are miles long
+      and very twisty, and have paths on each side made of bright worsted. The
+      birds used to steal the worsted for their nests, but a policeman has been
+      appointed to hold on at the other end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they never
+      do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first time, his
+      laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That
+      was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy, you know, as if
+      they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask them what they are
+      doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are frightfully
+      ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have a postman, but
+      he never calls except at Christmas with his little box, and though they
+      have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the youngest child
+      being chief person is always elected mistress, and when she has called the
+      roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back. It is a very
+      noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest is always chief
+      person, and usually becomes a prince or princess, and children remember
+      this, and think it must be so among humans also, and that is why they are
+      often made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new
+      frills on the basinette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts of
+      things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand up at
+      sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for instance, or
+      to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when she
+      is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this down to
+      naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she is doing as she has
+      seen the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, and it takes
+      about two years to get her into the human ways. Her fits of passion, which
+      are awful to behold, and are usually called teething, are no such thing;
+      they are her natural exasperation, because we don&rsquo;t understand her, though
+      she is talking an intelligible language. She is talking fairy. The reason
+      mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean, before other people know,
+      as that &ldquo;Guch&rdquo; means &ldquo;Give it to me at once,&rdquo; while &ldquo;Wa&rdquo; is &ldquo;Why do you
+      wear such a funny hat?&rdquo; is because, mixing so much with babies, they have
+      picked up a little of the fairy language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with his
+      hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of their
+      phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don&rsquo;t forget. He had heard
+      them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I suggested to him that
+      perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering, he says not, for
+      these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked of
+      nothing but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the birds used to
+      go from spot to spot like ladies at shop-windows, looking at the different
+      nests and saying, &ldquo;Not my colour, my dear,&rdquo; and &ldquo;How would that do with a
+      soft lining?&rdquo; and &ldquo;But will it wear?&rdquo; and &ldquo;What hideous trimming!&rdquo; and so
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first things
+      the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry when you
+      do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a
+      fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is
+      not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round.
+      Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy
+      chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the
+      rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them,
+      and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that
+      they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates. David and I
+      once found a fairy-ring quite warm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
+      place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
+      close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the board
+      on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at six-thirty
+      for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to get begun half an
+      hour earlier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famous
+      Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights, hundreds of lovely
+      fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their
+      wedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding
+      up the ladies&rsquo; trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter
+      cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where they put on
+      their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps, the flowers
+      streaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because
+      they can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it,
+      and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on
+      which he blows when Her Majesty wants to know the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made of
+      chestnut-blossom. The way the fairy-servants do is this: The men, scores
+      of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the blossom falls
+      like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together by whisking their
+      skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that is how they get
+      their table-cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn
+      wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but the
+      bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is bread
+      and butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to
+      end with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The fairies sit
+      round on mushrooms, and at first they are very well-behaved and always
+      cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so
+      well-behaved and stick their fingers into the butter, which is got from
+      the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over the
+      table-cloth chasing sugar or other delicacies with their tongues. When the
+      Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and put
+      away, and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in front
+      while the Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little pots, one
+      of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the other the juice of
+      Solomon&rsquo;s Seals. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall
+      to the ground in a fit, and Solomon&rsquo;s Seals juice is for bruises. They
+      bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster they foot it
+      till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without my telling you,
+      Peter Pan is the fairies&rsquo; orchestra. He sits in the middle of the ring,
+      and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays without him.
+      &ldquo;P. P.&rdquo; is written on the corner of the invitation-cards sent out by all
+      really good families. They are grateful little people, too, and at the
+      princess&rsquo;s coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their second birthday
+      and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish of his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered him to kneel, and then
+      said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his
+      heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of his
+      heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it was
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I chose to go back to mother,&rdquo; he asked at last, &ldquo;could you give me
+      that wish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
+      should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
+      said, &ldquo;Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that quite a little wish?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As little as this,&rdquo; the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What size is a big wish?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter reflected and said, &ldquo;Well, then, I think I shall have two
+      little wishes instead of one big one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather shocked
+      them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mother, but with
+      the right to return to the Gardens if he found her disappointing. His
+      second wish he would hold in reserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can give you the power to fly to her house,&rdquo; the Queen said, &ldquo;but I
+      can&rsquo;t open the door for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The window I flew out at will be open,&rdquo; Peter said confidently. &ldquo;Mother
+      always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could
+      not explain how he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just do know,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they gave
+      him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and soon
+      he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and higher
+      and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he
+      skimmed away over St. Paul&rsquo;s to the Crystal Palace and back by the river
+      and Regent&rsquo;s Park, and by the time he reached his mother&rsquo;s window he had
+      quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
+      fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had a
+      good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow in the
+      pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He remembered,
+      though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her hair a holiday
+      at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she was such
+      a pretty mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms moved
+      as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted to go
+      round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, mother,&rdquo; said Peter to himself, &ldquo;if you just knew who is sitting on
+      the rail at the foot of the bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could
+      see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say &ldquo;Mother&rdquo; ever
+      so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if it is you
+      that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry and squeeze
+      him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, how exquisitely
+      delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is how Peter regarded it.
+      In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was giving her the
+      greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more splendid, he thought,
+      than to have a little boy of your own. How proud of him they are; and very
+      right and proper, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
+      mother that he has come back?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.
+      Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked
+      longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy
+      again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!
+      Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped off
+      the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They
+      were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
+      socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was
+      about to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.
+      Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for he
+      heard her say &ldquo;Peter,&rdquo; as if it was the most lovely word in the language.
+      He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath, wondering how she
+      knew that he had come back. If she said &ldquo;Peter&rdquo; again, he meant to cry
+      &ldquo;Mother&rdquo; and run to her. But she spoke no more, she made little moans
+      only, and when next he peeped at her she was once more asleep, with tears
+      on her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first thing he
+      did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a beautiful
+      lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself out of the
+      way she said &ldquo;Peter,&rdquo; and he never stopped playing until she looked happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening
+      her to hear her say, &ldquo;Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play.&rdquo; However, as
+      she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must
+      not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had
+      quite decided to be his mother&rsquo;s boy, but hesitated about beginning
+      to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant to
+      make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
+      wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to the
+      fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might go bad.
+      He asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly away without
+      saying good-bye to Solomon. &ldquo;I should like awfully to sail in my boat just
+      once more,&rdquo; he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite argued with
+      her as if she could hear him. &ldquo;It would be so splendid to tell the birds
+      of this adventure,&rdquo; he said coaxingly. &ldquo;I promise to come back,&rdquo; he said
+      solemnly and meant it, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
+      window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it might
+      waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and then he
+      flew back to the Gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his
+      second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long.
+      One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to his
+      particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had his last
+      sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on. Again,
+      a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and another
+      comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for his mother
+      would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeased old
+      Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate.
+      Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them at their work, such
+      as &ldquo;Never put off laying to-day, because you can lay to-morrow,&rdquo; and &ldquo;In
+      this world there are no second chances,&rdquo; and yet here was Peter gaily
+      putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this out to each
+      other, and fell into lazy habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother, he
+      was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution with
+      the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the Gardens
+      to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick him into
+      making such a remark as &ldquo;I wish the grass was not so wet,&rdquo; and some of
+      them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, &ldquo;I do wish you
+      would keep time!&rdquo; Then they would have said that this was his second wish.
+      But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he began, &ldquo;I wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+       he always stopped in time. So when at last he said to them bravely, &ldquo;I
+      wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,&rdquo; they had to tickle his
+      shoulder and let him go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother was
+      crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that a hug
+      from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he felt sure
+      of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this time he
+      flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
+      inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round another
+      little boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter called, &ldquo;Mother! mother!&rdquo; but she heard him not; in vain he beat his
+      little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to the
+      Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he had meant
+      to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how
+      differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was right;
+      there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it
+      is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1332 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #1332 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1332)
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+Project Gutenberg’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
+
+Author: J. M. Barrie
+
+Posting Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #1332]
+Release Date: May, 1998
+Last Updated: October 14, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Burkey
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
+
+By J. M. Barrie
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     Peter Pan
+     The Thrush’s Nest
+     The Little House
+     Lock-Out Time
+
+
+
+
+Peter Pan
+
+If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
+little girl she will say, “Why, of course, I did, child,” and if you
+ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, “What
+a foolish question to ask, certainly he did.” Then if you ask your
+grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she
+also says, “Why, of course, I did, child,” but if you ask her whether he
+rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a
+goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name
+and calls you Mildred, which is your mother’s name. Still, she could
+hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was
+no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in
+telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people
+do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
+
+Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
+always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age
+is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a
+birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The
+reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days’
+old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens.
+
+If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows
+how completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard
+this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape,
+but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples,
+and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly
+remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with that
+memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as
+soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way
+up the chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would
+press their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before
+they were human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few
+weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders, where their wings used to be. So
+David tells me.
+
+I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story:
+First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding
+being that it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with his
+additions, and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more
+his story or mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald
+narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all,
+for this boy can be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits about the
+ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences
+of David’s, recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking
+hard.
+
+Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars. Standing
+on the ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the
+Kensington Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that
+he was now a little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over the
+houses to the Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly without wings,
+but the place itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all fly if we
+were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter
+Pan that evening.
+
+He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby’s Palace and the
+Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick.
+He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and thought he
+was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his early days, and
+when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he
+missed it was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand, which,
+of course, a bird never does. He saw, however, that it must be past
+Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies about, all too busy
+to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready, milking their cows,
+drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the water-pails made him
+thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped,
+and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of
+course, it was only his nose, and, therefore, very little water came up,
+and that not so refreshing as usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he
+fell flop into it. When a real bird falls in flop, he spreads out his
+feathers and pecks them dry, but Peter could not remember what was
+the thing to do, and he decided, rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the
+weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
+
+At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch, but
+presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long before
+morning, shivering, and saying to himself, “I never was out in such a
+cold night;” he had really been out in colder nights when he was a bird,
+but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm night to a bird
+is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown. Peter also felt strangely
+uncomfortable, as if his head was stuffy, he heard loud noises that made
+him look round sharply, though they were really himself sneezing. There
+was something he wanted very much, but, though he knew he wanted it, he
+could not think what it was. What he wanted so much was his mother to
+blow his nose, but that never struck him, so he decided to appeal to the
+fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal.
+
+There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
+round each other’s waists, and he hopped down to address them. The
+fairies have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil
+answer to a civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran
+away the moment they saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair,
+reading a postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he heard
+Peter’s voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
+
+To Peter’s bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from
+him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away,
+leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail upside down
+and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies
+were running this way and that, asking each other stoutly, who was
+afraid, lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds
+of Queen Mab’s palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that the royal
+guard had been called out.
+
+A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
+holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing. Peter
+heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the
+Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he
+was the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more
+wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he pursued them
+with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and
+even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly
+into a side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.
+
+Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he
+remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had
+flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not troubled him
+at the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing was shunning
+him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did
+not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a
+blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith
+in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you
+cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can’t
+is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have
+wings.
+
+Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine,
+for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there
+are stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a
+bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was to the island that Peter now
+flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on
+it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at home, as the
+birds call the island. All of them were asleep, including the sentinels,
+except Solomon, who was wide awake on one side, and he listened quietly
+to Peter’s adventures, and then told him their true meaning.
+
+“Look at your night-gown, if you don’t believe me,” Solomon said,
+and with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the
+sleeping birds. Not one of them wore anything.
+
+“How many of your toes are thumbs?” said Solomon a little cruelly, and
+Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The
+shock was so great that it drove away his cold.
+
+“Ruffle your feathers,” said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried most
+desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose
+up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window-ledge,
+he remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
+
+“I think I shall go back to mother,” he said timidly.
+
+“Good-bye,” replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
+
+But Peter hesitated. “Why don’t you go?” the old one asked politely.
+
+“I suppose,” said Peter huskily, “I suppose I can still fly?”
+
+You see, he had lost faith.
+
+“Poor little half-and-half,” said Solomon, who was not really
+hard-hearted, “you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
+days. You must live here on the island always.”
+
+“And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?” Peter asked tragically.
+
+“How could you get across?” said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
+however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by
+one of such an awkward shape.
+
+“Then I sha’n’t be exactly a human?” Peter asked.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor exactly a bird?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What shall I be?”
+
+“You will be a Betwixt-and-Between,” Solomon said, and certainly he was
+a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
+
+The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled them
+every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds
+that were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at him at
+once, then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds came out
+of other eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when
+they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get the young one to break
+their shells a day before the right time by whispering to them that now
+was their chance to see Peter washing or drinking or eating. Thousands
+gathered round him daily to watch him do these things, just as you watch
+the peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the crusts
+they flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the
+mouth. All his food was brought to him from the Gardens at Solomon’s
+orders by the birds. He would not eat worms or insects (which they
+thought very silly of him), so they brought him bread in their beaks.
+Thus, when you cry out, “Greedy! Greedy!” to the bird that flies away
+with the big crust, you know now that you ought not to do this, for he
+is very likely taking it to Peter Pan.
+
+Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds were always begging him
+for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very good-natured,
+he could not refuse, so by Solomon’s advice he had hidden what was left
+of it. But, though he was now quite naked, you must not think that he
+was cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and the reason
+was that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird
+ways. To be easily pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing
+something, and to think that whatever he was doing was a thing of vast
+importance. Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their
+nests; soon he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well
+as a blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made
+nice little water-troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young
+ones with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and
+knew an east-wind from a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the
+grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks.
+But the best thing Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad
+heart. All birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as
+they were the only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him
+to teach Peter how to have one.
+
+Peter’s heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long,
+just as the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in
+instrument, so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore
+of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the
+ripple of the water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, and
+he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the
+birds were deceived, and they would say to each other, “Was that a fish
+leaping in the water or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe?”
+ and sometimes he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would
+turn round in their nests to see whether they had laid an egg. If you
+are a child of the Gardens you must know the chestnut-tree near the
+bridge, which comes out in flower first of all the chestnuts, but
+perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the way. It is because
+Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has come, and the chestnut
+being so near, hears him and is cheated.
+
+But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes
+fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also, and the
+reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens,
+though he could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he
+could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but
+oh, how he longed to play as other children play, and of course there
+is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him
+news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears started in Peter’s
+eyes.
+
+Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. The reason was that he
+could not swim. He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the island
+knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. They were quite
+willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was, “You sit down
+on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick out like that.”
+ Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick out he sank. What
+he really needed to know was how you sit on the water without sinking,
+and they said it was quite impossible to explain such an easy thing as
+that. Occasionally swans touched on the island, and he would give them
+all his day’s food and then ask them how they sat on the water, but as
+soon as he had no more to give them the hateful things hissed at him and
+sailed away.
+
+Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the Gardens.
+A wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated high over
+the island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the manner of a
+bird that has broken its wing. Peter was so frightened that he hid, but
+the birds told him it was only a kite, and what a kite is, and that it
+must have tugged its string out of a boy’s hand, and soared away. After
+that they laughed at Peter for being so fond of the kite, he loved it
+so much that he even slept with one hand on it, and I think this was
+pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved it was because it had
+belonged to a real boy.
+
+To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt
+grateful to him at this time because he had nursed a number of
+fledglings through the German measles, and they offered to show him how
+birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of the string in their
+beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after them and
+went even higher than they.
+
+Peter screamed out, “Do it again!” and with great good nature they did
+it several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, “Do it
+again!” which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it was
+to be a boy.
+
+At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
+them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred
+flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop
+off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the
+air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold
+of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this
+the birds said that they would help him no more in his mad enterprise.
+
+Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of
+Shelley’s boat, as I am now to tell you.
+
+
+
+
+The Thrush’s Nest
+
+Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to
+be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people
+who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that
+and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens,
+he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the
+Serpentine.
+
+It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to Solomon
+Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a message from a
+lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her have a good one.
+They always ask for the best one he has, and if he likes the letter he
+sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones
+indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at another time he sends a
+nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch him in. He likes you to
+leave it all to him, and if you mention particularly that you hope he
+will see his way to making it a boy this time, he is almost sure to send
+another girl. And whether you are a lady or only a little boy who wants
+a baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearly. You
+can’t think what a lot of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
+
+Shelley’s boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
+counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
+their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided
+that it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought this
+because there was a large five printed on it. “Preposterous!” cried
+Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which
+drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a play-thing.
+
+But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it
+was at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
+ordinary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at last
+contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible ways,
+and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. But, first, he had
+to tell the birds of the value of Shelley’s boat; and though they were
+too honest to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, and they
+cast such black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain of his cleverness,
+that he flew away to the end of the island, and sat there very depressed
+with his head buried in his wings. Now Peter knew that unless Solomon
+was on your side, you never got anything done for you in the island, so
+he followed him and tried to hearten him.
+
+Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow’s good
+will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in office
+all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and devoting his
+green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs
+which had taken his fancy, and for years he had been quietly filling his
+stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bathing person which had
+been cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of it contained a
+hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper
+and a bootlace. When his stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he
+would be able to retire on a competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He
+cut it off his bank-note with a sharp stick.
+
+This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
+together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently
+why thrushes only were invited.
+
+The scheme to be put before them was really Peter’s, but Solomon did
+most of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people
+talked. He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the
+superior ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this
+put them into good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the
+quarrels between birds are about the best way of building nests. Other
+birds, said Solomon, omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a
+result they did not hold water. Here he cocked his head as if he had
+used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come
+to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, “We don’t build nests to
+hold water, but to hold eggs,” and then the thrushes stopped cheering,
+and Solomon was so perplexed that he took several sips of water.
+
+“Consider,” he said at last, “how warm the mud makes the nest.”
+
+“Consider,” cried Mrs. Finch, “that when water gets into the nest it
+remains there and your little ones are drowned.”
+
+The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in
+reply to this, but again he was perplexed.
+
+“Try another drink,” suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name, and
+all Kates are saucy.
+
+Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. “If,” said he, “a
+finch’s nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces,
+but a thrush’s nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan’s back.”
+
+How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests
+with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, “We don’t place our nests on
+the Serpentine,” they did what they should have done at first: chased
+her from the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had been
+brought together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their young friend,
+Peter Pan, as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to cross to
+the Gardens, and he now proposed, with their help, to build a boat.
+
+At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
+scheme.
+
+Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous
+boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush’s
+nest large enough to hold Peter.
+
+But still, to Peter’s agony, the thrushes were sulky. “We are very busy
+people,” they grumbled, “and this would be a big job.”
+
+“Quite so,” said Solomon, “and, of course, Peter would not allow you
+to work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable
+circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been
+paid before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be paid
+sixpence a day.”
+
+Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
+celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into
+arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but
+not a thrush’s nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon
+ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland.
+The stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators
+but get puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and
+ladies often ask specially for them. What do you think Solomon did? He
+sent over to the housetops for a lot of sparrows and ordered them to lay
+their eggs in old thrushes’ nests and sent their young to the ladies and
+swore they were all thrushes! It was known afterward on the island as
+the Sparrows’ Year, and so, when you meet, as you doubtless sometimes
+do, grown-up people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves
+bigger than they are, very likely they belong to that year. You ask
+them.
+
+Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They
+stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
+sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and
+then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence.
+It must have been a fine sight.
+
+And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
+deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
+thrush’s nest! From the very beginning of the building of it he slept by
+its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it was
+lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps in
+his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round in it, for it
+is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he curls round like a
+kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green,
+being woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls
+are thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which
+came off the thrushes while they were building.
+
+The other birds were extremely jealous and said that the boat would not
+balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully steady; they said the
+water would come into it, but no water came into it. Next they said that
+Peter had no oars, and this caused the thrushes to look at each other
+in dismay, but Peter replied that he had no need of oars, for he had a
+sail, and with such a proud, happy face he produced a sail which he had
+fashioned out of this night-gown, and though it was still rather like a
+night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full,
+and all the birds asleep, he did enter his coracle (as Master Francis
+Pretty would have said) and depart out of the island. And first, he knew
+not why, he looked upward, with his hands clasped, and from that moment
+his eyes were pinned to the west.
+
+He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with them
+to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens beckoning to
+him beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face was flushed, but
+he never looked back; there was an exultation in his little breast that
+drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the English mariners who
+have sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
+
+At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to the
+place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing one of
+the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary breeze, to
+his no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the result that he was
+drifted toward the far shore, where are black shadows he knew not the
+dangers of, but suspected them, and so once more hoisted his night-gown
+and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring wind, which
+bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to be broke
+against the bridge. Which, having avoided, he passed under the bridge
+and came, to his great rejoicing, within full sight of the delectable
+Gardens. But having tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end
+of a piece of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold
+off, seeking for moorage, and, feeling his way, he buffeted against a
+sunken reef that cast him overboard by the greatness of the shock, and
+he was near to being drowned, but clambered back into the vessel. There
+now arose a mighty storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he
+had never heard the like, and he was tossed this way and that, and
+his hands so numbed with the cold that he could not close them. Having
+escaped the danger of which, he was mercifully carried into a small bay,
+where his boat rode at peace.
+
+Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on pretending to disembark,
+he found a multitude of small people drawn up on the shore to contest
+his landing; and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past
+Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and
+also a company of them carried an arrow which some boy had left in the
+Gardens, and this they were prepared to use as a battering-ram.
+
+Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, called out that he was not an
+ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be their
+friend, nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was in no temper
+to draw off there-from, and he warned them if they sought to mischief
+him to stand to their harms.
+
+So saying; he boldly leapt ashore, and they gathered around him with
+intent to slay him, but there then arose a great cry among the women,
+and it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby’s
+night-gown. Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that
+their laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by saying
+that such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their
+weapons on observing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelligence
+they set great store, and they led him civilly to their queen, who
+conferred upon him the courtesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and
+henceforth Peter could go whither he chose, and the fairies had orders
+to put him in comfort.
+
+Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the
+antiquity of the language that it took place a long time ago. But Peter
+never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him under the
+bridge to-night (but, of course, we can’t), I daresay we should see
+him hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in the
+Thrush’s Nest. When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to paddle.
+I shall tell you presently how he got his paddle.
+
+Long before the time for the opening of the gates comes he steals back
+to the island, for people must not see him (he is not so human as all
+that), but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly as real
+children play. At least he thinks so, and it is one of the pathetic
+things about him that he often plays quite wrongly.
+
+You see, he had no one to tell him how children really play, for the
+fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing,
+and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a great deal,
+when the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they really
+knew. They told him the truth about hide-and-seek, and he often plays
+it by himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond could not explain to
+him what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every night
+the ducks have forgotten all the events of the day, except the number of
+pieces of cake thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and say that
+cake is not what it was in their young days.
+
+So Peter had to find out many things for himself. He often played ships
+at the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on
+the grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he wondered what
+you play at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they
+are boats. This hoop always sank at once, but he waded in for it, and
+sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim of the pond, and he was
+quite proud to think that he had discovered what boys do with hoops.
+
+Another time, when he found a child’s pail, he thought it was for
+sitting in, and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of
+it. Also he found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite as
+if it was having a game by itself, and he caught it after an exciting
+chase. But he thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told him that
+boys kick balls, so he kicked it; and after that he could not find it
+anywhere.
+
+Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator. It was
+under a lime-tree, near the entrance to the Fairy Queen’s Winter Palace
+(which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts), and Peter
+approached it warily, for the birds had never mentioned such things to
+him. Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then, as it gave
+no answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously. He gave it a little
+push, and it ran from him, which made him think it must be alive after
+all; but, as it had run from him, he was not afraid. So he stretched out
+his hand to pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so
+alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat. You must
+not think, however, that he was a coward, for he came back next night
+with a crust in one hand and a stick in the other, but the perambulator
+had gone, and he never saw another one. I have promised to tell you also
+about his paddle. It was a child’s spade which he had found near St.
+Govor’s Well, and he thought it was a paddle.
+
+Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes? If so, I think it
+rather silly of you. What I mean is that, of course, one must pity him
+now and then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence. He
+thought he had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you
+have it is almost quite as good as really to have it. He played without
+ceasing, while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He
+could be neither of these things, for he had never heard of them, but do
+you think he is to be pitied for that?
+
+Oh, he was merry. He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as you
+are merrier than your father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top,
+from sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences of
+the Gardens? That is how Peter leaps them.
+
+And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen who walk home at night
+write to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens, but
+it is really Peter’s pipe they hear. Of course, he had no mother--at
+least, what use was she to him? You can be sorry for him for that, but
+don’t be too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell you is how he
+revisited her. It was the fairies who gave him the chance.
+
+
+
+
+The Little House
+
+Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which
+is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for
+humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and
+they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it
+you never see it. This is because it is not there when you lie down, but
+it is there when you wake up and step outside.
+
+In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really
+it, but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out
+Time. David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away among the
+trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw
+it the night he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of
+his father’s office. Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted
+because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light,
+she saw hundreds of them all together, and this must have been the
+fairies building the house, for they build it every night and always
+in a different part of the Gardens. She thought one of the lights was
+bigger than the others, though she was not quite sure, for they jumped
+about so, and it might have been another one that was bigger. But if it
+was the same one, it was Peter Pan’s light. Heaps of children have seen
+the fight, so that is nothing. But Maimie Mannering was the famous one
+for whom the house was first built.
+
+Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night that she
+was strange. She was four years of age, and in the daytime she was
+the ordinary kind. She was pleased when her brother Tony, who was a
+magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to him
+in the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was flattered
+rather than annoyed when he shoved her about. Also, when she was batting
+she would pause though the ball was in the air to point out to you
+that she was wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in the
+daytime.
+
+But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt
+for Maimie and eyed her fearfully, and no wonder, for with dark there
+came into her face a look that I can describe only as a leary look.
+It was also a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony’s uneasy
+glances. Then he would make her presents of his favourite toys (which
+he always took away from her next morning) and she accepted them with a
+disturbing smile. The reason he was now become so wheedling and she so
+mysterious was (in brief) that they knew they were about to be sent to
+bed. It was then that Maimie was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do
+it to-night, and the mother and their coloured nurse threatened her, but
+Maimie merely smiled her agitating smile. And by-and-by when they were
+alone with their night-light she would start up in bed crying “Hsh! what
+was that?” Tony beseeches her! “It was nothing--don’t, Maimie, don’t!”
+ and pulls the sheet over his head. “It is coming nearer!” she cries;
+“Oh, look at it, Tony! It is feeling your bed with its horns--it is
+boring for you, oh, Tony, oh!” and she desists not until he rushes
+downstairs in his combinations, screeching. When they came up to whip
+Maimie they usually found her sleeping tranquilly, not shamming, you
+know, but really sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel,
+which seems to me to make it almost worse.
+
+But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens, and then
+Tony did most of the talking. You could gather from his talk that he
+was a very brave boy, and no one was so proud of it as Maimie. She would
+have loved to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister. And
+at no time did she admire him more than when he told her, as he often
+did with splendid firmness, that one day he meant to remain behind in
+the Gardens after the gates were closed.
+
+“Oh, Tony,” she would say, with awful respect, “but the fairies will be
+so angry!”
+
+“I daresay,” replied Tony, carelessly.
+
+“Perhaps,” she said, thrilling, “Peter Pan will give you a sail in his
+boat!”
+
+“I shall make him,” replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of him.
+
+But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were
+overheard by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from which
+the little people weave their summer curtains, and after that Tony was a
+marked boy. They loosened the rails before he sat on them, so that down
+he came on the back of his head; they tripped him up by catching his
+bootlace and bribed the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty
+accidents you meet with in the Gardens occur because the fairies have
+taken an ill-will to you, and so it behoves you to be careful what you
+say about them.
+
+Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things,
+but Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which day he was to
+remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, “Just
+some day;” he was quite vague about which day except when she asked
+“Will it be today?” and then he could always say for certain that it
+would not be to-day. So she saw that he was waiting for a real good
+chance.
+
+This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow,
+and there was ice on the Round Pond, not thick enough to skate on but
+at least you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones, and many
+bright little boys and girls were doing that.
+
+When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond,
+but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said
+this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that
+night. It read half-past five. Poor ayah! she is the one who laughs
+continuously because there are so many white children in the world, but
+she was not to laugh much more that day.
+
+Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to the
+time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o’clock for
+closing time. But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the
+fairies, and so did not see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they
+had changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night. She said
+there was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as
+they trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their
+little breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a fairy ball.
+Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
+
+He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him. Her eager
+eyes asked the question, “Is it to-day?” and he gasped and then nodded.
+Maimie slipped her hand into Tony’s, and hers was hot, but his was cold.
+She did a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and gave it to him!
+“In case you should feel cold,” she whispered. Her face was aglow, but
+Tony’s was very gloomy.
+
+As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her, “I’m afraid
+Nurse would see me, so I sha’n’t be able to do it.”
+
+Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing but their
+ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear, and she said
+aloud, “Tony, I shall race you to the gate,” and in a whisper, “Then you
+can hide,” and off they ran.
+
+Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she known him
+speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he hurried that he might
+have more time to hide. “Brave, brave!” her doting eyes were crying when
+she got a dreadful shock; instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the
+gate! At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as if all her lapful
+of darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for very disdain
+she could not sob; in a swell of protest against all puling cowards she
+ran to St. Govor’s Well and hid in Tony’s stead.
+
+When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she thought her
+other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight came on, and scores
+and hundreds of people passed out, including the last one, who always
+has to run for it, but Maimie saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight
+and glued them with passionate tears. When she opened them something
+very cold ran up her legs and up her arms and dropped into her heart.
+It was the stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then from
+another part _clang_, then _clang_, _clang_ far away. It was the Closing
+of the Gates.
+
+Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a voice
+say, “So that’s all right.” It had a wooden sound and seemed to come
+from above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree stretching out
+its arms and yawning.
+
+She was about to say, “I never knew you could speak!” when a metallic
+voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the
+elm, “I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?” and the elm replied, “Not
+particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg,” and he
+flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they drive off.
+Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were
+doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the Baby Walk and
+crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which shrugged its shoulders
+but did not seem to mind her.
+
+She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured pelisse
+and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed except her
+dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self was hidden far
+away inside so many warm garments that in shape she seemed rather like a
+ball. She was about forty round the waist.
+
+There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived in
+time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and set
+off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly, but
+that was because they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across the
+walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
+crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees and
+shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never
+known what they were for until to-night.
+
+She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy
+fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way
+he did it was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut
+like umbrellas, deluging the little plants beneath with snow. “Oh, you
+naughty, naughty child!” Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it
+was to have a dripping umbrella about your ears.
+
+Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
+chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly “Hoity-toity,
+what is this?” that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole
+vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
+
+“Of course it is no affair of ours,” a spindle tree said after they had
+whispered together, “but you know quite well you ought not to be here,
+and perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think
+yourself?”
+
+“I think you should not,” Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
+they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. “I wouldn’t ask it
+of you,” she assured them, “if I thought it was wrong,” and of
+course after this they could not well carry tales. They then said,
+“Well-a-day,” and “Such is life!” for they can be frightfully sarcastic,
+but she felt sorry for those of them who had no crutches, and she said
+good-naturedly, “Before I go to the fairies’ ball, I should like to take
+you for a walk one at a time; you can lean on me, you know.”
+
+At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby
+Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round
+the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and
+treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though
+she could not understand a word they said.
+
+They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that she had not
+taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others
+jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a
+lady to cry out. So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be off
+to the ball, but she no longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more
+fear was that it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember,
+Maimie was always rather strange.
+
+They were now loath to let her go, for, “If the fairies see you,” they
+warned her, “they will mischief you, stab you to death or compel you
+to nurse their children or turn you into something tedious, like an
+evergreen oak.” As they said this they looked with affected pity at an
+evergreen oak, for in winter they are very envious of the evergreens.
+
+“Oh, la!” replied the oak bitingly, “how deliciously cosy it is to stand
+here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked creatures shivering!”
+
+This made them sulky though they had really brought it on themselves,
+and they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of the perils that faced
+her if she insisted on going to the ball.
+
+She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual
+good temper at present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the
+Duke of Christmas Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy, very poorly of a
+dreadful complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he had tried
+many ladies in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them.
+Queen Mab, who rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls
+would bewitch him, but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained cold.
+This rather irritating doctor, who was his private physician, felt the
+Duke’s heart immediately after any lady was presented, and then always
+shook his bald head and murmured, “Cold, quite cold!” Naturally Queen
+Mab felt disgraced, and first she tried the effect of ordering the court
+into tears for nine minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and decreed
+that they should wear fools’ caps until they thawed the Duke’s frozen
+heart.
+
+“How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools’ caps!”
+ Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very recklessly, for the
+Cupids hate to be laughed at.
+
+It is always easy to discover where a fairies’ ball is being held,
+as ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
+Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
+their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty on
+the snow.
+
+Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
+anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
+surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just
+time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms and
+pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front and
+six behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held
+up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a
+lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about. She
+was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was her
+neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course
+showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified
+it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their
+skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you
+cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies’
+busts in the jewellers’ windows.
+
+Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a passion,
+tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt
+them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the
+doctor had said “Cold, quite cold!”
+
+Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over a
+dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb
+out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most kindly
+went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and
+explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor street
+singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
+
+“Of course,” she said, “I am rather plain,” and this made Maimie
+uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
+plain for a fairy.
+
+It was difficult to know what to reply.
+
+“I see you think I have no chance,” Brownie said falteringly.
+
+“I don’t say that,” Maimie answered politely, “of course your face is
+just a tiny bit homely, but--” Really it was quite awkward for her.
+
+Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar. He had gone
+to a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London
+were on view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return home
+instead of being dissatisfied with Maimie’s mother he had said, “You
+can’t think, my dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face again.”
+
+Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously,
+indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose
+her. So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to
+follow lest the Queen should mischief her.
+
+But Maimie’s curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
+Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until
+she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
+
+The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed
+of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming
+a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of little
+people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared
+to the glorious creatures within that luminous circle who were so
+bewilderingly bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she
+looked at them.
+
+It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
+Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: yet out of love
+his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks of the
+Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way darling
+ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as they were
+told to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
+
+Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke’s heart and
+hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly
+sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools’ caps in obscure
+places and, every time they heard that “Cold, quite cold,” bowed their
+disgraced little heads.
+
+She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you
+now why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got
+wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which
+he had to break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
+
+The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance, so
+heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are sad
+and remember them again when they are merry. David tells me that fairies
+never say “We feel happy”: what they say is, “We feel _dancey_.”
+
+Well, they were looking very undancy indeed, when sudden laughter broke
+out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived and was
+insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
+
+Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she
+had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie
+herself who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his
+grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart,
+which for convenience sake was reached by a little trap-door in his
+diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, “Cold, qui--,” when he
+stopped abruptly.
+
+“What’s this?” he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch, and
+then put his ear to it.
+
+“Bless my soul!” cried the doctor, and by this time of course the
+excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right
+and left.
+
+Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled
+and looked as if he would like to run away. “Good gracious me!” the
+doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire, for
+he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
+
+The suspense was awful!
+
+Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, “My Lord Duke,” said the physician
+elatedly, “I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace
+is in love.”
+
+You can’t conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the
+Duke and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of
+the Lord Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of
+her gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in everything.
+Thus in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you
+leap into each other’s arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman
+has to be present.
+
+How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and
+immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were
+ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring.
+Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools’ caps
+from their heads and cast them high in the air. And then Maimie went
+and spoiled everything. She couldn’t help it. She was crazy with delight
+over her little friend’s good fortune, so she took several steps forward
+and cried in an ecstasy, “Oh, Brownie, how splendid!”
+
+Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all in
+the time you may take to say “Oh dear!” An awful sense of her peril
+came upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a
+place where no human must be between the locking and the opening of the
+gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she saw a thousand
+swords flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
+
+How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head.
+Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again.
+Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew
+she was in the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she must
+never cease to run, and she thought she was still running long after she
+had dropped in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes
+falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought
+her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her
+head. And when she heard talking through her dreams she thought it was
+mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at her as she slept.
+But it was the fairies.
+
+I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to mischief
+her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as “Slay
+her!” “Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!” and so on, but the
+pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should march in front,
+and this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and
+demand a boon.
+
+Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie’s
+life. “Anything except that,” replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
+fairies chanted “Anything except that.” But when they learned how Maimie
+had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their
+great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and
+set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front
+and the canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her
+footprints in the snow.
+
+But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed impossible
+to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the
+form of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood on her body and
+read her a long address of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They
+also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, and they
+saw she was in danger of perishing of cold.
+
+“Turn her into something that does not mind the cold,” seemed a good
+suggestion of the doctor’s, but the only thing they could think of
+that does not mind cold was a snowflake. “And it might melt,” the Queen
+pointed out, so that idea had to be given up.
+
+A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but
+though there were so many of them she was too heavy. By this time all
+the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids
+had a lovely idea. “Build a house round her,” they cried, and at once
+everybody perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a hundred
+fairy sawyers were among the branches, architects were running round
+Maimie, measuring her; a bricklayer’s yard sprang up at her feet,
+seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation stone and the Queen
+laid it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings
+were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and turning
+lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the glaziers were putting
+in the windows.
+
+The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely. One of
+her arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but they
+built a verandah round it, leading to the front door. The windows were
+the size of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it
+would be easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as
+is their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness,
+and they were all so madly in love with the little house that they could
+not bear to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many
+little extra touches, and even then they added more extra touches.
+
+For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.
+
+“Now we fear it is quite finished,” they sighed.
+
+But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the
+chimney.
+
+“That certainly finishes it,” they cried reluctantly.
+
+“Not at all,” cried a glow-worm, “if she were to wake without seeing a
+night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light.”
+
+“Wait one moment,” said a china merchant, “and I shall make you a
+saucer.”
+
+Now alas, it was absolutely finished.
+
+Oh, dear no!
+
+“Gracious me,” cried a brass manufacturer, “there’s no handle on the
+door,” and he put one on.
+
+An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat.
+Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on
+painting it.
+
+Finished at last!
+
+“Finished! how can it be finished,” the plumber demanded scornfully,
+“before hot and cold are put in?” and he put in hot and cold. Then an
+army of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and
+bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the
+right of the verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses and
+clematis on the walls of the house, and in less time than five minutes
+all these dear things were in full bloom.
+
+Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at last finished
+true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the dance. They
+all kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the last to go was
+Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop a pleasant dream
+down the chimney.
+
+All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs
+taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream
+was quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was
+breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then
+she called out,
+
+“Tony,” for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no
+answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened like
+the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the
+Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the nursery she
+wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and
+then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her that she was in
+the middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had
+happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away
+from the fairies, but however, she asked herself, had she got into this
+funny place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, and
+then she saw the dear house in which she had passed the night. It so
+entranced her that she could think of nothing else.
+
+“Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!” she cried.
+
+Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now knew
+that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it began to
+grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce believe it
+was shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her now. It
+always remained as complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller,
+and the garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer,
+lapping house and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little
+dog’s kennel, and now of a Noah’s Ark, but still you could see the smoke
+and the door-handle and the roses on the wall, every one complete.
+The glow-worm fight was waning too, but it was still there. “Darling,
+loveliest, don’t go!” Maimie cried, falling on her knees, for the little
+house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still quite complete.
+But as she stretched out her arms imploringly the snow crept up on all
+sides until it met itself, and where the little house had been was now
+one unbroken expanse of snow.
+
+Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
+eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, “Don’t cry, pretty human, don’t
+cry,” and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy
+regarding her wistfully. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
+
+
+
+
+Lock-out Time
+
+It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost
+the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever
+there are children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and
+at that time there was not a fairy in the place; then the children were
+admitted, and the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can’t
+resist following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because
+they live in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed
+to go, and also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bit
+cunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!
+
+When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember
+a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you
+can’t write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children
+who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they
+said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a
+fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended
+to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually
+pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies’ Basin,
+and there are so many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that
+a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dress
+exactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white when
+lilies are in and blue for blue-bells, and so on. They like crocus and
+hyacinth time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, but
+tulips (except white ones, which are the fairy-cradles) they consider
+garish, and they sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, so
+that the beginning of the tulip weeks is almost the best time to catch
+them.
+
+When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but
+if you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite
+still, pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without
+knowing that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers
+they have had such an adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is all
+covered with ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil), with
+flowers growing in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers,
+but some of them are fairies. You never can be sure of them, but a good
+plan is to walk by looking the other way, and then turn round sharply.
+Another good plan, which David and I sometimes follow, is to stare them
+down. After a long time they can’t help winking, and then you know for
+certain that they are fairies.
+
+There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a
+famous gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once
+twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls’
+school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth
+gowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they
+all stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths.
+Unfortunately, what the governess had heard was two gardeners coming to
+plant new flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a handcart with
+flowers in it, and were quite surprised to find the bed occupied. “Pity
+to lift them hyacinths,” said the one man. “Duke’s orders,” replied the
+other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug up the boarding-school and
+put the poor, terrified things in it in five rows. Of course, neither
+the governess nor the girls dare let on that they were fairies, so they
+were carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which they escaped in the
+night without their shoes, but there was a great row about it among the
+parents, and the school was ruined.
+
+As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are
+the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you
+can’t see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you
+can’t see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never
+heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not
+mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has,
+but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours
+with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured
+glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences, but the
+queen sometimes complains because the common people will peep in to see
+what she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hard
+against the glass, and that is why their noses are mostly snubby. The
+streets are miles long and very twisty, and have paths on each side made
+of bright worsted. The birds used to steal the worsted for their nests,
+but a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the other end.
+
+One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they
+never do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first
+time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping
+about. That was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy,
+you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask
+them what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are
+frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have
+a postman, but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box,
+and though they have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the
+youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress, and when
+she has called the roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back.
+It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest
+is always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess, and
+children remember this, and think it must be so among humans also, and
+that is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother
+furtively putting new frills on the basinette.
+
+You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts
+of things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand up
+at sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for instance,
+or to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when
+she is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this down
+to naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she is doing as
+she has seen the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, and
+it takes about two years to get her into the human ways. Her fits of
+passion, which are awful to behold, and are usually called teething,
+are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation, because we don’t
+understand her, though she is talking an intelligible language. She is
+talking fairy. The reason mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean,
+before other people know, as that “Guch” means “Give it to me at once,”
+ while “Wa” is “Why do you wear such a funny hat?” is because, mixing so
+much with babies, they have picked up a little of the fairy language.
+
+Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with
+his hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of their
+phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don’t forget. He had heard
+them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I suggested to him
+that perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering, he says not,
+for these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked of
+nothing but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the birds used
+to go from spot to spot like ladies at shop-windows, looking at the
+different nests and saying, “Not my colour, my dear,” and “How would
+that do with a soft lining?” and “But will it wear?” and “What hideous
+trimming!” and so on.
+
+The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first
+things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry
+when you do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in what
+is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the
+grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing
+round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and
+these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away.
+The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little
+people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not
+so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening
+of the gates. David and I once found a fairy-ring quite warm.
+
+But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
+place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
+close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the
+board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at
+six-thirty for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to get
+begun half an hour earlier.
+
+If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famous
+Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights, hundreds of
+lovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their
+wedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding
+up the ladies’ trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter
+cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where they put
+on their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps, the flowers
+streaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because
+they can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it,
+and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on
+which he blows when Her Majesty wants to know the time.
+
+The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made
+of chestnut-blossom. The way the fairy-servants do is this: The men,
+scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the
+blossom falls like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together by
+whisking their skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that
+is how they get their table-cloth.
+
+They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn
+wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but the
+bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is bread
+and butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to
+end with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The fairies
+sit round on mushrooms, and at first they are very well-behaved and
+always cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so
+well-behaved and stick their fingers into the butter, which is got
+from the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over the
+table-cloth chasing sugar or other delicacies with their tongues. When
+the Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and
+put away, and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in
+front while the Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little
+pots, one of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the other the
+juice of Solomon’s Seals. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers
+who fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon’s Seals juice is for
+bruises. They bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster
+they foot it till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without my
+telling you, Peter Pan is the fairies’ orchestra. He sits in the middle
+of the ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays
+without him. “P. P.” is written on the corner of the invitation-cards
+sent out by all really good families. They are grateful little people,
+too, and at the princess’s coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their
+second birthday and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish
+of his heart.
+
+The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered him to kneel, and then
+said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his
+heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of
+his heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it
+was himself.
+
+“If I chose to go back to mother,” he asked at last, “could you give me
+that wish?”
+
+Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
+should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
+said, “Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that.”
+
+“Is that quite a little wish?” he inquired.
+
+“As little as this,” the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
+other.
+
+“What size is a big wish?” he asked.
+
+She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.
+
+Then Peter reflected and said, “Well, then, I think I shall have two
+little wishes instead of one big one.”
+
+Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather
+shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his
+mother, but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her
+disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve.
+
+They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.
+
+“I can give you the power to fly to her house,” the Queen said, “but I
+can’t open the door for you.”
+
+“The window I flew out at will be open,” Peter said confidently. “Mother
+always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.
+
+“How do you know?” they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could
+not explain how he knew.
+
+“I just do know,” he said.
+
+So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they gave
+him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and
+soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and
+higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops.
+
+It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he
+skimmed away over St. Paul’s to the Crystal Palace and back by the river
+and Regent’s Park, and by the time he reached his mother’s window he had
+quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.
+
+The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
+fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.
+
+Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had
+a good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow
+in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He
+remembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her
+hair a holiday at night.
+
+How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she was
+such a pretty mother.
+
+But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms
+moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted
+to go round.
+
+“Oh, mother,” said Peter to himself, “if you just knew who is sitting on
+the rail at the foot of the bed.”
+
+Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could
+see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say “Mother”
+ ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if it
+is you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry
+and squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, how
+exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is how Peter
+regarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was
+giving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more
+splendid, he thought, than to have a little boy of your own. How proud
+of him they are; and very right and proper, too.
+
+But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
+mother that he has come back?
+
+I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.
+Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked
+longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy
+again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!
+Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped off
+the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They
+were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
+socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was
+about to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.
+Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for
+he heard her say “Peter,” as if it was the most lovely word in the
+language. He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath,
+wondering how she knew that he had come back. If she said “Peter” again,
+he meant to cry “Mother” and run to her. But she spoke no more, she
+made little moans only, and when next he peeped at her she was once more
+asleep, with tears on her face.
+
+It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first
+thing he did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a
+beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself
+out of the way she said “Peter,” and he never stopped playing until she
+looked happy.
+
+He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening
+her to hear her say, “Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play.” However, as
+she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must
+not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had
+quite decided to be his mother’s boy, but hesitated about beginning
+to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant
+to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
+wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to
+the fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might
+go bad. He asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly away
+without saying good-bye to Solomon. “I should like awfully to sail in my
+boat just once more,” he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite
+argued with her as if she could hear him. “It would be so splendid to
+tell the birds of this adventure,” he said coaxingly. “I promise to come
+back,” he said solemnly and meant it, too.
+
+And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
+window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it
+might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and
+then he flew back to the Gardens.
+
+Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his
+second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long.
+One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to his
+particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had his
+last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on.
+Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and another
+comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for his
+mother would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeased
+old Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate.
+Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them at their work,
+such as “Never put off laying to-day, because you can lay to-morrow,”
+ and “In this world there are no second chances,” and yet here was Peter
+gaily putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this out
+to each other, and fell into lazy habits.
+
+But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother,
+he was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution
+with the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the
+Gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick
+him into making such a remark as “I wish the grass was not so wet,” and
+some of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, “I do
+wish you would keep time!” Then they would have said that this was his
+second wish. But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he
+began, “I wish--” he always stopped in time. So when at last he said
+to them bravely, “I wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,”
+ they had to tickle his shoulder and let him go.
+
+He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother was
+crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that a
+hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he felt
+sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this
+time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for
+him.
+
+But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
+inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round another
+little boy.
+
+Peter called, “Mother! mother!” but she heard him not; in vain he beat
+his little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to
+the Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he had
+meant to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how
+differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was
+right; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the
+window it is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+<tr>
+<td>
+THERE IS AN IMPROVED ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK <big><b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26999">
+[ #26999 ]</a></b></big>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
+
+Author: J. M. Barrie
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #1332]
+Last Updated: October 14, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Burkey, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By J. M. Barrie
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Contents
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> Peter Pan </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> The Thrush&rsquo;s Nest </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> The Little House </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> Lock-out Time </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Peter Pan
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
+      little girl she will say, &ldquo;Why, of course, I did, child,&rdquo; and if you ask
+      her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, &ldquo;What a foolish
+      question to ask, certainly he did.&rdquo; Then if you ask your grandmother
+      whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, &ldquo;Why,
+      of course, I did, child,&rdquo; but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in
+      those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has
+      forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred,
+      which is your mother&rsquo;s name. Still, she could hardly forget such an
+      important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your
+      grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of
+      Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to
+      put on your jacket before your vest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
+      always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age is one
+      week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday, nor
+      is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The reason is that
+      he escaped from being a human when he was seven days&rsquo; old; he escaped by
+      the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows how
+      completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard this
+      story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape, but I
+      told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples, and when
+      he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly remembered a
+      youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with that memory came
+      others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his
+      mother was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way up the
+      chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would press
+      their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before they were
+      human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few weeks, and
+      very itchy at the shoulders, where their wings used to be. So David tells
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story: First,
+      I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding being that
+      it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with his additions,
+      and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more his story or
+      mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald narrative and
+      most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all, for this boy can
+      be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits about the ways and customs
+      of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences of David&rsquo;s, recalled
+      by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars. Standing on the
+      ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the Kensington
+      Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that he was now a
+      little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over the houses to the
+      Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly without wings, but the place
+      itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all fly if we were as
+      dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter Pan that
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby&rsquo;s Palace and the
+      Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick. He
+      was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and thought he was
+      a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his early days, and when
+      he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he missed it
+      was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand, which, of course,
+      a bird never does. He saw, however, that it must be past Lock-out Time,
+      for there were a good many fairies about, all too busy to notice him; they
+      were getting breakfast ready, milking their cows, drawing water, and so
+      on, and the sight of the water-pails made him thirsty, so he flew over to
+      the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped, and dipped his beak in the
+      pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose,
+      and, therefore, very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as
+      usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it. When a real
+      bird falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but
+      Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided, rather
+      sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch, but
+      presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long before
+      morning, shivering, and saying to himself, &ldquo;I never was out in such a cold
+      night;&rdquo; he had really been out in colder nights when he was a bird, but,
+      of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm night to a bird is a cold
+      night to a boy in a nightgown. Peter also felt strangely uncomfortable, as
+      if his head was stuffy, he heard loud noises that made him look round
+      sharply, though they were really himself sneezing. There was something he
+      wanted very much, but, though he knew he wanted it, he could not think
+      what it was. What he wanted so much was his mother to blow his nose, but
+      that never struck him, so he decided to appeal to the fairies for
+      enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
+      round each other&rsquo;s waists, and he hopped down to address them. The fairies
+      have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil answer to a
+      civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran away the moment
+      they saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair, reading a
+      postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he heard Peter&rsquo;s
+      voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Peter&rsquo;s bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from
+      him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away,
+      leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail upside down
+      and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies were
+      running this way and that, asking each other stoutly, who was afraid,
+      lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds of Queen
+      Mab&rsquo;s palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that the royal guard had
+      been called out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
+      holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing. Peter
+      heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the
+      Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he was
+      the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more wistful
+      to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he pursued them with the
+      vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and even the
+      Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly into a
+      side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he
+      remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had
+      flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not troubled him at
+      the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing was shunning him.
+      Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not
+      know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing
+      that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power
+      to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to
+      be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can&rsquo;t is simply that
+      they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine, for
+      the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there are stakes
+      round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a bird-sentinel sits
+      by day and night. It was to the island that Peter now flew to put his
+      strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on it with relief,
+      much heartened to find himself at last at home, as the birds call the
+      island. All of them were asleep, including the sentinels, except Solomon,
+      who was wide awake on one side, and he listened quietly to Peter&rsquo;s
+      adventures, and then told him their true meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at your night-gown, if you don&rsquo;t believe me,&rdquo; Solomon said, and with
+      staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the sleeping
+      birds. Not one of them wore anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many of your toes are thumbs?&rdquo; said Solomon a little cruelly, and
+      Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The shock
+      was so great that it drove away his cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruffle your feathers,&rdquo; said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried most
+      desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose up,
+      quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window-ledge, he
+      remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I shall go back to mother,&rdquo; he said timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Peter hesitated. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you go?&rdquo; the old one asked politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Peter huskily, &ldquo;I suppose I can still fly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      You see, he had lost faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little half-and-half,&rdquo; said Solomon, who was not really
+      hard-hearted, &ldquo;you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
+      days. You must live here on the island always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?&rdquo; Peter asked tragically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could you get across?&rdquo; said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
+      however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by
+      one of such an awkward shape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be exactly a human?&rdquo; Peter asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor exactly a bird?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be a Betwixt-and-Between,&rdquo; Solomon said, and certainly he was a
+      wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled them
+      every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds that
+      were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at him at once,
+      then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds came out of other
+      eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when they tired
+      of sitting on their eggs, used to get the young one to break their shells
+      a day before the right time by whispering to them that now was their
+      chance to see Peter washing or drinking or eating. Thousands gathered
+      round him daily to watch him do these things, just as you watch the
+      peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the crusts they
+      flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the mouth. All
+      his food was brought to him from the Gardens at Solomon&rsquo;s orders by the
+      birds. He would not eat worms or insects (which they thought very silly of
+      him), so they brought him bread in their beaks. Thus, when you cry out,
+      &ldquo;Greedy! Greedy!&rdquo; to the bird that flies away with the big crust, you know
+      now that you ought not to do this, for he is very likely taking it to
+      Peter Pan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds were always begging him
+      for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very good-natured, he
+      could not refuse, so by Solomon&rsquo;s advice he had hidden what was left of
+      it. But, though he was now quite naked, you must not think that he was
+      cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and the reason was
+      that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird ways. To
+      be easily pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing something,
+      and to think that whatever he was doing was a thing of vast importance.
+      Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their nests; soon
+      he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well as a
+      blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice
+      little water-troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young ones
+      with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and knew an
+      east-wind from a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the grass
+      growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks. But the
+      best thing Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad heart. All
+      birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as they were the
+      only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him to teach Peter
+      how to have one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter&rsquo;s heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long, just as
+      the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in instrument,
+      so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore of the island
+      of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the ripple of the
+      water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, and he put them all
+      in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the birds were
+      deceived, and they would say to each other, &ldquo;Was that a fish leaping in
+      the water or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe?&rdquo; and sometimes
+      he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would turn round in
+      their nests to see whether they had laid an egg. If you are a child of the
+      Gardens you must know the chestnut-tree near the bridge, which comes out
+      in flower first of all the chestnuts, but perhaps you have not heard why
+      this tree leads the way. It is because Peter wearies for summer and plays
+      that it has come, and the chestnut being so near, hears him and is
+      cheated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes
+      fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also, and the reason
+      of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens, though he
+      could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he could never be a
+      real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but oh, how he longed to
+      play as other children play, and of course there is no such lovely place
+      to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him news of how boys and
+      girls play, and wistful tears started in Peter&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. The reason was that he
+      could not swim. He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the island
+      knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. They were quite
+      willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was, &ldquo;You sit down
+      on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick out like that.&rdquo;
+       Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick out he sank. What he
+      really needed to know was how you sit on the water without sinking, and
+      they said it was quite impossible to explain such an easy thing as that.
+      Occasionally swans touched on the island, and he would give them all his
+      day&rsquo;s food and then ask them how they sat on the water, but as soon as he
+      had no more to give them the hateful things hissed at him and sailed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the Gardens. A
+      wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated high over the
+      island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the manner of a bird
+      that has broken its wing. Peter was so frightened that he hid, but the
+      birds told him it was only a kite, and what a kite is, and that it must
+      have tugged its string out of a boy&rsquo;s hand, and soared away. After that
+      they laughed at Peter for being so fond of the kite, he loved it so much
+      that he even slept with one hand on it, and I think this was pathetic and
+      pretty, for the reason he loved it was because it had belonged to a real
+      boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt grateful
+      to him at this time because he had nursed a number of fledglings through
+      the German measles, and they offered to show him how birds fly a kite. So
+      six of them took the end of the string in their beaks and flew away with
+      it; and to his amazement it flew after them and went even higher than
+      they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter screamed out, &ldquo;Do it again!&rdquo; and with great good nature they did it
+      several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, &ldquo;Do it
+      again!&rdquo; which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it was
+      to be a boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
+      them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred
+      flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop off
+      when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the air, and
+      he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold of two
+      indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this the
+      birds said that they would help him no more in his mad enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of Shelley&rsquo;s
+      boat, as I am now to tell you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      The Thrush&rsquo;s Nest
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to
+      be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people
+      who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that and
+      five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens, he
+      made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the Serpentine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to Solomon
+      Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a message from a
+      lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her have a good one.
+      They always ask for the best one he has, and if he likes the letter he
+      sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones
+      indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at another time he sends a
+      nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch him in. He likes you to
+      leave it all to him, and if you mention particularly that you hope he will
+      see his way to making it a boy this time, he is almost sure to send
+      another girl. And whether you are a lady or only a little boy who wants a
+      baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearly. You can&rsquo;t
+      think what a lot of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shelley&rsquo;s boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
+      counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
+      their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided that
+      it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought this because
+      there was a large five printed on it. &ldquo;Preposterous!&rdquo; cried Solomon in a
+      rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which drifted upon
+      the island was usually given to Peter as a play-thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it was
+      at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
+      ordinary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at last
+      contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible ways,
+      and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. But, first, he had
+      to tell the birds of the value of Shelley&rsquo;s boat; and though they were too
+      honest to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, and they cast such
+      black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain of his cleverness, that he
+      flew away to the end of the island, and sat there very depressed with his
+      head buried in his wings. Now Peter knew that unless Solomon was on your
+      side, you never got anything done for you in the island, so he followed
+      him and tried to hearten him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow&rsquo;s good
+      will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in office
+      all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and devoting his
+      green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs
+      which had taken his fancy, and for years he had been quietly filling his
+      stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bathing person which had
+      been cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of it contained a
+      hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper
+      and a bootlace. When his stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he
+      would be able to retire on a competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He
+      cut it off his bank-note with a sharp stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
+      together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently why
+      thrushes only were invited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scheme to be put before them was really Peter&rsquo;s, but Solomon did most
+      of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people talked.
+      He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the superior
+      ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this put them into
+      good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the quarrels between
+      birds are about the best way of building nests. Other birds, said Solomon,
+      omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a result they did not hold
+      water. Here he cocked his head as if he had used an unanswerable argument;
+      but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come to the meeting uninvited, and
+      she squeaked out, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t build nests to hold water, but to hold eggs,&rdquo;
+       and then the thrushes stopped cheering, and Solomon was so perplexed that
+      he took several sips of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;how warm the mud makes the nest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Finch, &ldquo;that when water gets into the nest it
+      remains there and your little ones are drowned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in reply
+      to this, but again he was perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try another drink,&rdquo; suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name, and
+      all Kates are saucy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;a
+      finch&rsquo;s nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces,
+      but a thrush&rsquo;s nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan&rsquo;s back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests with
+      mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t place our nests on the
+      Serpentine,&rdquo; they did what they should have done at first: chased her from
+      the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had been brought
+      together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their young friend, Peter Pan,
+      as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to cross to the Gardens,
+      and he now proposed, with their help, to build a boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
+      scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous
+      boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush&rsquo;s nest
+      large enough to hold Peter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But still, to Peter&rsquo;s agony, the thrushes were sulky. &ldquo;We are very busy
+      people,&rdquo; they grumbled, &ldquo;and this would be a big job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; said Solomon, &ldquo;and, of course, Peter would not allow you to
+      work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable
+      circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been paid
+      before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be paid sixpence
+      a day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
+      celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into
+      arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but
+      not a thrush&rsquo;s nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon ran
+      short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland. The
+      stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators but get
+      puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and ladies
+      often ask specially for them. What do you think Solomon did? He sent over
+      to the housetops for a lot of sparrows and ordered them to lay their eggs
+      in old thrushes&rsquo; nests and sent their young to the ladies and swore they
+      were all thrushes! It was known afterward on the island as the Sparrows&rsquo;
+      Year, and so, when you meet, as you doubtless sometimes do, grown-up
+      people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves bigger than they
+      are, very likely they belong to that year. You ask them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They
+      stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
+      sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and then
+      each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence. It
+      must have been a fine sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
+      deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
+      thrush&rsquo;s nest! From the very beginning of the building of it he slept by
+      its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it was
+      lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps in
+      his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round in it, for it
+      is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he curls round like a
+      kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green,
+      being woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls
+      are thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which
+      came off the thrushes while they were building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other birds were extremely jealous and said that the boat would not
+      balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully steady; they said the
+      water would come into it, but no water came into it. Next they said that
+      Peter had no oars, and this caused the thrushes to look at each other in
+      dismay, but Peter replied that he had no need of oars, for he had a sail,
+      and with such a proud, happy face he produced a sail which he had
+      fashioned out of this night-gown, and though it was still rather like a
+      night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full, and
+      all the birds asleep, he did enter his coracle (as Master Francis Pretty
+      would have said) and depart out of the island. And first, he knew not why,
+      he looked upward, with his hands clasped, and from that moment his eyes
+      were pinned to the west.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with them
+      to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens beckoning to him
+      beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face was flushed, but he
+      never looked back; there was an exultation in his little breast that drove
+      out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the English mariners who have
+      sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to the
+      place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing one of the
+      sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary breeze, to his
+      no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the result that he was
+      drifted toward the far shore, where are black shadows he knew not the
+      dangers of, but suspected them, and so once more hoisted his night-gown
+      and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring wind, which
+      bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to be broke
+      against the bridge. Which, having avoided, he passed under the bridge and
+      came, to his great rejoicing, within full sight of the delectable Gardens.
+      But having tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end of a piece
+      of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold off, seeking
+      for moorage, and, feeling his way, he buffeted against a sunken reef that
+      cast him overboard by the greatness of the shock, and he was near to being
+      drowned, but clambered back into the vessel. There now arose a mighty
+      storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he had never heard the
+      like, and he was tossed this way and that, and his hands so numbed with
+      the cold that he could not close them. Having escaped the danger of which,
+      he was mercifully carried into a small bay, where his boat rode at peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on pretending to disembark,
+      he found a multitude of small people drawn up on the shore to contest his
+      landing; and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past
+      Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and also
+      a company of them carried an arrow which some boy had left in the Gardens,
+      and this they were prepared to use as a battering-ram.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, called out that he was not an
+      ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be their
+      friend, nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was in no temper to
+      draw off there-from, and he warned them if they sought to mischief him to
+      stand to their harms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying; he boldly leapt ashore, and they gathered around him with
+      intent to slay him, but there then arose a great cry among the women, and
+      it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby&rsquo;s
+      night-gown. Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that their
+      laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by saying that
+      such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their weapons on
+      observing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelligence they set
+      great store, and they led him civilly to their queen, who conferred upon
+      him the courtesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and henceforth Peter
+      could go whither he chose, and the fairies had orders to put him in
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the
+      antiquity of the language that it took place a long time ago. But Peter
+      never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him under the
+      bridge to-night (but, of course, we can&rsquo;t), I daresay we should see him
+      hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in the Thrush&rsquo;s
+      Nest. When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to paddle. I shall
+      tell you presently how he got his paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long before the time for the opening of the gates comes he steals back to
+      the island, for people must not see him (he is not so human as all that),
+      but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly as real children
+      play. At least he thinks so, and it is one of the pathetic things about
+      him that he often plays quite wrongly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You see, he had no one to tell him how children really play, for the
+      fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing,
+      and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a great deal, when
+      the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they really knew.
+      They told him the truth about hide-and-seek, and he often plays it by
+      himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond could not explain to him
+      what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every night the
+      ducks have forgotten all the events of the day, except the number of
+      pieces of cake thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and say that
+      cake is not what it was in their young days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Peter had to find out many things for himself. He often played ships at
+      the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on the
+      grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he wondered what you play
+      at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they are boats. This
+      hoop always sank at once, but he waded in for it, and sometimes he dragged
+      it gleefully round the rim of the pond, and he was quite proud to think
+      that he had discovered what boys do with hoops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another time, when he found a child&rsquo;s pail, he thought it was for sitting
+      in, and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of it. Also he
+      found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite as if it was
+      having a game by itself, and he caught it after an exciting chase. But he
+      thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told him that boys kick balls,
+      so he kicked it; and after that he could not find it anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator. It was
+      under a lime-tree, near the entrance to the Fairy Queen&rsquo;s Winter Palace
+      (which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts), and Peter
+      approached it warily, for the birds had never mentioned such things to
+      him. Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then, as it gave no
+      answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously. He gave it a little push,
+      and it ran from him, which made him think it must be alive after all; but,
+      as it had run from him, he was not afraid. So he stretched out his hand to
+      pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so alarmed that he
+      leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat. You must not think,
+      however, that he was a coward, for he came back next night with a crust in
+      one hand and a stick in the other, but the perambulator had gone, and he
+      never saw another one. I have promised to tell you also about his paddle.
+      It was a child&rsquo;s spade which he had found near St. Govor&rsquo;s Well, and he
+      thought it was a paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes? If so, I think it rather
+      silly of you. What I mean is that, of course, one must pity him now and
+      then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence. He thought he
+      had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you have it is
+      almost quite as good as really to have it. He played without ceasing,
+      while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He could be
+      neither of these things, for he had never heard of them, but do you think
+      he is to be pitied for that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, he was merry. He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as you
+      are merrier than your father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top, from
+      sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences of the
+      Gardens? That is how Peter leaps them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen who walk home at night write
+      to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens, but it is
+      really Peter&rsquo;s pipe they hear. Of course, he had no mother&mdash;at least,
+      what use was she to him? You can be sorry for him for that, but don&rsquo;t be
+      too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell you is how he revisited her.
+      It was the fairies who gave him the chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      The Little House
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which
+      is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for
+      humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and they
+      have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you
+      never see it. This is because it is not there when you lie down, but it is
+      there when you wake up and step outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really it,
+      but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out Time.
+      David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away among the trees as
+      we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw it the night
+      he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of his father&rsquo;s office.
+      Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted because then she is
+      treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light, she saw hundreds of
+      them all together, and this must have been the fairies building the house,
+      for they build it every night and always in a different part of the
+      Gardens. She thought one of the lights was bigger than the others, though
+      she was not quite sure, for they jumped about so, and it might have been
+      another one that was bigger. But if it was the same one, it was Peter
+      Pan&rsquo;s light. Heaps of children have seen the fight, so that is nothing.
+      But Maimie Mannering was the famous one for whom the house was first
+      built.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night that she was
+      strange. She was four years of age, and in the daytime she was the
+      ordinary kind. She was pleased when her brother Tony, who was a
+      magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to him in
+      the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was flattered rather
+      than annoyed when he shoved her about. Also, when she was batting she
+      would pause though the ball was in the air to point out to you that she
+      was wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in the daytime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt
+      for Maimie and eyed her fearfully, and no wonder, for with dark there came
+      into her face a look that I can describe only as a leary look. It was also
+      a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony&rsquo;s uneasy glances. Then he
+      would make her presents of his favourite toys (which he always took away
+      from her next morning) and she accepted them with a disturbing smile. The
+      reason he was now become so wheedling and she so mysterious was (in brief)
+      that they knew they were about to be sent to bed. It was then that Maimie
+      was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do it to-night, and the mother and
+      their coloured nurse threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled her
+      agitating smile. And by-and-by when they were alone with their night-light
+      she would start up in bed crying &ldquo;Hsh! what was that?&rdquo; Tony beseeches her!
+      &ldquo;It was nothing&mdash;don&rsquo;t, Maimie, don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; and pulls the sheet over his
+      head. &ldquo;It is coming nearer!&rdquo; she cries; &ldquo;Oh, look at it, Tony! It is
+      feeling your bed with its horns&mdash;it is boring for you, oh, Tony, oh!&rdquo;
+       and she desists not until he rushes downstairs in his combinations,
+      screeching. When they came up to whip Maimie they usually found her
+      sleeping tranquilly, not shamming, you know, but really sleeping, and
+      looking like the sweetest little angel, which seems to me to make it
+      almost worse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens, and then Tony
+      did most of the talking. You could gather from his talk that he was a very
+      brave boy, and no one was so proud of it as Maimie. She would have loved
+      to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister. And at no time did
+      she admire him more than when he told her, as he often did with splendid
+      firmness, that one day he meant to remain behind in the Gardens after the
+      gates were closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Tony,&rdquo; she would say, with awful respect, &ldquo;but the fairies will be so
+      angry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay,&rdquo; replied Tony, carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; she said, thrilling, &ldquo;Peter Pan will give you a sail in his
+      boat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall make him,&rdquo; replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were overheard
+      by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from which the little
+      people weave their summer curtains, and after that Tony was a marked boy.
+      They loosened the rails before he sat on them, so that down he came on the
+      back of his head; they tripped him up by catching his bootlace and bribed
+      the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty accidents you meet with
+      in the Gardens occur because the fairies have taken an ill-will to you,
+      and so it behoves you to be careful what you say about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things, but
+      Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which day he was to remain
+      behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, &ldquo;Just some day;&rdquo;
+       he was quite vague about which day except when she asked &ldquo;Will it be
+      today?&rdquo; and then he could always say for certain that it would not be
+      to-day. So she saw that he was waiting for a real good chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow, and
+      there was ice on the Round Pond, not thick enough to skate on but at least
+      you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones, and many bright little
+      boys and girls were doing that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond,
+      but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said
+      this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that
+      night. It read half-past five. Poor ayah! she is the one who laughs
+      continuously because there are so many white children in the world, but
+      she was not to laugh much more that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to the
+      time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o&rsquo;clock for
+      closing time. But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the
+      fairies, and so did not see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they had
+      changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night. She said there
+      was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as they
+      trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their little
+      breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a fairy ball. Never, Tony
+      felt, could he hope for a better chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him. Her eager eyes
+      asked the question, &ldquo;Is it to-day?&rdquo; and he gasped and then nodded. Maimie
+      slipped her hand into Tony&rsquo;s, and hers was hot, but his was cold. She did
+      a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and gave it to him! &ldquo;In case you
+      should feel cold,&rdquo; she whispered. Her face was aglow, but Tony&rsquo;s was very
+      gloomy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid
+      Nurse would see me, so I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be able to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing but their
+      ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear, and she said aloud,
+      &ldquo;Tony, I shall race you to the gate,&rdquo; and in a whisper, &ldquo;Then you can
+      hide,&rdquo; and off they ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she known him
+      speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he hurried that he might
+      have more time to hide. &ldquo;Brave, brave!&rdquo; her doting eyes were crying when
+      she got a dreadful shock; instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the
+      gate! At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as if all her lapful of
+      darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for very disdain she
+      could not sob; in a swell of protest against all puling cowards she ran to
+      St. Govor&rsquo;s Well and hid in Tony&rsquo;s stead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she thought her
+      other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight came on, and scores and
+      hundreds of people passed out, including the last one, who always has to
+      run for it, but Maimie saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight and glued
+      them with passionate tears. When she opened them something very cold ran
+      up her legs and up her arms and dropped into her heart. It was the
+      stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then from another part <i>clang</i>,
+      then <i>clang</i>, <i>clang</i> far away. It was the Closing of the Gates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a voice
+      say, &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s all right.&rdquo; It had a wooden sound and seemed to come from
+      above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree stretching out its
+      arms and yawning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was about to say, &ldquo;I never knew you could speak!&rdquo; when a metallic
+      voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the elm,
+      &ldquo;I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?&rdquo; and the elm replied, &ldquo;Not
+      particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg,&rdquo; and he
+      flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they drive off.
+      Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were
+      doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the Baby Walk and
+      crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which shrugged its shoulders
+      but did not seem to mind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured pelisse
+      and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed except her
+      dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self was hidden far
+      away inside so many warm garments that in shape she seemed rather like a
+      ball. She was about forty round the waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived in
+      time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and set
+      off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly, but
+      that was because they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across the
+      walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
+      crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees and
+      shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never
+      known what they were for until to-night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy fairy
+      who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way he did it
+      was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut like umbrellas,
+      deluging the little plants beneath with snow. &ldquo;Oh, you naughty, naughty
+      child!&rdquo; Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it was to have a
+      dripping umbrella about your ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
+      chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly &ldquo;Hoity-toity,
+      what is this?&rdquo; that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole
+      vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it is no affair of ours,&rdquo; a spindle tree said after they had
+      whispered together, &ldquo;but you know quite well you ought not to be here, and
+      perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think
+      yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you should not,&rdquo; Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
+      they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t ask it of
+      you,&rdquo; she assured them, &ldquo;if I thought it was wrong,&rdquo; and of course after
+      this they could not well carry tales. They then said, &ldquo;Well-a-day,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Such is life!&rdquo; for they can be frightfully sarcastic, but she felt sorry
+      for those of them who had no crutches, and she said good-naturedly,
+      &ldquo;Before I go to the fairies&rsquo; ball, I should like to take you for a walk
+      one at a time; you can lean on me, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby
+      Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round the
+      very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and
+      treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though she
+      could not understand a word they said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that she had not
+      taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others jagged
+      her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a lady to cry
+      out. So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be off to the ball,
+      but she no longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more fear was that
+      it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember, Maimie was always
+      rather strange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were now loath to let her go, for, &ldquo;If the fairies see you,&rdquo; they
+      warned her, &ldquo;they will mischief you, stab you to death or compel you to
+      nurse their children or turn you into something tedious, like an evergreen
+      oak.&rdquo; As they said this they looked with affected pity at an evergreen
+      oak, for in winter they are very envious of the evergreens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, la!&rdquo; replied the oak bitingly, &ldquo;how deliciously cosy it is to stand
+      here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked creatures shivering!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This made them sulky though they had really brought it on themselves, and
+      they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of the perils that faced her if
+      she insisted on going to the ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual good
+      temper at present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the Duke of
+      Christmas Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy, very poorly of a dreadful
+      complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he had tried many ladies
+      in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them. Queen Mab, who
+      rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls would bewitch him,
+      but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained cold. This rather
+      irritating doctor, who was his private physician, felt the Duke&rsquo;s heart
+      immediately after any lady was presented, and then always shook his bald
+      head and murmured, &ldquo;Cold, quite cold!&rdquo; Naturally Queen Mab felt disgraced,
+      and first she tried the effect of ordering the court into tears for nine
+      minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and decreed that they should wear
+      fools&rsquo; caps until they thawed the Duke&rsquo;s frozen heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools&rsquo; caps!&rdquo;
+       Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very recklessly, for the
+      Cupids hate to be laughed at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is always easy to discover where a fairies&rsquo; ball is being held, as
+      ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
+      Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
+      their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty on the
+      snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
+      anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
+      surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just time
+      to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms and
+      pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front and six
+      behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held up by
+      two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a lovely
+      girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about. She was
+      dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was her neck,
+      which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course showed off
+      her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified it. The
+      high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their skin, which
+      lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you cannot imagine
+      anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies&rsquo; busts in the
+      jewellers&rsquo; windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a passion,
+      tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt
+      them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the doctor
+      had said &ldquo;Cold, quite cold!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over a
+      dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb
+      out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most kindly
+      went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and
+      explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor street
+      singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am rather plain,&rdquo; and this made Maimie
+      uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
+      plain for a fairy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was difficult to know what to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you think I have no chance,&rdquo; Brownie said falteringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say that,&rdquo; Maimie answered politely, &ldquo;of course your face is just
+      a tiny bit homely, but&mdash;&rdquo; Really it was quite awkward for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar. He had gone to
+      a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London were on
+      view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return home instead of
+      being dissatisfied with Maimie&rsquo;s mother he had said, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t think, my
+      dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously, indeed
+      she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose her. So
+      she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to follow lest
+      the Queen should mischief her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Maimie&rsquo;s curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
+      Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until she
+      was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed
+      of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming a
+      dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of little people
+      looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared to the
+      glorious creatures within that luminous circle who were so bewilderingly
+      bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she looked at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
+      Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: yet out of love
+      his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks of the
+      Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way darling
+      ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as they were told
+      to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke&rsquo;s heart and hear
+      him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly sorry for
+      the Cupids, who stood in their fools&rsquo; caps in obscure places and, every
+      time they heard that &ldquo;Cold, quite cold,&rdquo; bowed their disgraced little
+      heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you now
+      why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got wedged on
+      the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which he had to
+      break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance, so
+      heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are sad and
+      remember them again when they are merry. David tells me that fairies never
+      say &ldquo;We feel happy&rdquo;: what they say is, &ldquo;We feel <i>dancey</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, they were looking very undancy indeed, when sudden laughter broke
+      out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived and was
+      insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she had
+      really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie
+      herself who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his
+      grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart,
+      which for convenience sake was reached by a little trap-door in his
+      diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, &ldquo;Cold, qui&mdash;,&rdquo; when he
+      stopped abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch, and
+      then put his ear to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless my soul!&rdquo; cried the doctor, and by this time of course the
+      excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right and
+      left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled and
+      looked as if he would like to run away. &ldquo;Good gracious me!&rdquo; the doctor was
+      heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire, for he had to
+      jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suspense was awful!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, &ldquo;My Lord Duke,&rdquo; said the physician
+      elatedly, &ldquo;I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace is
+      in love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      You can&rsquo;t conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the Duke
+      and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of the Lord
+      Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of her
+      gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in everything. Thus
+      in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you leap into
+      each other&rsquo;s arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman has to be
+      present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and
+      immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were
+      ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring.
+      Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools&rsquo; caps from
+      their heads and cast them high in the air. And then Maimie went and
+      spoiled everything. She couldn&rsquo;t help it. She was crazy with delight over
+      her little friend&rsquo;s good fortune, so she took several steps forward and
+      cried in an ecstasy, &ldquo;Oh, Brownie, how splendid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all in
+      the time you may take to say &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; An awful sense of her peril came
+      upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a place
+      where no human must be between the locking and the opening of the gates,
+      she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she saw a thousand swords
+      flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head. Many
+      times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again. Her
+      little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew she was in
+      the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she must never cease
+      to run, and she thought she was still running long after she had dropped
+      in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes falling on her
+      face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought her coverlet of
+      snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her head. And when she
+      heard talking through her dreams she thought it was mother bringing father
+      to the nursery door to look at her as she slept. But it was the fairies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to mischief
+      her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as &ldquo;Slay
+      her!&rdquo; &ldquo;Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!&rdquo; and so on, but the
+      pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should march in front, and
+      this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and demand
+      a boon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie&rsquo;s
+      life. &ldquo;Anything except that,&rdquo; replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
+      fairies chanted &ldquo;Anything except that.&rdquo; But when they learned how Maimie
+      had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their
+      great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and
+      set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front and the
+      canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her footprints
+      in the snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed impossible
+      to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the form
+      of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood on her body and read
+      her a long address of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They also
+      cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, and they saw she
+      was in danger of perishing of cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turn her into something that does not mind the cold,&rdquo; seemed a good
+      suggestion of the doctor&rsquo;s, but the only thing they could think of that
+      does not mind cold was a snowflake. &ldquo;And it might melt,&rdquo; the Queen pointed
+      out, so that idea had to be given up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but
+      though there were so many of them she was too heavy. By this time all the
+      ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids had a
+      lovely idea. &ldquo;Build a house round her,&rdquo; they cried, and at once everybody
+      perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a hundred fairy
+      sawyers were among the branches, architects were running round Maimie,
+      measuring her; a bricklayer&rsquo;s yard sprang up at her feet, seventy-five
+      masons rushed up with the foundation stone and the Queen laid it,
+      overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings were run up,
+      the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and turning lathes, and by
+      this time the roof was on and the glaziers were putting in the windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely. One of her
+      arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but they built
+      a verandah round it, leading to the front door. The windows were the size
+      of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it would be
+      easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as is their
+      custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they
+      were all so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear
+      to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many little extra
+      touches, and even then they added more extra touches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we fear it is quite finished,&rdquo; they sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the
+      chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That certainly finishes it,&rdquo; they cried reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; cried a glow-worm, &ldquo;if she were to wake without seeing a
+      night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait one moment,&rdquo; said a china merchant, &ldquo;and I shall make you a saucer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now alas, it was absolutely finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, dear no!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious me,&rdquo; cried a brass manufacturer, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s no handle on the
+      door,&rdquo; and he put one on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat.
+      Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on
+      painting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finished at last!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finished! how can it be finished,&rdquo; the plumber demanded scornfully,
+      &ldquo;before hot and cold are put in?&rdquo; and he put in hot and cold. Then an army
+      of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and bulbs and
+      forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the right of the
+      verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses and clematis on the
+      walls of the house, and in less time than five minutes all these dear
+      things were in full bloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at last finished
+      true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the dance. They all
+      kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the last to go was
+      Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop a pleasant dream
+      down the chimney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs
+      taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream was
+      quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was
+      breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then she
+      called out,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tony,&rdquo; for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no
+      answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened like
+      the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the
+      Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the nursery she
+      wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and
+      then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her that she was in the
+      middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had
+      happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away from
+      the fairies, but however, she asked herself, had she got into this funny
+      place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, and then she
+      saw the dear house in which she had passed the night. It so entranced her
+      that she could think of nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now knew
+      that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it began to
+      grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce believe it was
+      shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her now. It always
+      remained as complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller, and the
+      garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer, lapping house
+      and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little dog&rsquo;s kennel, and
+      now of a Noah&rsquo;s Ark, but still you could see the smoke and the door-handle
+      and the roses on the wall, every one complete. The glow-worm fight was
+      waning too, but it was still there. &ldquo;Darling, loveliest, don&rsquo;t go!&rdquo; Maimie
+      cried, falling on her knees, for the little house was now the size of a
+      reel of thread, but still quite complete. But as she stretched out her
+      arms imploringly the snow crept up on all sides until it met itself, and
+      where the little house had been was now one unbroken expanse of snow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
+      eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, pretty human, don&rsquo;t
+      cry,&rdquo; and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy
+      regarding her wistfully. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      Lock-out Time
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the
+      only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are
+      children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and at that time
+      there was not a fairy in the place; then the children were admitted, and
+      the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can&rsquo;t resist
+      following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because they live
+      in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed to go, and
+      also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bit cunning after
+      Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a
+      good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can&rsquo;t
+      write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who
+      declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said
+      this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all
+      the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be
+      something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually pretend to
+      be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies&rsquo; Basin, and there are so
+      many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that a flower is the
+      thing least likely to attract attention. They dress exactly like flowers,
+      and change with the seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue
+      for blue-bells, and so on. They like crocus and hyacinth time best of all,
+      as they are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except white ones,
+      which are the fairy-cradles) they consider garish, and they sometimes put
+      off dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the tulip
+      weeks is almost the best time to catch them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but if
+      you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite still,
+      pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without knowing that
+      they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers they have had
+      such an adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is all covered with
+      ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil), with flowers growing
+      in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers, but some of them
+      are fairies. You never can be sure of them, but a good plan is to walk by
+      looking the other way, and then turn round sharply. Another good plan,
+      which David and I sometimes follow, is to stare them down. After a long
+      time they can&rsquo;t help winking, and then you know for certain that they are
+      fairies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous
+      gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once twenty-four
+      of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls&rsquo; school out for
+      a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth gowns, when she
+      suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they all stood still on an
+      empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths. Unfortunately, what the governess
+      had heard was two gardeners coming to plant new flowers in that very bed.
+      They were wheeling a handcart with flowers in it, and were quite surprised
+      to find the bed occupied. &ldquo;Pity to lift them hyacinths,&rdquo; said the one man.
+      &ldquo;Duke&rsquo;s orders,&rdquo; replied the other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug
+      up the boarding-school and put the poor, terrified things in it in five
+      rows. Of course, neither the governess nor the girls dare let on that they
+      were fairies, so they were carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which
+      they escaped in the night without their shoes, but there was a great row
+      about it among the parents, and the school was ruined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are the
+      exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you can&rsquo;t
+      see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you can&rsquo;t
+      see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never heard of
+      anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not mean that
+      they are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so
+      much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with a light
+      behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and is
+      quite the loveliest of all royal residences, but the queen sometimes
+      complains because the common people will peep in to see what she is doing.
+      They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hard against the glass,
+      and that is why their noses are mostly snubby. The streets are miles long
+      and very twisty, and have paths on each side made of bright worsted. The
+      birds used to steal the worsted for their nests, but a policeman has been
+      appointed to hold on at the other end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they never
+      do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first time, his
+      laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That
+      was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy, you know, as if
+      they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask them what they are
+      doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are frightfully
+      ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have a postman, but
+      he never calls except at Christmas with his little box, and though they
+      have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the youngest child
+      being chief person is always elected mistress, and when she has called the
+      roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back. It is a very
+      noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest is always chief
+      person, and usually becomes a prince or princess, and children remember
+      this, and think it must be so among humans also, and that is why they are
+      often made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new
+      frills on the basinette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts of
+      things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand up at
+      sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for instance, or
+      to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when she
+      is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this down to
+      naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she is doing as she has
+      seen the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, and it takes
+      about two years to get her into the human ways. Her fits of passion, which
+      are awful to behold, and are usually called teething, are no such thing;
+      they are her natural exasperation, because we don&rsquo;t understand her, though
+      she is talking an intelligible language. She is talking fairy. The reason
+      mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean, before other people know,
+      as that &ldquo;Guch&rdquo; means &ldquo;Give it to me at once,&rdquo; while &ldquo;Wa&rdquo; is &ldquo;Why do you
+      wear such a funny hat?&rdquo; is because, mixing so much with babies, they have
+      picked up a little of the fairy language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with his
+      hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of their
+      phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don&rsquo;t forget. He had heard
+      them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I suggested to him that
+      perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering, he says not, for
+      these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked of
+      nothing but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the birds used to
+      go from spot to spot like ladies at shop-windows, looking at the different
+      nests and saying, &ldquo;Not my colour, my dear,&rdquo; and &ldquo;How would that do with a
+      soft lining?&rdquo; and &ldquo;But will it wear?&rdquo; and &ldquo;What hideous trimming!&rdquo; and so
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first things
+      the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry when you
+      do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a
+      fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is
+      not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round.
+      Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy
+      chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the
+      rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them,
+      and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that
+      they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates. David and I
+      once found a fairy-ring quite warm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
+      place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
+      close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the board
+      on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at six-thirty
+      for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to get begun half an
+      hour earlier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famous
+      Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights, hundreds of lovely
+      fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their
+      wedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding
+      up the ladies&rsquo; trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter
+      cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where they put on
+      their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps, the flowers
+      streaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because
+      they can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it,
+      and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on
+      which he blows when Her Majesty wants to know the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made of
+      chestnut-blossom. The way the fairy-servants do is this: The men, scores
+      of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the blossom falls
+      like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together by whisking their
+      skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that is how they get
+      their table-cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn
+      wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but the
+      bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is bread
+      and butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to
+      end with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The fairies sit
+      round on mushrooms, and at first they are very well-behaved and always
+      cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so
+      well-behaved and stick their fingers into the butter, which is got from
+      the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over the
+      table-cloth chasing sugar or other delicacies with their tongues. When the
+      Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and put
+      away, and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in front
+      while the Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little pots, one
+      of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the other the juice of
+      Solomon&rsquo;s Seals. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall
+      to the ground in a fit, and Solomon&rsquo;s Seals juice is for bruises. They
+      bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster they foot it
+      till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without my telling you,
+      Peter Pan is the fairies&rsquo; orchestra. He sits in the middle of the ring,
+      and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays without him.
+      &ldquo;P. P.&rdquo; is written on the corner of the invitation-cards sent out by all
+      really good families. They are grateful little people, too, and at the
+      princess&rsquo;s coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their second birthday
+      and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish of his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered him to kneel, and then
+      said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his
+      heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of his
+      heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it was
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I chose to go back to mother,&rdquo; he asked at last, &ldquo;could you give me
+      that wish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
+      should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
+      said, &ldquo;Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that quite a little wish?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As little as this,&rdquo; the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What size is a big wish?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Peter reflected and said, &ldquo;Well, then, I think I shall have two
+      little wishes instead of one big one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather shocked
+      them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mother, but with
+      the right to return to the Gardens if he found her disappointing. His
+      second wish he would hold in reserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can give you the power to fly to her house,&rdquo; the Queen said, &ldquo;but I
+      can&rsquo;t open the door for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The window I flew out at will be open,&rdquo; Peter said confidently. &ldquo;Mother
+      always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could
+      not explain how he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just do know,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they gave
+      him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and soon
+      he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and higher
+      and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he
+      skimmed away over St. Paul&rsquo;s to the Crystal Palace and back by the river
+      and Regent&rsquo;s Park, and by the time he reached his mother&rsquo;s window he had
+      quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
+      fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had a
+      good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow in the
+      pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He remembered,
+      though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her hair a holiday
+      at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she was such
+      a pretty mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms moved
+      as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted to go
+      round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, mother,&rdquo; said Peter to himself, &ldquo;if you just knew who is sitting on
+      the rail at the foot of the bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could
+      see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say &ldquo;Mother&rdquo; ever
+      so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if it is you
+      that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry and squeeze
+      him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, how exquisitely
+      delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is how Peter regarded it.
+      In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was giving her the
+      greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more splendid, he thought,
+      than to have a little boy of your own. How proud of him they are; and very
+      right and proper, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
+      mother that he has come back?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.
+      Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked
+      longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy
+      again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!
+      Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped off
+      the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They
+      were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
+      socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was
+      about to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.
+      Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for he
+      heard her say &ldquo;Peter,&rdquo; as if it was the most lovely word in the language.
+      He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath, wondering how she
+      knew that he had come back. If she said &ldquo;Peter&rdquo; again, he meant to cry
+      &ldquo;Mother&rdquo; and run to her. But she spoke no more, she made little moans
+      only, and when next he peeped at her she was once more asleep, with tears
+      on her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first thing he
+      did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a beautiful
+      lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself out of the
+      way she said &ldquo;Peter,&rdquo; and he never stopped playing until she looked happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening
+      her to hear her say, &ldquo;Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play.&rdquo; However, as
+      she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must
+      not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had
+      quite decided to be his mother&rsquo;s boy, but hesitated about beginning
+      to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant to
+      make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
+      wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to the
+      fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might go bad.
+      He asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly away without
+      saying good-bye to Solomon. &ldquo;I should like awfully to sail in my boat just
+      once more,&rdquo; he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite argued with
+      her as if she could hear him. &ldquo;It would be so splendid to tell the birds
+      of this adventure,&rdquo; he said coaxingly. &ldquo;I promise to come back,&rdquo; he said
+      solemnly and meant it, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
+      window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it might
+      waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and then he
+      flew back to the Gardens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his
+      second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long.
+      One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to his
+      particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had his last
+      sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on. Again,
+      a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and another
+      comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for his mother
+      would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeased old
+      Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate.
+      Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them at their work, such
+      as &ldquo;Never put off laying to-day, because you can lay to-morrow,&rdquo; and &ldquo;In
+      this world there are no second chances,&rdquo; and yet here was Peter gaily
+      putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this out to each
+      other, and fell into lazy habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother, he
+      was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution with
+      the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the Gardens
+      to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick him into
+      making such a remark as &ldquo;I wish the grass was not so wet,&rdquo; and some of
+      them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, &ldquo;I do wish you
+      would keep time!&rdquo; Then they would have said that this was his second wish.
+      But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he began, &ldquo;I wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+       he always stopped in time. So when at last he said to them bravely, &ldquo;I
+      wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,&rdquo; they had to tickle his
+      shoulder and let him go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother was
+      crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that a hug
+      from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he felt sure
+      of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this time he
+      flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
+      inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round another
+      little boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peter called, &ldquo;Mother! mother!&rdquo; but she heard him not; in vain he beat his
+      little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to the
+      Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he had meant
+      to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how
+      differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was right;
+      there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it
+      is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
+
+Author: J. M. Barrie
+
+Posting Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #1332]
+Release Date: May, 1998
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Burkey
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
+
+By J. M. Barrie
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     Peter Pan
+     The Thrush's Nest
+     The Little House
+     Lock-Out Time
+
+
+
+
+Peter Pan
+
+If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
+little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you
+ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What
+a foolish question to ask, certainly he did." Then if you ask your
+grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she
+also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether he
+rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a
+goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name
+and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could
+hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was
+no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in
+telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people
+do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
+
+Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
+always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age
+is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a
+birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one. The
+reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days'
+old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens.
+
+If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows
+how completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard
+this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape,
+but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples,
+and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly
+remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with that
+memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as
+soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way
+up the chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would
+press their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before
+they were human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few
+weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders, where their wings used to be. So
+David tells me.
+
+I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story:
+First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding
+being that it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with his
+additions, and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more
+his story or mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the bald
+narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all,
+for this boy can be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits about the
+ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences
+of David's, recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking
+hard.
+
+Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars. Standing
+on the ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the
+Kensington Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that
+he was now a little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over the
+houses to the Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly without wings,
+but the place itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all fly if we
+were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter
+Pan that evening.
+
+He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby's Palace and the
+Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick.
+He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and thought he
+was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his early days, and
+when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he
+missed it was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand, which,
+of course, a bird never does. He saw, however, that it must be past
+Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies about, all too busy
+to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready, milking their cows,
+drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the water-pails made him
+thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped,
+and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of
+course, it was only his nose, and, therefore, very little water came up,
+and that not so refreshing as usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he
+fell flop into it. When a real bird falls in flop, he spreads out his
+feathers and pecks them dry, but Peter could not remember what was
+the thing to do, and he decided, rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the
+weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
+
+At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch, but
+presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long before
+morning, shivering, and saying to himself, "I never was out in such a
+cold night;" he had really been out in colder nights when he was a bird,
+but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm night to a bird
+is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown. Peter also felt strangely
+uncomfortable, as if his head was stuffy, he heard loud noises that made
+him look round sharply, though they were really himself sneezing. There
+was something he wanted very much, but, though he knew he wanted it, he
+could not think what it was. What he wanted so much was his mother to
+blow his nose, but that never struck him, so he decided to appeal to the
+fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal.
+
+There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
+round each other's waists, and he hopped down to address them. The
+fairies have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil
+answer to a civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran
+away the moment they saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair,
+reading a postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he heard
+Peter's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
+
+To Peter's bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from
+him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away,
+leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail upside down
+and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies
+were running this way and that, asking each other stoutly, who was
+afraid, lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds
+of Queen Mab's palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that the royal
+guard had been called out.
+
+A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
+holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing. Peter
+heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the
+Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he
+was the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more
+wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he pursued them
+with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and
+even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly
+into a side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.
+
+Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he
+remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had
+flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not troubled him
+at the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing was shunning
+him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did
+not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a
+blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith
+in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you
+cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't
+is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have
+wings.
+
+Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine,
+for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there
+are stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a
+bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was to the island that Peter now
+flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on
+it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at home, as the
+birds call the island. All of them were asleep, including the sentinels,
+except Solomon, who was wide awake on one side, and he listened quietly
+to Peter's adventures, and then told him their true meaning.
+
+"Look at your night-gown, if you don't believe me," Solomon said,
+and with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the
+sleeping birds. Not one of them wore anything.
+
+"How many of your toes are thumbs?" said Solomon a little cruelly, and
+Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The
+shock was so great that it drove away his cold.
+
+"Ruffle your feathers," said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried most
+desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then he rose
+up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the window-ledge,
+he remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
+
+"I think I shall go back to mother," he said timidly.
+
+"Good-bye," replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
+
+But Peter hesitated. "Why don't you go?" the old one asked politely.
+
+"I suppose," said Peter huskily, "I suppose I can still fly?"
+
+You see, he had lost faith.
+
+"Poor little half-and-half," said Solomon, who was not really
+hard-hearted, "you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
+days. You must live here on the island always."
+
+"And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?" Peter asked tragically.
+
+"How could you get across?" said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
+however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by
+one of such an awkward shape.
+
+"Then I sha'n't be exactly a human?" Peter asked.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor exactly a bird?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What shall I be?"
+
+"You will be a Betwixt-and-Between," Solomon said, and certainly he was
+a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
+
+The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled them
+every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds
+that were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at him at
+once, then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds came out
+of other eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty mother-birds, when
+they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get the young one to break
+their shells a day before the right time by whispering to them that now
+was their chance to see Peter washing or drinking or eating. Thousands
+gathered round him daily to watch him do these things, just as you watch
+the peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the crusts
+they flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the
+mouth. All his food was brought to him from the Gardens at Solomon's
+orders by the birds. He would not eat worms or insects (which they
+thought very silly of him), so they brought him bread in their beaks.
+Thus, when you cry out, "Greedy! Greedy!" to the bird that flies away
+with the big crust, you know now that you ought not to do this, for he
+is very likely taking it to Peter Pan.
+
+Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds were always begging him
+for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very good-natured,
+he could not refuse, so by Solomon's advice he had hidden what was left
+of it. But, though he was now quite naked, you must not think that he
+was cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and the reason
+was that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird
+ways. To be easily pleased, for instance, and always to be really doing
+something, and to think that whatever he was doing was a thing of vast
+importance. Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their
+nests; soon he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well
+as a blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made
+nice little water-troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young
+ones with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and
+knew an east-wind from a west-wind by its smell, and he could see the
+grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks.
+But the best thing Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad
+heart. All birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as
+they were the only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him
+to teach Peter how to have one.
+
+Peter's heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long,
+just as the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in
+instrument, so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore
+of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind and the
+ripple of the water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the moon, and
+he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully that even the
+birds were deceived, and they would say to each other, "Was that a fish
+leaping in the water or was it Peter playing leaping fish on his pipe?"
+and sometimes he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would
+turn round in their nests to see whether they had laid an egg. If you
+are a child of the Gardens you must know the chestnut-tree near the
+bridge, which comes out in flower first of all the chestnuts, but
+perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the way. It is because
+Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has come, and the chestnut
+being so near, hears him and is cheated.
+
+But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes
+fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also, and the
+reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens,
+though he could see them through the arch of the bridge. He knew he
+could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but
+oh, how he longed to play as other children play, and of course there
+is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens. The birds brought him
+news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears started in Peter's
+eyes.
+
+Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. The reason was that he
+could not swim. He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the island
+knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. They were quite
+willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was, "You sit down
+on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick out like that."
+Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick out he sank. What
+he really needed to know was how you sit on the water without sinking,
+and they said it was quite impossible to explain such an easy thing as
+that. Occasionally swans touched on the island, and he would give them
+all his day's food and then ask them how they sat on the water, but as
+soon as he had no more to give them the hateful things hissed at him and
+sailed away.
+
+Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the Gardens.
+A wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated high over
+the island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the manner of a
+bird that has broken its wing. Peter was so frightened that he hid, but
+the birds told him it was only a kite, and what a kite is, and that it
+must have tugged its string out of a boy's hand, and soared away. After
+that they laughed at Peter for being so fond of the kite, he loved it
+so much that he even slept with one hand on it, and I think this was
+pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved it was because it had
+belonged to a real boy.
+
+To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt
+grateful to him at this time because he had nursed a number of
+fledglings through the German measles, and they offered to show him how
+birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of the string in their
+beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after them and
+went even higher than they.
+
+Peter screamed out, "Do it again!" and with great good nature they did
+it several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, "Do it
+again!" which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it was
+to be a boy.
+
+At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
+them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred
+flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop
+off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the
+air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold
+of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this
+the birds said that they would help him no more in his mad enterprise.
+
+Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of
+Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.
+
+
+
+
+The Thrush's Nest
+
+Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to
+be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people
+who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that
+and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens,
+he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the
+Serpentine.
+
+It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to Solomon
+Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a message from a
+lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her have a good one.
+They always ask for the best one he has, and if he likes the letter he
+sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones
+indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at another time he sends a
+nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch him in. He likes you to
+leave it all to him, and if you mention particularly that you hope he
+will see his way to making it a boy this time, he is almost sure to send
+another girl. And whether you are a lady or only a little boy who wants
+a baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearly. You
+can't think what a lot of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
+
+Shelley's boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
+counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
+their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided
+that it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought this
+because there was a large five printed on it. "Preposterous!" cried
+Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which
+drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a play-thing.
+
+But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it
+was at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
+ordinary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at last
+contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible ways,
+and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. But, first, he had
+to tell the birds of the value of Shelley's boat; and though they were
+too honest to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, and they
+cast such black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain of his cleverness,
+that he flew away to the end of the island, and sat there very depressed
+with his head buried in his wings. Now Peter knew that unless Solomon
+was on your side, you never got anything done for you in the island, so
+he followed him and tried to hearten him.
+
+Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow's good
+will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in office
+all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and devoting his
+green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs
+which had taken his fancy, and for years he had been quietly filling his
+stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bathing person which had
+been cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of it contained a
+hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper
+and a bootlace. When his stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he
+would be able to retire on a competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He
+cut it off his bank-note with a sharp stick.
+
+This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
+together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently
+why thrushes only were invited.
+
+The scheme to be put before them was really Peter's, but Solomon did
+most of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people
+talked. He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the
+superior ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this
+put them into good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the
+quarrels between birds are about the best way of building nests. Other
+birds, said Solomon, omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a
+result they did not hold water. Here he cocked his head as if he had
+used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come
+to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, "We don't build nests to
+hold water, but to hold eggs," and then the thrushes stopped cheering,
+and Solomon was so perplexed that he took several sips of water.
+
+"Consider," he said at last, "how warm the mud makes the nest."
+
+"Consider," cried Mrs. Finch, "that when water gets into the nest it
+remains there and your little ones are drowned."
+
+The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in
+reply to this, but again he was perplexed.
+
+"Try another drink," suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name, and
+all Kates are saucy.
+
+Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. "If," said he, "a
+finch's nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to pieces,
+but a thrush's nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan's back."
+
+How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests
+with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, "We don't place our nests on
+the Serpentine," they did what they should have done at first: chased
+her from the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had been
+brought together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their young friend,
+Peter Pan, as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to cross to
+the Gardens, and he now proposed, with their help, to build a boat.
+
+At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
+scheme.
+
+Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous
+boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a thrush's
+nest large enough to hold Peter.
+
+But still, to Peter's agony, the thrushes were sulky. "We are very busy
+people," they grumbled, "and this would be a big job."
+
+"Quite so," said Solomon, "and, of course, Peter would not allow you
+to work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable
+circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been
+paid before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be paid
+sixpence a day."
+
+Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
+celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into
+arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but
+not a thrush's nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon
+ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland.
+The stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators
+but get puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and
+ladies often ask specially for them. What do you think Solomon did? He
+sent over to the housetops for a lot of sparrows and ordered them to lay
+their eggs in old thrushes' nests and sent their young to the ladies and
+swore they were all thrushes! It was known afterward on the island as
+the Sparrows' Year, and so, when you meet, as you doubtless sometimes
+do, grown-up people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves
+bigger than they are, very likely they belong to that year. You ask
+them.
+
+Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They
+stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
+sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and
+then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence.
+It must have been a fine sight.
+
+And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
+deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
+thrush's nest! From the very beginning of the building of it he slept by
+its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it was
+lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps in
+his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round in it, for it
+is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he curls round like a
+kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green,
+being woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls
+are thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which
+came off the thrushes while they were building.
+
+The other birds were extremely jealous and said that the boat would not
+balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully steady; they said the
+water would come into it, but no water came into it. Next they said that
+Peter had no oars, and this caused the thrushes to look at each other
+in dismay, but Peter replied that he had no need of oars, for he had a
+sail, and with such a proud, happy face he produced a sail which he had
+fashioned out of this night-gown, and though it was still rather like a
+night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full,
+and all the birds asleep, he did enter his coracle (as Master Francis
+Pretty would have said) and depart out of the island. And first, he knew
+not why, he looked upward, with his hands clasped, and from that moment
+his eyes were pinned to the west.
+
+He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with them
+to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens beckoning to
+him beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face was flushed, but
+he never looked back; there was an exultation in his little breast that
+drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the English mariners who
+have sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
+
+At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to the
+place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing one of
+the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary breeze, to
+his no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the result that he was
+drifted toward the far shore, where are black shadows he knew not the
+dangers of, but suspected them, and so once more hoisted his night-gown
+and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring wind, which
+bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to be broke
+against the bridge. Which, having avoided, he passed under the bridge
+and came, to his great rejoicing, within full sight of the delectable
+Gardens. But having tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end
+of a piece of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold
+off, seeking for moorage, and, feeling his way, he buffeted against a
+sunken reef that cast him overboard by the greatness of the shock, and
+he was near to being drowned, but clambered back into the vessel. There
+now arose a mighty storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he
+had never heard the like, and he was tossed this way and that, and
+his hands so numbed with the cold that he could not close them. Having
+escaped the danger of which, he was mercifully carried into a small bay,
+where his boat rode at peace.
+
+Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on pretending to disembark,
+he found a multitude of small people drawn up on the shore to contest
+his landing; and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past
+Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and
+also a company of them carried an arrow which some boy had left in the
+Gardens, and this they were prepared to use as a battering-ram.
+
+Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, called out that he was not an
+ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be their
+friend, nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was in no temper
+to draw off there-from, and he warned them if they sought to mischief
+him to stand to their harms.
+
+So saying; he boldly leapt ashore, and they gathered around him with
+intent to slay him, but there then arose a great cry among the women,
+and it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby's
+night-gown. Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that
+their laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by saying
+that such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their
+weapons on observing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelligence
+they set great store, and they led him civilly to their queen, who
+conferred upon him the courtesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and
+henceforth Peter could go whither he chose, and the fairies had orders
+to put him in comfort.
+
+Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the
+antiquity of the language that it took place a long time ago. But Peter
+never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him under the
+bridge to-night (but, of course, we can't), I daresay we should see
+him hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in the
+Thrush's Nest. When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to paddle.
+I shall tell you presently how he got his paddle.
+
+Long before the time for the opening of the gates comes he steals back
+to the island, for people must not see him (he is not so human as all
+that), but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly as real
+children play. At least he thinks so, and it is one of the pathetic
+things about him that he often plays quite wrongly.
+
+You see, he had no one to tell him how children really play, for the
+fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing,
+and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a great deal,
+when the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they really
+knew. They told him the truth about hide-and-seek, and he often plays
+it by himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond could not explain to
+him what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every night
+the ducks have forgotten all the events of the day, except the number of
+pieces of cake thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and say that
+cake is not what it was in their young days.
+
+So Peter had to find out many things for himself. He often played ships
+at the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on
+the grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he wondered what
+you play at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they
+are boats. This hoop always sank at once, but he waded in for it, and
+sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim of the pond, and he was
+quite proud to think that he had discovered what boys do with hoops.
+
+Another time, when he found a child's pail, he thought it was for
+sitting in, and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of
+it. Also he found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite as
+if it was having a game by itself, and he caught it after an exciting
+chase. But he thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told him that
+boys kick balls, so he kicked it; and after that he could not find it
+anywhere.
+
+Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator. It was
+under a lime-tree, near the entrance to the Fairy Queen's Winter Palace
+(which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts), and Peter
+approached it warily, for the birds had never mentioned such things to
+him. Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then, as it gave
+no answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously. He gave it a little
+push, and it ran from him, which made him think it must be alive after
+all; but, as it had run from him, he was not afraid. So he stretched out
+his hand to pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so
+alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat. You must
+not think, however, that he was a coward, for he came back next night
+with a crust in one hand and a stick in the other, but the perambulator
+had gone, and he never saw another one. I have promised to tell you also
+about his paddle. It was a child's spade which he had found near St.
+Govor's Well, and he thought it was a paddle.
+
+Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes? If so, I think it
+rather silly of you. What I mean is that, of course, one must pity him
+now and then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence. He
+thought he had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you
+have it is almost quite as good as really to have it. He played without
+ceasing, while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He
+could be neither of these things, for he had never heard of them, but do
+you think he is to be pitied for that?
+
+Oh, he was merry. He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as you
+are merrier than your father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top,
+from sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences of
+the Gardens? That is how Peter leaps them.
+
+And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen who walk home at night
+write to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens, but
+it is really Peter's pipe they hear. Of course, he had no mother--at
+least, what use was she to him? You can be sorry for him for that, but
+don't be too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell you is how he
+revisited her. It was the fairies who gave him the chance.
+
+
+
+
+The Little House
+
+Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens, which
+is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built for
+humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four, and
+they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in it
+you never see it. This is because it is not there when you lie down, but
+it is there when you wake up and step outside.
+
+In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really
+it, but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out
+Time. David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away among the
+trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver Bailey saw
+it the night he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of
+his father's office. Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth extracted
+because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than one light,
+she saw hundreds of them all together, and this must have been the
+fairies building the house, for they build it every night and always
+in a different part of the Gardens. She thought one of the lights was
+bigger than the others, though she was not quite sure, for they jumped
+about so, and it might have been another one that was bigger. But if it
+was the same one, it was Peter Pan's light. Heaps of children have seen
+the fight, so that is nothing. But Maimie Mannering was the famous one
+for whom the house was first built.
+
+Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night that she
+was strange. She was four years of age, and in the daytime she was
+the ordinary kind. She was pleased when her brother Tony, who was a
+magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to him
+in the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was flattered
+rather than annoyed when he shoved her about. Also, when she was batting
+she would pause though the ball was in the air to point out to you
+that she was wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in the
+daytime.
+
+But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt
+for Maimie and eyed her fearfully, and no wonder, for with dark there
+came into her face a look that I can describe only as a leary look.
+It was also a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony's uneasy
+glances. Then he would make her presents of his favourite toys (which
+he always took away from her next morning) and she accepted them with a
+disturbing smile. The reason he was now become so wheedling and she so
+mysterious was (in brief) that they knew they were about to be sent to
+bed. It was then that Maimie was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do
+it to-night, and the mother and their coloured nurse threatened her, but
+Maimie merely smiled her agitating smile. And by-and-by when they were
+alone with their night-light she would start up in bed crying "Hsh! what
+was that?" Tony beseeches her! "It was nothing--don't, Maimie, don't!"
+and pulls the sheet over his head. "It is coming nearer!" she cries;
+"Oh, look at it, Tony! It is feeling your bed with its horns--it is
+boring for you, oh, Tony, oh!" and she desists not until he rushes
+downstairs in his combinations, screeching. When they came up to whip
+Maimie they usually found her sleeping tranquilly, not shamming, you
+know, but really sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel,
+which seems to me to make it almost worse.
+
+But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens, and then
+Tony did most of the talking. You could gather from his talk that he
+was a very brave boy, and no one was so proud of it as Maimie. She would
+have loved to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister. And
+at no time did she admire him more than when he told her, as he often
+did with splendid firmness, that one day he meant to remain behind in
+the Gardens after the gates were closed.
+
+"Oh, Tony," she would say, with awful respect, "but the fairies will be
+so angry!"
+
+"I daresay," replied Tony, carelessly.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, thrilling, "Peter Pan will give you a sail in his
+boat!"
+
+"I shall make him," replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of him.
+
+But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were
+overheard by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from which
+the little people weave their summer curtains, and after that Tony was a
+marked boy. They loosened the rails before he sat on them, so that down
+he came on the back of his head; they tripped him up by catching his
+bootlace and bribed the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty
+accidents you meet with in the Gardens occur because the fairies have
+taken an ill-will to you, and so it behoves you to be careful what you
+say about them.
+
+Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things,
+but Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which day he was to
+remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, "Just
+some day;" he was quite vague about which day except when she asked
+"Will it be today?" and then he could always say for certain that it
+would not be to-day. So she saw that he was waiting for a real good
+chance.
+
+This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow,
+and there was ice on the Round Pond, not thick enough to skate on but
+at least you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones, and many
+bright little boys and girls were doing that.
+
+When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the pond,
+but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as she said
+this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens closed that
+night. It read half-past five. Poor ayah! she is the one who laughs
+continuously because there are so many white children in the world, but
+she was not to laugh much more that day.
+
+Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to the
+time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o'clock for
+closing time. But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the
+fairies, and so did not see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they
+had changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night. She said
+there was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as
+they trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their
+little breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a fairy ball.
+Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
+
+He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him. Her eager
+eyes asked the question, "Is it to-day?" and he gasped and then nodded.
+Maimie slipped her hand into Tony's, and hers was hot, but his was cold.
+She did a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and gave it to him!
+"In case you should feel cold," she whispered. Her face was aglow, but
+Tony's was very gloomy.
+
+As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her, "I'm afraid
+Nurse would see me, so I sha'n't be able to do it."
+
+Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing but their
+ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear, and she said
+aloud, "Tony, I shall race you to the gate," and in a whisper, "Then you
+can hide," and off they ran.
+
+Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she known him
+speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he hurried that he might
+have more time to hide. "Brave, brave!" her doting eyes were crying when
+she got a dreadful shock; instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the
+gate! At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as if all her lapful
+of darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for very disdain
+she could not sob; in a swell of protest against all puling cowards she
+ran to St. Govor's Well and hid in Tony's stead.
+
+When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she thought her
+other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight came on, and scores
+and hundreds of people passed out, including the last one, who always
+has to run for it, but Maimie saw them not. She had shut her eyes tight
+and glued them with passionate tears. When she opened them something
+very cold ran up her legs and up her arms and dropped into her heart.
+It was the stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard clang, then from
+another part _clang_, then _clang_, _clang_ far away. It was the Closing
+of the Gates.
+
+Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a voice
+say, "So that's all right." It had a wooden sound and seemed to come
+from above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree stretching out
+its arms and yawning.
+
+She was about to say, "I never knew you could speak!" when a metallic
+voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the
+elm, "I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?" and the elm replied, "Not
+particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg," and he
+flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they drive off.
+Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were
+doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the Baby Walk and
+crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which shrugged its shoulders
+but did not seem to mind her.
+
+She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured pelisse
+and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed except her
+dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self was hidden far
+away inside so many warm garments that in shape she seemed rather like a
+ball. She was about forty round the waist.
+
+There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived in
+time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing and set
+off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly, but
+that was because they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across the
+walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
+crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees and
+shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never
+known what they were for until to-night.
+
+She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy
+fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way
+he did it was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut
+like umbrellas, deluging the little plants beneath with snow. "Oh, you
+naughty, naughty child!" Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it
+was to have a dripping umbrella about your ears.
+
+Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
+chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly "Hoity-toity,
+what is this?" that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole
+vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
+
+"Of course it is no affair of ours," a spindle tree said after they had
+whispered together, "but you know quite well you ought not to be here,
+and perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think
+yourself?"
+
+"I think you should not," Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
+they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. "I wouldn't ask it
+of you," she assured them, "if I thought it was wrong," and of
+course after this they could not well carry tales. They then said,
+"Well-a-day," and "Such is life!" for they can be frightfully sarcastic,
+but she felt sorry for those of them who had no crutches, and she said
+good-naturedly, "Before I go to the fairies' ball, I should like to take
+you for a walk one at a time; you can lean on me, you know."
+
+At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby
+Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round
+the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and
+treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though
+she could not understand a word they said.
+
+They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that she had not
+taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others
+jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a
+lady to cry out. So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be off
+to the ball, but she no longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no more
+fear was that it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember,
+Maimie was always rather strange.
+
+They were now loath to let her go, for, "If the fairies see you," they
+warned her, "they will mischief you, stab you to death or compel you
+to nurse their children or turn you into something tedious, like an
+evergreen oak." As they said this they looked with affected pity at an
+evergreen oak, for in winter they are very envious of the evergreens.
+
+"Oh, la!" replied the oak bitingly, "how deliciously cosy it is to stand
+here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked creatures shivering!"
+
+This made them sulky though they had really brought it on themselves,
+and they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of the perils that faced
+her if she insisted on going to the ball.
+
+She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual
+good temper at present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the
+Duke of Christmas Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy, very poorly of a
+dreadful complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he had tried
+many ladies in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them.
+Queen Mab, who rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls
+would bewitch him, but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained cold.
+This rather irritating doctor, who was his private physician, felt the
+Duke's heart immediately after any lady was presented, and then always
+shook his bald head and murmured, "Cold, quite cold!" Naturally Queen
+Mab felt disgraced, and first she tried the effect of ordering the court
+into tears for nine minutes, and then she blamed the Cupids and decreed
+that they should wear fools' caps until they thawed the Duke's frozen
+heart.
+
+"How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools' caps!"
+Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very recklessly, for the
+Cupids hate to be laughed at.
+
+It is always easy to discover where a fairies' ball is being held,
+as ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
+Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
+their pumps. This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty on
+the snow.
+
+Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
+anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching. To her
+surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just
+time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms and
+pretending to be a garden chair. There were six horsemen in front and
+six behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train held
+up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch, reclined a
+lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel about. She
+was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was her
+neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course
+showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified
+it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their
+skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you
+cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies'
+busts in the jewellers' windows.
+
+Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a passion,
+tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even fairies to tilt
+them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the
+doctor had said "Cold, quite cold!"
+
+Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over a
+dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb
+out. At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most kindly
+went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily and
+explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor street
+singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
+
+"Of course," she said, "I am rather plain," and this made Maimie
+uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
+plain for a fairy.
+
+It was difficult to know what to reply.
+
+"I see you think I have no chance," Brownie said falteringly.
+
+"I don't say that," Maimie answered politely, "of course your face is
+just a tiny bit homely, but--" Really it was quite awkward for her.
+
+Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar. He had gone
+to a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London
+were on view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return home
+instead of being dissatisfied with Maimie's mother he had said, "You
+can't think, my dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face again."
+
+Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously,
+indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would choose
+her. So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to
+follow lest the Queen should mischief her.
+
+But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
+Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until
+she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
+
+The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed
+of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming
+a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring. There were thousands of little
+people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared
+to the glorious creatures within that luminous circle who were so
+bewilderingly bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she
+looked at them.
+
+It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
+Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: yet out of love
+his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks of the
+Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way darling
+ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as they were
+told to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
+
+Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke's heart and
+hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly
+sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools' caps in obscure
+places and, every time they heard that "Cold, quite cold," bowed their
+disgraced little heads.
+
+She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you
+now why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got
+wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which
+he had to break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
+
+The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance, so
+heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are sad
+and remember them again when they are merry. David tells me that fairies
+never say "We feel happy": what they say is, "We feel _dancey_."
+
+Well, they were looking very undancy indeed, when sudden laughter broke
+out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived and was
+insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
+
+Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she
+had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie
+herself who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his
+grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart,
+which for convenience sake was reached by a little trap-door in his
+diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, "Cold, qui--," when he
+stopped abruptly.
+
+"What's this?" he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch, and
+then put his ear to it.
+
+"Bless my soul!" cried the doctor, and by this time of course the
+excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right
+and left.
+
+Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled
+and looked as if he would like to run away. "Good gracious me!" the
+doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire, for
+he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
+
+The suspense was awful!
+
+Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, "My Lord Duke," said the physician
+elatedly, "I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace
+is in love."
+
+You can't conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the
+Duke and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of
+the Lord Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of
+her gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in everything.
+Thus in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you
+leap into each other's arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman
+has to be present.
+
+How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and
+immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were
+ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring.
+Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools' caps
+from their heads and cast them high in the air. And then Maimie went
+and spoiled everything. She couldn't help it. She was crazy with delight
+over her little friend's good fortune, so she took several steps forward
+and cried in an ecstasy, "Oh, Brownie, how splendid!"
+
+Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all in
+the time you may take to say "Oh dear!" An awful sense of her peril
+came upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a
+place where no human must be between the locking and the opening of the
+gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she saw a thousand
+swords flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
+
+How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head.
+Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again.
+Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew
+she was in the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she must
+never cease to run, and she thought she was still running long after she
+had dropped in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes
+falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought
+her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her
+head. And when she heard talking through her dreams she thought it was
+mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at her as she slept.
+But it was the fairies.
+
+I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to mischief
+her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as "Slay
+her!" "Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!" and so on, but the
+pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should march in front,
+and this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and
+demand a boon.
+
+Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie's
+life. "Anything except that," replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
+fairies chanted "Anything except that." But when they learned how Maimie
+had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their
+great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and
+set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front
+and the canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her
+footprints in the snow.
+
+But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed impossible
+to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the
+form of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood on her body and
+read her a long address of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They
+also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, and they
+saw she was in danger of perishing of cold.
+
+"Turn her into something that does not mind the cold," seemed a good
+suggestion of the doctor's, but the only thing they could think of
+that does not mind cold was a snowflake. "And it might melt," the Queen
+pointed out, so that idea had to be given up.
+
+A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but
+though there were so many of them she was too heavy. By this time all
+the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids
+had a lovely idea. "Build a house round her," they cried, and at once
+everybody perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a hundred
+fairy sawyers were among the branches, architects were running round
+Maimie, measuring her; a bricklayer's yard sprang up at her feet,
+seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation stone and the Queen
+laid it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings
+were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and turning
+lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the glaziers were putting
+in the windows.
+
+The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely. One of
+her arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but they
+built a verandah round it, leading to the front door. The windows were
+the size of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it
+would be easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as
+is their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness,
+and they were all so madly in love with the little house that they could
+not bear to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many
+little extra touches, and even then they added more extra touches.
+
+For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.
+
+"Now we fear it is quite finished," they sighed.
+
+But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the
+chimney.
+
+"That certainly finishes it," they cried reluctantly.
+
+"Not at all," cried a glow-worm, "if she were to wake without seeing a
+night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light."
+
+"Wait one moment," said a china merchant, "and I shall make you a
+saucer."
+
+Now alas, it was absolutely finished.
+
+Oh, dear no!
+
+"Gracious me," cried a brass manufacturer, "there's no handle on the
+door," and he put one on.
+
+An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat.
+Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on
+painting it.
+
+Finished at last!
+
+"Finished! how can it be finished," the plumber demanded scornfully,
+"before hot and cold are put in?" and he put in hot and cold. Then an
+army of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and
+bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the
+right of the verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses and
+clematis on the walls of the house, and in less time than five minutes
+all these dear things were in full bloom.
+
+Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at last finished
+true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the dance. They
+all kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the last to go was
+Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop a pleasant dream
+down the chimney.
+
+All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs
+taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream
+was quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was
+breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then
+she called out,
+
+"Tony," for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no
+answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened like
+the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the
+Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the nursery she
+wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and
+then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her that she was in
+the middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had
+happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away
+from the fairies, but however, she asked herself, had she got into this
+funny place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, and
+then she saw the dear house in which she had passed the night. It so
+entranced her that she could think of nothing else.
+
+"Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!" she cried.
+
+Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now knew
+that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it began to
+grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce believe it
+was shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her now. It
+always remained as complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller,
+and the garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer,
+lapping house and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little
+dog's kennel, and now of a Noah's Ark, but still you could see the smoke
+and the door-handle and the roses on the wall, every one complete.
+The glow-worm fight was waning too, but it was still there. "Darling,
+loveliest, don't go!" Maimie cried, falling on her knees, for the little
+house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still quite complete.
+But as she stretched out her arms imploringly the snow crept up on all
+sides until it met itself, and where the little house had been was now
+one unbroken expanse of snow.
+
+Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
+eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, "Don't cry, pretty human, don't
+cry," and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy
+regarding her wistfully. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
+
+
+
+
+Lock-out Time
+
+It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost
+the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever
+there are children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and
+at that time there was not a fairy in the place; then the children were
+admitted, and the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can't
+resist following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because
+they live in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed
+to go, and also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bit
+cunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!
+
+When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember
+a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you
+can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children
+who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they
+said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a
+fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended
+to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually
+pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies' Basin,
+and there are so many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, that
+a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dress
+exactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white when
+lilies are in and blue for blue-bells, and so on. They like crocus and
+hyacinth time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, but
+tulips (except white ones, which are the fairy-cradles) they consider
+garish, and they sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, so
+that the beginning of the tulip weeks is almost the best time to catch
+them.
+
+When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but
+if you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite
+still, pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without
+knowing that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers
+they have had such an adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is all
+covered with ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil), with
+flowers growing in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers,
+but some of them are fairies. You never can be sure of them, but a good
+plan is to walk by looking the other way, and then turn round sharply.
+Another good plan, which David and I sometimes follow, is to stare them
+down. After a long time they can't help winking, and then you know for
+certain that they are fairies.
+
+There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a
+famous gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once
+twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls'
+school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth
+gowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they
+all stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths.
+Unfortunately, what the governess had heard was two gardeners coming to
+plant new flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a handcart with
+flowers in it, and were quite surprised to find the bed occupied. "Pity
+to lift them hyacinths," said the one man. "Duke's orders," replied the
+other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug up the boarding-school and
+put the poor, terrified things in it in five rows. Of course, neither
+the governess nor the girls dare let on that they were fairies, so they
+were carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which they escaped in the
+night without their shoes, but there was a great row about it among the
+parents, and the school was ruined.
+
+As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are
+the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you
+can't see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you
+can't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never
+heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not
+mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has,
+but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours
+with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured
+glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences, but the
+queen sometimes complains because the common people will peep in to see
+what she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hard
+against the glass, and that is why their noses are mostly snubby. The
+streets are miles long and very twisty, and have paths on each side made
+of bright worsted. The birds used to steal the worsted for their nests,
+but a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the other end.
+
+One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they
+never do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first
+time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping
+about. That was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy,
+you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask
+them what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are
+frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have
+a postman, but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box,
+and though they have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the
+youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress, and when
+she has called the roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back.
+It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest
+is always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess, and
+children remember this, and think it must be so among humans also, and
+that is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother
+furtively putting new frills on the basinette.
+
+You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts
+of things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand up
+at sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for instance,
+or to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when
+she is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this down
+to naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she is doing as
+she has seen the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, and
+it takes about two years to get her into the human ways. Her fits of
+passion, which are awful to behold, and are usually called teething,
+are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation, because we don't
+understand her, though she is talking an intelligible language. She is
+talking fairy. The reason mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean,
+before other people know, as that "Guch" means "Give it to me at once,"
+while "Wa" is "Why do you wear such a funny hat?" is because, mixing so
+much with babies, they have picked up a little of the fairy language.
+
+Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with
+his hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of their
+phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don't forget. He had heard
+them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I suggested to him
+that perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering, he says not,
+for these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked of
+nothing but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the birds used
+to go from spot to spot like ladies at shop-windows, looking at the
+different nests and saying, "Not my colour, my dear," and "How would
+that do with a soft lining?" and "But will it wear?" and "What hideous
+trimming!" and so on.
+
+The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first
+things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry
+when you do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in what
+is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the
+grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing
+round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and
+these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away.
+The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little
+people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not
+so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening
+of the gates. David and I once found a fairy-ring quite warm.
+
+But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
+place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
+close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the
+board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at
+six-thirty for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to get
+begun half an hour earlier.
+
+If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famous
+Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights, hundreds of
+lovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their
+wedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding
+up the ladies' trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter
+cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where they put
+on their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps, the flowers
+streaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because
+they can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it,
+and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on
+which he blows when Her Majesty wants to know the time.
+
+The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made
+of chestnut-blossom. The way the fairy-servants do is this: The men,
+scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the
+blossom falls like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together by
+whisking their skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that
+is how they get their table-cloth.
+
+They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn
+wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but the
+bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is bread
+and butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to
+end with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The fairies
+sit round on mushrooms, and at first they are very well-behaved and
+always cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so
+well-behaved and stick their fingers into the butter, which is got
+from the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over the
+table-cloth chasing sugar or other delicacies with their tongues. When
+the Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and
+put away, and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in
+front while the Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little
+pots, one of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the other the
+juice of Solomon's Seals. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers
+who fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seals juice is for
+bruises. They bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster
+they foot it till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without my
+telling you, Peter Pan is the fairies' orchestra. He sits in the middle
+of the ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays
+without him. "P. P." is written on the corner of the invitation-cards
+sent out by all really good families. They are grateful little people,
+too, and at the princess's coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their
+second birthday and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish
+of his heart.
+
+The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered him to kneel, and then
+said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his
+heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of
+his heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it
+was himself.
+
+"If I chose to go back to mother," he asked at last, "could you give me
+that wish?"
+
+Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
+should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
+said, "Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that."
+
+"Is that quite a little wish?" he inquired.
+
+"As little as this," the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
+other.
+
+"What size is a big wish?" he asked.
+
+She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.
+
+Then Peter reflected and said, "Well, then, I think I shall have two
+little wishes instead of one big one."
+
+Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather
+shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his
+mother, but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her
+disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve.
+
+They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.
+
+"I can give you the power to fly to her house," the Queen said, "but I
+can't open the door for you."
+
+"The window I flew out at will be open," Peter said confidently. "Mother
+always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.
+
+"How do you know?" they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could
+not explain how he knew.
+
+"I just do know," he said.
+
+So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they gave
+him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and
+soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and
+higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops.
+
+It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he
+skimmed away over St. Paul's to the Crystal Palace and back by the river
+and Regent's Park, and by the time he reached his mother's window he had
+quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.
+
+The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
+fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.
+
+Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had
+a good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow
+in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He
+remembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her
+hair a holiday at night.
+
+How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she was
+such a pretty mother.
+
+But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms
+moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted
+to go round.
+
+"Oh, mother," said Peter to himself, "if you just knew who is sitting on
+the rail at the foot of the bed."
+
+Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could
+see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say "Mother"
+ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if it
+is you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry
+and squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, how
+exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is how Peter
+regarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was
+giving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more
+splendid, he thought, than to have a little boy of your own. How proud
+of him they are; and very right and proper, too.
+
+But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
+mother that he has come back?
+
+I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.
+Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked
+longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy
+again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!
+Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped off
+the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They
+were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
+socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was
+about to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.
+Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for
+he heard her say "Peter," as if it was the most lovely word in the
+language. He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath,
+wondering how she knew that he had come back. If she said "Peter" again,
+he meant to cry "Mother" and run to her. But she spoke no more, she
+made little moans only, and when next he peeped at her she was once more
+asleep, with tears on her face.
+
+It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first
+thing he did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a
+beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself
+out of the way she said "Peter," and he never stopped playing until she
+looked happy.
+
+He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening
+her to hear her say, "Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play." However, as
+she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must
+not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had
+quite decided to be his mother's boy, but hesitated about beginning
+to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant
+to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
+wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to
+the fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might
+go bad. He asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly away
+without saying good-bye to Solomon. "I should like awfully to sail in my
+boat just once more," he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite
+argued with her as if she could hear him. "It would be so splendid to
+tell the birds of this adventure," he said coaxingly. "I promise to come
+back," he said solemnly and meant it, too.
+
+And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
+window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it
+might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and
+then he flew back to the Gardens.
+
+Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his
+second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long.
+One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to his
+particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had his
+last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on.
+Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and another
+comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for his
+mother would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeased
+old Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate.
+Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them at their work,
+such as "Never put off laying to-day, because you can lay to-morrow,"
+and "In this world there are no second chances," and yet here was Peter
+gaily putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this out
+to each other, and fell into lazy habits.
+
+But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother,
+he was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution
+with the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the
+Gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick
+him into making such a remark as "I wish the grass was not so wet," and
+some of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, "I do
+wish you would keep time!" Then they would have said that this was his
+second wish. But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he
+began, "I wish--" he always stopped in time. So when at last he said
+to them bravely, "I wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,"
+they had to tickle his shoulder and let him go.
+
+He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother was
+crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that a
+hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he felt
+sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this
+time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for
+him.
+
+But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
+inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round another
+little boy.
+
+Peter called, "Mother! mother!" but she heard him not; in vain he beat
+his little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to
+the Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he had
+meant to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how
+differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was
+right; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the
+window it is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.
+
+
+
+
+
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diff --git a/old/1332.zip b/old/1332.zip
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@@ -0,0 +1,1829 @@
+**Project Gutenberg's Etext of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens**
+by J. M. Barrie
+
+#3 in our series by or about James M. Barrie
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+Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
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+by J. M. Barrie
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+May, 1998  [Etext #1332]
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+Scanned and proofed by Ron Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com). Italicized
+text is delimited by underscores, _thusly_.
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
+By J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Peter Pan
+The Thrush's Nest
+The Little House
+Lock-Out Time
+
+
+
+
+Peter Pan
+
+If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
+little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you
+ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What a
+foolish question to ask, certainly he did."  Then if you ask your
+grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she
+also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether
+he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his
+having a goat.  Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes
+forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name.
+Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat.
+Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl.
+This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the
+goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before
+your vest.
+
+Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
+always the same age, so that does not matter in the least.  His age is
+one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a
+birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one.
+The reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven
+days' old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington
+Gardens.
+
+If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows
+how completely you have forgotten your own young days.  When David
+heard this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to
+escape, but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his
+temples, and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he
+distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops,
+and with that memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning
+to escape as soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once
+caught him half-way up the chimney.  All children could have such
+recollections if they would press their hands hard to their temples,
+for, having been birds before they were human, they are naturally a
+little wild during the first few weeks, and very itchy at the
+shoulders, where their wings used to be.  So David tells me.
+
+I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story:
+First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding
+being that it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with
+his additions, and so we go on until no one could say whether it is
+more his story or mine.  In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the
+bald narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not
+all, for this boy can be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits
+about the ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly
+reminiscences of David's, recalled by pressing his hands to his
+temples and thinking hard.
+
+Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars.  Standing on
+the ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the
+Kensington Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that
+he was now a little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over
+the houses to the Gardens.  It is wonderful that he could fly without
+wings, but the place itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all
+fly if we were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was
+bold Peter Pan that evening.
+
+He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby's Palace and the
+Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and
+kick.  He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and
+thought he was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his
+early days, and when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand
+that the reason he missed it was because he had attempted to seize it
+with his hand, which, of course, a bird never does.  He saw, however,
+that it must be past Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies
+about, all too busy to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready,
+milking their cows, drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the
+water-pails made him thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to
+have a drink.  He stooped, and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought
+it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose, and, therefore,
+very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as usual, so
+next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it.  When a real bird
+falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but
+Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided,
+rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
+
+At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch,
+but presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep.  He awoke long
+before morning, shivering, and saying to himself, "I never was out in
+such a cold night;" he had really been out in colder nights when he
+was a bird, but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm
+night to a bird is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown.  Peter also
+felt strangely uncomfortable, as if his head was stuffy, he heard loud
+noises that made him look round sharply, though they were really
+himself sneezing.  There was something he wanted very much, but,
+though he knew he wanted it, he could not think what it was.  What he
+wanted so much was his mother to blow his nose, but that never struck
+him, so he decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment.  They
+are reputed to know a good deal.
+
+There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
+round each other's waists, and he hopped down to address them.  The
+fairies have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil
+answer to a civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran
+away the moment they saw him.  Another was lolling on a garden-chair,
+reading a postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he
+heard Peter's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
+
+To Peter's bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled
+from him.  A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed
+away, leaving their tools behind them.  A milkmaid turned her pail
+upside down and hid in it.  Soon the Gardens were in an uproar.
+Crowds of fairies were running this way and that, asking each other
+stoutly, who was afraid, lights were extinguished, doors barricaded,
+and from the grounds of Queen Mab's palace came the rubadub of drums,
+showing that the royal guard had been called out.
+
+A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
+holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing.
+Peter heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human
+in the Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment
+that he was the human.  He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more
+and more wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he
+pursued them with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran
+from him, and even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump,
+turned swiftly into a side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him
+there.
+
+Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now
+he remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping
+beech had flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not
+troubled him at the time, he saw its meaning now.  Every living thing
+was shunning him.  Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and
+even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his
+wrong part.  It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he
+would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt
+whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.  The
+reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect
+faith, for to have faith is to have wings.
+
+Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine,
+for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there are
+stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a
+bird-sentinel sits by day and night.  It was to the island that Peter
+now flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he
+alighted on it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at
+home, as the birds call the island.  All of them were asleep,
+including the sentinels, except Solomon, who was wide awake on one
+side, and he listened quietly to Peter's adventures, and then told him
+their true meaning.
+
+"Look at your night-gown, if you don't believe me," Solomon said, and
+with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the
+sleeping birds.  Not one of them wore anything.
+
+"How many of your toes are thumbs?" said Solomon a little cruelly, and
+Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers.  The
+shock was so great that it drove away his cold.
+
+"Ruffle your feathers," said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried
+most desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none.  Then
+he rose up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the
+window-ledge, he remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
+
+"I think I shall go back to mother," he said timidly.
+
+"Good-bye," replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
+
+But Peter hesitated.  "Why don't you go?" the old one asked politely.
+
+"I suppose," said Peter huskily, "I suppose I can still fly?"
+
+You see, he had lost faith.
+
+"Poor little half-and-half," said Solomon, who was not really
+hard-hearted, "you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
+days.  You must live here on the island always."
+
+"And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?" Peter asked tragically.
+
+"How could you get across?" said Solomon.  He promised very kindly,
+however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned
+by one of such an awkward shape.
+
+"Then I sha'n't be exactly a human?" Peter asked.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor exactly a bird?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What shall I be?"
+
+"You will be a Betwixt-and-Between," Solomon said, and certainly he
+was a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
+
+The birds on the island never got used to him.  His oddities tickled
+them every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the
+birds that were new.  They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at
+him at once, then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds
+came out of other eggs, and so it went on forever.  The crafty
+mother-birds, when they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get
+the young one to break their shells a day before the right time by
+whispering to them that now was their chance to see Peter washing or
+drinking or eating.  Thousands gathered round him daily to watch him
+do these things, just as you watch the peacocks, and they screamed
+with delight when he lifted the crusts they flung him with his hands
+instead of in the usual way with the mouth.  All his food was brought
+to him from the Gardens at Solomon's orders by the birds.  He would
+not eat worms or insects (which they thought very silly of him), so
+they brought him bread in their beaks.  Thus, when you cry out,
+"Greedy! Greedy!" to the bird that flies away with the big crust, you
+know now that you ought not to do this, for he is very likely taking
+it to Peter Pan.
+
+Peter wore no night-gown now.  You see, the birds were always begging
+him for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very
+good-natured, he could not refuse, so by Solomon's advice he had
+hidden what was left of it.  But, though he was now quite naked, you
+must not think that he was cold or unhappy.  He was usually very happy
+and gay, and the reason was that Solomon had kept his promise and
+taught him many of the bird ways.  To be easily pleased, for instance,
+and always to be really doing something, and to think that whatever he
+was doing was a thing of vast importance.  Peter became very clever at
+helping the birds to build their nests; soon he could build better
+than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well as a blackbird, though never
+did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice little water-troughs near
+the nests and dug up worms for the young ones with his fingers.  He
+also became very learned in bird-lore, and knew an east-wind from a
+west-wind by its smell, and he could see the grass growing and hear
+the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks.  But the best thing
+Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad heart.  All birds
+have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as they were the
+only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him to teach
+Peter how to have one.
+
+Peter's heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long, just
+as the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in
+instrument, so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the
+shore of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind
+and the ripple of the water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the
+moon, and he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully
+that even the birds were deceived, and they would say to each other,
+"Was that a fish leaping in the water or was it Peter playing leaping
+fish on his pipe?" and sometimes he played the birth of birds, and
+then the mothers would turn round in their nests to see whether they
+had laid an egg.  If you are a child of the Gardens you must know the
+chestnut-tree near the bridge, which comes out in flower first of all
+the chestnuts, but perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the
+way.  It is because Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has
+come, and the chestnut being so near, hears him and is cheated.
+
+But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he
+sometimes fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also,
+and the reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the
+Gardens, though he could see them through the arch of the bridge.  He
+knew he could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be
+one, but oh, how he longed to play as other children play, and of
+course there is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens.  The
+birds brought him news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears
+started in Peter's eyes.
+
+Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across.  The reason was that he
+could not swim.  He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the
+island knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid.  They
+were quite willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was,
+"You sit down on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick
+out like that."  Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick
+out he sank.  What he really needed to know was how you sit on the
+water without sinking, and they said it was quite impossible to
+explain such an easy thing as that.  Occasionally swans touched on the
+island, and he would give them all his day's food and then ask them
+how they sat on the water, but as soon as he had no more to give them
+the hateful things hissed at him and sailed away.
+
+Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the
+Gardens.  A wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated
+high over the island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the
+manner of a bird that has broken its wing.  Peter was so frightened
+that he hid, but the birds told him it was only a kite, and what a
+kite is, and that it must have tugged its string out of a boy's hand,
+and soared away.  After that they laughed at Peter for being so fond
+of the kite, he loved it so much that he even slept with one hand on
+it, and I think this was pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved
+it was because it had belonged to a real boy.
+
+To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt
+grateful to him at this time because he had nursed a number of
+fledglings through the German measles, and they offered to show him
+how birds fly a kite.  So six of them took the end of the string in
+their beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after
+them and went even higher than they.
+
+Peter screamed out, "Do it again!" and with great good nature they did
+it several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, "Do it
+again!" which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it
+was to be a boy.
+
+At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
+them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a
+hundred flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning
+to drop off when he was over the Gardens.  But the kite broke to
+pieces in the air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he
+not caught hold of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the
+island.  After this the birds said that they would help him no more in
+his mad enterprise.
+
+Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of
+Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.
+
+
+The Thrush's Nest
+
+Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect
+to be.  He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up.  They are
+people who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had
+all that and five pounds over.  So, when he was walking in the
+Kensington Gardens, he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it
+sailing on the Serpentine.
+
+It reached the island at night:  and the look-out brought it to
+Solomon Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a
+message from a lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her
+have a good one.  They always ask for the best one he has, and if he
+likes the letter he sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he
+sends very funny ones indeed.  Sometimes he sends none at all, and at
+another time he sends a nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch
+him in.  He likes you to leave it all to him, and if you mention
+particularly that you hope he will see his way to making it a boy this
+time, he is almost sure to send another girl.  And whether you are a
+lady or only a little boy who wants a baby-sister, always take pains
+to write your address clearly.  You can't think what a lot of babies
+Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
+
+Shelley's boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
+counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
+their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided
+that it came from some greedy person who wanted five.  They thought
+this because there was a large five printed on it.  "Preposterous!"
+cried Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything
+useless which drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a
+play-thing.
+
+But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it
+was at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
+ordinary boy.  With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at
+last contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible
+ways, and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way.  But,
+first, he had to tell the birds of the value of Shelley's boat; and
+though they were too honest to demand it back, he saw that they were
+galled, and they cast such black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain
+of his cleverness, that he flew away to the end of the island, and sat
+there very depressed with his head buried in his wings.  Now Peter
+knew that unless Solomon was on your side, you never got anything done
+for you in the island, so he followed him and tried to hearten him.
+
+Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow's good
+will.  You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in
+office all his life.  He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and
+devoting his green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain
+yew-stump in the Figs which had taken his fancy, and for years he had
+been quietly filling his stocking.  It was a stocking belonging to
+some bathing person which had been cast upon the island, and at the
+time I speak of it contained a hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four
+nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper and a bootlace.  When his stocking
+was full, Solomon calculated that he would be able to retire on a
+competency.  Peter now gave him a pound.  He cut it off his bank-note
+with a sharp stick.
+
+This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
+together they called a meeting of the thrushes.  You will see
+presently why thrushes only were invited.
+
+The scheme to be put before them was really Peter's, but Solomon did
+most of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people
+talked.  He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the
+superior ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this
+put them into good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the
+quarrels between birds are about the best way of building nests.
+Other birds, said Solomon, omitted to line their nests with mud, and
+as a result they did not hold water.  Here he cocked his head as if he
+had used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch
+had come to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, "We don't
+build nests to hold water, but to hold eggs," and then the thrushes
+stopped cheering, and Solomon was so perplexed that he took several
+sips of water.
+
+"Consider," he said at last, "how warm the mud makes the nest."
+
+"Consider," cried Mrs. Finch, "that when water gets into the nest it
+remains there and your little ones are drowned."
+
+The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in
+reply to this, but again he was perplexed.
+
+"Try another drink," suggested Mrs. Finch pertly.  Kate was her name,
+and all Kates are saucy.
+
+Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him.  "If," said he, "a
+finch's nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to
+pieces, but a thrush's nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan's
+back."
+
+How the thrushes applauded!  Now they knew why they lined their nests
+with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, "We don't place our nests on
+the Serpentine," they did what they should have done at first:  chased
+her from the meeting.  After this it was most orderly.  What they had
+been brought together to hear, said Solomon, was this:  their young
+friend, Peter Pan, as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to
+cross to the Gardens, and he now proposed, with their help, to build a
+boat.
+
+At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
+scheme.
+
+Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the
+cumbrous boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a
+thrush's nest large enough to hold Peter.
+
+But still, to Peter's agony, the thrushes were sulky.  "We are very
+busy people," they grumbled, "and this would be a big job."
+
+"Quite so," said Solomon, "and, of course, Peter would not allow you
+to work for nothing.  You must remember that he is now in comfortable
+circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been
+paid before.  Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be
+paid sixpence a day."
+
+Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
+celebrated Building of the Boat.  All their ordinary business fell
+into arrears.  It was the time of year when they should have been
+pairing, but not a thrush's nest was built except this big one, and so
+Solomon soon ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand
+from the mainland.  The stout, rather greedy children, who look so
+well in perambulators but get puffed easily when they walk, were all
+young thrushes once, and ladies often ask specially for them.  What do
+you think Solomon did?  He sent over to the housetops for a lot of
+sparrows and ordered them to lay their eggs in old thrushes' nests and
+sent their young to the ladies and swore they were all thrushes!  It
+was known afterward on the island as the Sparrows' Year, and so, when
+you meet, as you doubtless sometimes do, grown-up people who puff and
+blow as if they thought themselves bigger than they are, very likely
+they belong to that year.  You ask them.
+
+Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening.  They
+stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
+sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and
+then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got
+sixpence.  It must have been a fine sight.
+
+And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished.  Oh, the
+deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
+thrush's nest!  From the very beginning of the building of it he slept
+by its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it
+was lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it.  He
+sleeps in his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round
+in it, for it is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he
+curls round like a kitten.  It is brown inside, of course, but outside
+it is mostly green, being woven of grass and twigs, and when these
+wither or snap the walls are thatched afresh.  There are also a few
+feathers here and there, which came off the thrushes while they were
+building.
+
+The other birds were extremely jealous and said that the boat would
+not balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully steady; they
+said the water would come into it, but no water came into it.  Next
+they said that Peter had no oars, and this caused the thrushes to look
+at each other in dismay, but Peter replied that he had no need of
+oars, for he had a sail, and with such a proud, happy face he produced
+a sail which he had fashioned out of this night-gown, and though it
+was still rather like a night-gown it made a lovely sail.  And that
+night, the moon being full, and all the birds asleep, he did enter his
+coracle (as Master Francis Pretty would have said) and depart out of
+the island.  And first, he knew not why, he looked upward, with his
+hands clasped, and from that moment his eyes were pinned to the west.
+
+He had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages, with
+them to his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington Gardens
+beckoning to him beneath the bridge, and he could not wait.  His face
+was flushed, but he never looked back; there was an exultation in his
+little breast that drove out fear.  Was Peter the least gallant of the
+English mariners who have sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
+
+At first, his boat turned round and round, and he was driven back to
+the place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, by removing
+one of the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backward by a contrary
+breeze, to his no small peril.  He now let go the sail, with the
+result that he was drifted toward the far shore, where are black
+shadows he knew not the dangers of, but suspected them, and so once
+more hoisted his night-gown and went roomer of the shadows until he
+caught a favouring wind, which bore him westward, but at so great a
+speed that he was like to be broke against the bridge.  Which, having
+avoided, he passed under the bridge and came, to his great rejoicing,
+within full sight of the delectable Gardens.  But having tried to cast
+anchor, which was a stone at the end of a piece of the kite-string, he
+found no bottom, and was fain to hold off, seeking for moorage, and,
+feeling his way, he buffeted against a sunken reef that cast him
+overboard by the greatness of the shock, and he was near to being
+drowned, but clambered back into the vessel.  There now arose a mighty
+storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he had never heard
+the like, and he was tossed this way and that, and his hands so numbed
+with the cold that he could not close them.  Having escaped the danger
+of which, he was mercifully carried into a small bay, where his boat
+rode at peace.
+
+Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on pretending to
+disembark, he found a multitude of small people drawn up on the shore
+to contest his landing; and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it
+was long past Lock-out Time.  This, with much brandishing of their
+holly-leaves, and also a company of them carried an arrow which some
+boy had left in the Gardens, and this they were prepared to use as a
+battering-ram.
+
+Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, called out that he was not
+an ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, but to be
+their friend, nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was in no
+temper to draw off there-from, and he warned them if they sought to
+mischief him to stand to their harms.
+
+So saying; he boldly leapt ashore, and they gathered around him with
+intent to slay him, but there then arose a great cry among the women,
+and it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby's
+night-gown.  Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that
+their laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by
+saying that such is the way of women.  The men-fairies now sheathed
+their weapons on observing the behaviour of their women, on whose
+intelligence they set great store, and they led him civilly to their
+queen, who conferred upon him the courtesy of the Gardens after
+Lock-out Time, and henceforth Peter could go whither he chose, and the
+fairies had orders to put him in comfort.
+
+Such was his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the
+antiquity of the language that it took place a long time ago.  But
+Peter never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him under
+the bridge to-night (but, of course, we can't), I daresay we should
+see him hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in
+the Thrush's Nest.  When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to
+paddle.  I shall tell you presently how he got his paddle.
+
+Long before the time for the opening of the gates comes he steals back
+to the island, for people must not see him (he is not so human as all
+that), but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly as real
+children play.  At least he thinks so, and it is one of the pathetic
+things about him that he often plays quite wrongly.
+
+You see, he had no one to tell him how children really play, for the
+fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know
+nothing, and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a
+great deal, when the time for telling came, it was wonderful how
+little they really knew.  They told him the truth about hide-and-seek,
+and he often plays it by himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond
+could not explain to him what it is that makes the pond so fascinating
+to boys.  Every night the ducks have forgotten all the events of the
+day, except the number of pieces of cake thrown to them.  They are
+gloomy creatures, and say that cake is not what it was in their young
+days.
+
+So Peter had to find out many things for himself.  He often played
+ships at the Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had
+found on the grass.  Of course, he had never seen a hoop, and he
+wondered what you play at with them, and decided that you play at
+pretending they are boats.  This hoop always sank at once, but he
+waded in for it, and sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim
+of the pond, and he was quite proud to think that he had discovered
+what boys do with hoops.
+
+Another time, when he found a child's pail, he thought it was for
+sitting in, and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of
+it.  Also he found a balloon.  It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite
+as if it was having a game by itself, and he caught it after an
+exciting chase.  But he thought it was a ball, and Jenny Wren had told
+him that boys kick balls, so he kicked it; and after that he could not
+find it anywhere.
+
+Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator.  It was
+under a lime-tree, near the entrance to the Fairy Queen's Winter
+Palace (which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts),
+and Peter approached it warily, for the birds had never mentioned such
+things to him.  Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely, and then,
+as it gave no answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously.  He gave
+it a little push, and it ran from him, which made him think it must be
+alive after all; but, as it had run from him, he was not afraid.  So
+he stretched out his hand to pull it to him, but this time it ran at
+him, and he was so alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away
+to his boat.  You must not think, however, that he was a coward, for
+he came back next night with a crust in one hand and a stick in the
+other, but the perambulator had gone, and he never saw another one.  I
+have promised to tell you also about his paddle.  It was a child's
+spade which he had found near St. Govor's Well, and he thought it was
+a paddle.
+
+Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes?  If so, I think it
+rather silly of you.  What I mean is that, of course, one must pity
+him now and then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence.
+He thought he had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think
+you have it is almost quite as good as really to have it.  He played
+without ceasing,  while you often waste time by being mad-dog or
+Mary-Annish.  He could be neither of these things, for he had never
+heard of them, but do you think he is to be pitied for that?
+
+Oh, he was merry.  He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as
+you are merrier than your father.  Sometimes he fell, like a
+spinning-top, from sheer merriment.  Have you seen a greyhound leaping
+the fences of the Gardens?  That is how Peter leaps them.
+
+And think of the music of his pipe.  Gentlemen who walk home at night
+write to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the Gardens,
+but it is really Peter's pipe they hear.  Of course, he had no
+mother--at least, what use was she to him?  You can be sorry for him
+for that, but don't be too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell
+you is how he revisited her.  It was the fairies who gave him the
+chance.
+
+
+The Little House
+
+Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens,
+which is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built
+for humans.  But no one has really seen it, except just three or four,
+and they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep
+in it you never see it.  This is because it is not there when you lie
+down, but it is there when you wake up and step outside.
+
+In a kind of way everyone may see it, but what you see is not really
+it, but only the light in the windows.  You see the light after
+Lock-out Time.  David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away
+among the trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver
+Bailey saw it the night he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the
+name of his father's office.  Angela Clare, who loves to have a tooth
+extracted because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw more than
+one light, she saw hundreds of them all together, and this must have
+been the fairies building the house, for they build it every night and
+always in a different part of the Gardens.  She thought one of the
+lights was bigger than the others, though she was not quite sure, for
+they jumped about so, and it might have been another one that was
+bigger.  But if it was the same one, it was Peter Pan's light.  Heaps
+of children have seen the fight, so that is nothing.  But Maimie
+Mannering was the famous one for whom the house was first built.
+
+Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it was at night that she
+was strange.  She was four years of age, and in the daytime she was
+the ordinary kind.  She was pleased when her brother Tony, who was a
+magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to
+him in the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him and was
+flattered rather than annoyed when he shoved her about.  Also, when
+she was batting she would pause though the ball was in the air to
+point out to you that she was wearing new shoes.  She was quite the
+ordinary kind in the daytime.
+
+But as the shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his
+contempt for Maimie and eyed her fearfully, and no wonder, for with
+dark there came into her face a look that I can describe only as a
+leary look.  It was also a serene look that contrasted grandly with
+Tony's uneasy glances.  Then he would make her presents of his
+favourite toys (which he always took away from her next morning) and
+she accepted them with a disturbing smile.  The reason he was now
+become so wheedling and she so mysterious was (in brief) that they
+knew they were about to be sent to bed.  It was then that Maimie was
+terrible.  Tony entreated her not to do it to-night, and the mother
+and their coloured nurse threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled her
+agitating smile.  And by-and-by when they were alone with their
+night-light she would start up in bed crying "Hsh! what was that?"
+Tony beseeches her!  "It was nothing--don't, Maimie, don't!" and pulls
+the sheet over his head.  "It is coming nearer!" she cries; "Oh, look
+at it, Tony!  It is feeling your bed with its horns--it is boring for
+you, oh, Tony, oh!" and she desists not until he rushes downstairs in
+his combinations, screeching.  When they came up to whip Maimie they
+usually found her sleeping tranquilly, not shamming, you know, but
+really sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel, which
+seems to me to make it almost worse.
+
+But of course it was daytime when they were in the Gardens, and then
+Tony did most of the talking.  You could gather from his talk that he
+was a very brave boy, and no one was so proud of it as Maimie.  She
+would have loved to have a ticket on her saying that she was his
+sister.  And at no time did she admire him more than when he told her,
+as he often did with splendid firmness, that one day he meant to
+remain behind in the Gardens after the gates were closed.
+
+"Oh, Tony," she would say, with awful respect, "but the fairies will
+be so angry!"
+
+"I daresay," replied Tony, carelessly.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, thrilling, "Peter Pan will give you a sail in his
+boat!"
+
+"I shall make him," replied Tony; no wonder she was proud of him.
+
+But they should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were
+overheard by a fairy who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from
+which the little people weave their summer curtains, and after that
+Tony was a marked boy.  They loosened the rails before he sat on them,
+so that down he came on the back of his head; they tripped him up by
+catching his bootlace and bribed the ducks to sink his boat.  Nearly
+all the nasty accidents you meet with in the Gardens occur because the
+fairies have taken an ill-will to you, and so it behoves you to be
+careful what you say about them.
+
+Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a day for doing things, but
+Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which day he was to
+remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, "Just
+some day;" he was quite vague about which day except when she asked
+"Will it be today?" and then he could always say for certain that it
+would not be to-day.  So she saw that he was waiting for a real good
+chance.
+
+This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow,
+and there was ice on the Round Pond, not thick enough to skate on but
+at least you could spoil it for tomorrow by flinging stones, and many
+bright little boys and girls were doing that.
+
+When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted to go straight to the
+pond, but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first, and as
+she said this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens
+closed that night.  It read half-past five.  Poor ayah! she is the one
+who laughs continuously because there are so many white children in
+the world, but she was not to laugh much more that day.
+
+Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to
+the time-board she was surprised to see that it now read five o'clock
+for closing time.  But she was unacquainted with the tricky ways of
+the fairies, and so did not see (as Maimie and Tony saw at once) that
+they had changed the hour because there was to be a ball to-night.
+She said there was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and
+back, and as they trotted along with her she little guessed what was
+thrilling their little breasts.  You see the chance had come of seeing
+a fairy ball.  Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
+
+He had to feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him.  Her eager
+eyes asked the question, "Is it to-day?" and he gasped and then
+nodded.  Maimie slipped her hand into Tony's, and hers was hot, but
+his was cold.  She did a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and
+gave it to him!  "In case you should feel cold," she whispered.  Her
+face was aglow, but Tony's was very gloomy.
+
+As they turned on the top of the Hump he whispered to her, "I'm afraid
+Nurse would see me, so I sha'n't be able to do it."
+
+Maimie admired him more than ever for being afraid of nothing but
+their ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear, and she
+said aloud, "Tony, I shall race you to the gate," and in a whisper,
+"Then you can hide," and off they ran.
+
+Tony could always outdistance her easily, but never had she known him
+speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he hurried that he
+might have more time to hide.  "Brave, brave!" her doting eyes were
+crying when she got a dreadful shock; instead of hiding, her hero had
+run out at the gate!  At this bitter sight Maimie stopped blankly, as
+if all her lapful of darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then
+for very disdain she could not sob; in a swell of protest against all
+puling cowards she ran to St. Govor's Well and hid in Tony's stead.
+
+When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony far in front she thought
+her other charge was with him and passed out.  Twilight came on, and
+scores and hundreds of people passed out, including the last one, who
+always has to run for it, but Maimie saw them not.  She had shut her
+eyes tight and glued them with passionate tears.  When she opened them
+something very cold ran up her legs and up her arms and dropped into
+her heart.  It was the stillness of the Gardens.  Then she heard
+clang, then from another part _clang_, then _clang_, _clang_ far away.
+It was the Closing of the Gates.
+
+Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a
+voice say, "So that's all right."  It had a wooden sound and seemed to
+come from above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree
+stretching out its arms and yawning.
+
+She was about to say, "I never knew you could speak!" when a metallic
+voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the
+elm, "I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?" and the elm replied,
+"Not particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg,"
+and he flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they
+drive off.  Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other
+tall trees were doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the
+Baby Walk and crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which
+shrugged its shoulders but did not seem to mind her.
+
+She was not in the least cold.  She was wearing a russet-coloured
+pelisse and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed
+except her dear little face and her curls.  The rest of her real self
+was hidden far away inside so many warm garments that in shape she
+seemed rather like a ball.  She was about forty round the waist.
+
+There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived
+in time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing
+and set off for a smart walk.  They moved in a jerky sort of way
+certainly, but that was because they used crutches.  An elderberry
+hobbled across the walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces,
+and they all had crutches.  The crutches were the sticks that are tied
+to young trees and shrubs.  They were quite familiar objects to
+Maimie, but she had never known what they were for until to-night.
+
+She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy.  He was a street boy
+fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees.  The way
+he did it was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut
+like umbrellas, deluging the little plants beneath with snow.  "Oh,
+you naughty, naughty child!" Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew
+what it was to have a dripping umbrella about your ears.
+
+Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
+chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly "Hoity-toity,
+what is this?" that she had to come out and show herself.  Then the
+whole vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
+
+"Of course it is no affair of ours," a spindle tree said after they
+had whispered together, "but you know quite well you ought not to be
+here, and perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do
+you think yourself?"
+
+"I think you should not," Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
+they said petulantly there was no arguing with her.  "I wouldn't ask
+it of you," she assured them, "if I thought it was wrong," and of
+course after this they could not well carry tales.  They then said,
+"Well-a-day," and "Such is life!" for they can be frightfully
+sarcastic, but she felt sorry for those of them who had no crutches,
+and she said good-naturedly, "Before I go to the fairies' ball, I
+should like to take you for a walk one at a time; you can lean on me,
+you know."
+
+At this they clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby
+Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round
+the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous,
+and treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English,
+though she could not understand a word they said.
+
+They behaved well on the whole, though some whimpered that she had not
+taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or Dorothy, and others
+jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was too much of a
+lady to cry out.  So much walking tired her and she was anxious to be
+off to the ball, but she no longer felt afraid.  The reason she felt
+no more fear was that it was now night-time, and in the dark, you
+remember, Maimie was always rather strange.
+
+They were now loath to let her go, for, "If the fairies see you," they
+warned her, "they will mischief you, stab you to death or compel you
+to nurse their children or turn you into something tedious, like an
+evergreen oak."  As they said this they looked with affected pity at
+an evergreen oak, for in winter they are very envious of the
+evergreens.
+
+"Oh, la!" replied the oak bitingly, "how deliciously cosy it is to
+stand here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor naked creatures
+shivering!"
+
+This made them sulky though they had really brought it on themselves,
+and they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of the perils that
+faced her if she insisted on going to the ball.
+
+She learned from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual
+good temper at present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the
+Duke of Christmas Daisies.  He was an Oriental fairy, very poorly of a
+dreadful complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he had tried
+many ladies in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them.
+Queen Mab, who rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls
+would bewitch him, but alas, his heart, the doctor said, remained
+cold.  This rather irritating doctor, who was his private physician,
+felt the Duke's heart immediately after any lady was presented, and
+then always shook his bald head and murmured, "Cold, quite cold!"
+Naturally Queen Mab felt disgraced, and first she tried the effect of
+ordering the court into tears for nine minutes, and then she blamed
+the Cupids and decreed that they should wear fools' caps until they
+thawed the Duke's frozen heart.
+
+"How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools'
+caps!"  Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very
+recklessly, for the Cupids hate to be laughed at.
+
+It is always easy to discover where a fairies' ball is being held, as
+ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous parts of the
+Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without wetting
+their pumps.  This night the ribbons were red and looked very pretty
+on the snow.
+
+Maimie walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting
+anybody, but at last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching.  To her
+surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she had just
+time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms
+and pretending to be a garden chair.  There were six horsemen in front
+and six behind, in the middle walked a prim lady wearing a long train
+held up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a couch,
+reclined a lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies travel
+about.  She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of
+her was her neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture,
+and of course showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could
+have glorified it.  The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect
+by pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye
+them, and you cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen
+the ladies' busts in the jewellers' windows.
+
+Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade seemed to be in a
+passion, tilting their noses higher than it can be safe for even
+fairies to tilt them, and she concluded that this must be another case
+in which the doctor had said "Cold, quite cold!"
+
+Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over
+a dry puddle into which another fairy had fallen and been unable to
+climb out.  At first this little damsel was afraid of Maimie, who most
+kindly went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatting gaily
+and explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor
+street singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would
+have her.
+
+"Of course," she said, "I am rather plain," and this made Maimie
+uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was almost quite
+plain for a fairy.
+
+It was difficult to know what to reply.
+
+"I see you think I have no chance," Brownie said falteringly.
+
+"I don't say that," Maimie answered politely, "of course your face is
+just a tiny bit homely, but--"  Really it was quite awkward for her.
+
+Fortunately she remembered about her father and the bazaar.  He had
+gone to a fashionable bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in
+London were on view for half-a-crown the second day, but on his return
+home instead of being dissatisfied with Maimie's mother he had said,
+"You can't think, my dear, what a relief it is to see a homely face
+again."
+
+Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified Brownie tremendously,
+indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that the Duke would
+choose her.  So she scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie
+not to follow lest the Queen should mischief her.
+
+But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and presently at the seven
+Spanish chestnuts, she saw a wonderful light.  She crept forward until
+she was quite near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
+
+The light, which was as high as your head above the ground, was
+composed of myriads of glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so
+forming a dazzling canopy over the fairy ring.  There were thousands
+of little people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in
+colour compared to the glorious creatures within that luminous circle
+who were so bewilderingly bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the
+time she looked at them.
+
+It was amazing and even irritating to her that the Duke of Christmas
+Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment:  yet out of
+love his dusky grace still was:  you could see it by the shamed looks
+of the Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way
+darling ladies brought forward for his approval burst into tears as
+they were told to pass on, and by his own most dreary face.
+
+Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeling the Duke's heart and
+hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was particularly
+sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools' caps in obscure places
+and, every time they heard that "Cold, quite cold," bowed their
+disgraced little heads.
+
+She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and I may as well tell you
+now why he was so late that night.  It was because his boat had got
+wedged on the Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which
+he had to break a perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
+
+The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for they could not dance,
+so heavy were their hearts.  They forget all the steps when they are
+sad and remember them again when they are merry.  David tells me that
+fairies never say "We feel happy":  what they say is, "We feel
+_dancey_."
+
+Well, they were looking very undancy indeed, when sudden laughter
+broke out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived
+and was insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
+
+Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she
+had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except
+Brownie herself who, however, was absolutely confident.  She was led
+before his grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the
+ducal heart, which for convenience sake was reached by a little
+trap-door in his diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, "Cold,
+qui--," when he stopped abruptly.
+
+"What's this?" he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch,
+and then put his ear to it.
+
+"Bless my soul!" cried the doctor, and by this time of course the
+excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right
+and left.
+
+Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled
+and looked as if he would like to run away.  "Good gracious me!" the
+doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire,
+for he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
+
+The suspense was awful!
+
+Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, "My Lord Duke," said the
+physician elatedly, "I have the honour to inform your excellency that
+your grace is in love."
+
+You can't conceive the effect of it.  Brownie held out her arms to the
+Duke and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of
+the Lord Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms
+of her gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in
+everything.  Thus in a single moment about fifty marriages took place,
+for if you leap into each other's arms it is a fairy wedding.  Of
+course a clergyman has to be present.
+
+How the crowd cheered and leapt!  Trumpets brayed, the moon came out,
+and immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they
+were ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the
+fairy ring.  Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated
+fools' caps from their heads and cast them high in the air.  And then
+Maimie went and spoiled everything.  She couldn't help it.  She was
+crazy with delight over her little friend's good fortune, so she took
+several steps forward and cried in an ecstasy, "Oh, Brownie, how
+splendid!"
+
+Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all
+in the time you may take to say "Oh dear!"  An awful sense of her
+peril came upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost
+child in a place where no human must be between the locking and the
+opening of the gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she
+saw a thousand swords flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of
+terror and fled.
+
+How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head.
+Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again.
+Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew
+she was in the Gardens.  The one thing she was sure of was that she
+must never cease to run, and she thought she was still running long
+after she had dropped in the Figs and gone to sleep.  She thought the
+snowflakes falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night.
+She thought her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull
+it over her head.  And when she heard talking through her dreams she
+thought it was mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at
+her as she slept.  But it was the fairies.
+
+I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to
+mischief her.  When she rushed away they had rent the air with such
+cries as "Slay her!" "Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!"
+and so on, but the pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should
+march in front, and this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself
+before the Queen and demand a boon.
+
+Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie's
+life.  "Anything except that," replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
+fairies chanted "Anything except that."  But when they learned how
+Maimie had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to
+their great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little
+human, and set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in
+front and the canopy keeping step with it.  They traced Maimie easily
+by her footprints in the snow.
+
+But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed
+impossible to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her.  They went
+through the form of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood
+on her body and read her a long address of welcome, but she heard not
+a word of it.  They also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was
+covered again, and they saw she was in danger of perishing of cold.
+
+"Turn her into something that does not mind the cold," seemed a good
+suggestion of the doctor's, but the only thing they could think of
+that does not mind cold was a snowflake.  "And it might melt," the
+Queen pointed out, so that idea had to be given up.
+
+A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but
+though there were so many of them she was too heavy.  By this time all
+the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the
+Cupids had a lovely idea.  "Build a house round her," they cried, and
+at once everybody perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment
+a hundred fairy sawyers were among the branches, architects were
+running round Maimie, measuring her; a bricklayer's yard sprang up at
+her feet, seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation stone and
+the Queen laid it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off,
+scaffoldings were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and
+chisels and turning lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the
+glaziers were putting in the windows.
+
+The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely.  One of
+her arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but
+they built a verandah round it, leading to the front door.  The
+windows were the size of a coloured picture-book and the door rather
+smaller, but it would be easy for her to get out by taking off the
+roof.  The fairies, as is their custom, clapped their hands with
+delight over their cleverness, and they were all so madly in love with
+the little house that they could not bear to think they had finished
+it.  So they gave it ever so many little extra touches, and even then
+they added more extra touches.
+
+For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.
+
+"Now we fear it is quite finished," they sighed.
+
+But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the
+chimney.
+
+"That certainly finishes it," they cried reluctantly.
+
+"Not at all," cried a glow-worm, "if she were to wake without seeing a
+night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light."
+
+"Wait one moment," said a china merchant, "and I shall make you a
+saucer."
+
+Now alas, it was absolutely finished.
+
+Oh, dear no!
+
+"Gracious me," cried a brass manufacturer, "there's no handle on the
+door," and he put one on.
+
+An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat.
+Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on
+painting it.
+
+Finished at last!
+
+"Finished! how can it be finished," the plumber demanded scornfully,
+"before hot and cold are put in?" and he put in hot and cold.  Then an
+army of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and
+bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the
+right of the verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses
+and clematis on the walls of the house, and in less time than five
+minutes all these dear things were in full bloom.
+
+Oh, how beautiful the little house was now!  But it was at last
+finished true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the
+dance.  They all kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the
+last to go was Brownie.  She stayed a moment behind the others to drop
+a pleasant dream down the chimney.
+
+All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the
+Figs taking care of Maimie, and she never knew.  She slept until the
+dream was quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as
+morning was breaking from its egg, and  then she almost fell asleep
+again, and then she called out,
+
+"Tony," for she thought she was at home in the nursery.  As Tony made
+no answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof, and it opened
+like the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her
+the Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow.  As she was not in the
+nursery she wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched
+her cheeks, and then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her
+that she was in the middle of a great adventure.  She remembered now
+everything that had happened to her from the closing of the gates up
+to her running away from the fairies, but however, she asked herself,
+had she got into this funny place?  She stepped out by the roof, right
+over the garden, and then she saw the dear house in which she had
+passed the night.  It so entranced her that she could think of
+nothing else.
+
+"Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!" she cried.
+
+Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now
+knew that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it
+began to grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce
+believe it was shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain
+her now.  It always remained as complete as ever, but it became
+smaller and smaller, and the garden dwindled at the same time, and the
+snow crept closer, lapping house and garden up.  Now the house was the
+size of a little dog's kennel, and now of a Noah's Ark, but still you
+could see the smoke and the door-handle and the roses on the wall,
+every one complete.  The glow-worm fight was waning too, but it was
+still there.  "Darling, loveliest, don't go!" Maimie cried, falling on
+her knees, for the little house was now the size of a reel of thread,
+but still quite complete.  But as she stretched out her arms
+imploringly the snow crept up on all sides until it met itself, and
+where the little house had been was now one unbroken expanse of snow.
+
+Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
+eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, "Don't cry, pretty human, don't
+cry," and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy
+regarding her wistfully.  She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
+
+
+Lock-out Time
+
+It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost
+the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever
+there are children.  Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, and
+at that time there was not a fairy in the place; then the children
+were admitted, and the fairies came trooping in that very evening.
+They can't resist following the children, but you seldom see them,
+partly because they live in the daytime behind the railings, where you
+are not allowed to go, and also partly because they are so cunning.
+They are not a bit cunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my
+word!
+
+When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you
+remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great
+pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard
+of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy.  Very
+likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing
+looking at a fairy all the time.  The reason they were cheated was
+that she pretended to be something else.  This is one of their best
+tricks.  They usually pretend to be flowers, because the court sits in
+the Fairies' Basin, and there are so many flowers there, and all along
+the Baby Walk, that a flower is the thing least likely to attract
+attention.  They dress exactly like flowers, and change with the
+seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue for blue-bells,
+and so on.  They like crocus and hyacinth time best of all, as they
+are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except white ones, which
+are the fairy-cradles) they consider garish, and they sometimes put
+off dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the tulip
+weeks is almost the best time to catch them.
+
+When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but
+if you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite
+still, pretending to be flowers.  Then, after you have passed without
+knowing that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers
+they have had such an adventure.  The Fairy Basin, you remember, is
+all covered with ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil),
+with flowers growing in it here and there.  Most of them really are
+flowers, but some of them are fairies.  You never can be sure of them,
+but a good plan is to walk by looking the other way, and then turn
+round sharply.  Another good plan, which David and I sometimes follow,
+is to stare them down.  After a long time they can't help winking, and
+then you know for certain that they are fairies.
+
+There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous
+gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called.  Once
+twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure.  They were a
+girls' school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing
+hyacinth gowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and
+then they all stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be
+hyacinths.  Unfortunately, what the governess had heard was two
+gardeners coming to plant new flowers in that very bed.  They were
+wheeling a handcart with flowers in it, and were quite surprised to
+find the bed occupied.  "Pity to lift them hyacinths," said the one
+man.  "Duke's orders," replied the other, and, having emptied the
+cart, they dug up the boarding-school and put the poor, terrified
+things in it in five rows.  Of course, neither the governess nor the
+girls dare let on that they were fairies, so they were carted far away
+to a potting-shed, out of which they escaped in the night without
+their shoes, but there was a great row about it among the parents, and
+the school was ruined.
+
+As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are
+the exact opposite of our houses.  You can see our houses by day but
+you can't see them by dark.  Well, you can see their houses by dark,
+but you can't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I
+never heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime.  This
+does not mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as
+day has, but ever so much brighter.  Their blues and reds and greens
+are like ours with a light behind them.  The palace is entirely built
+of many-coloured glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal
+residences, but the queen sometimes complains because the common
+people will peep in to see what she is doing.  They are very
+inquisitive folk, and press quite hard against the glass, and that is
+why their noses are mostly snubby.  The streets are miles long and
+very twisty, and have paths on each side made of bright worsted.  The
+birds used to steal the worsted for their nests, but a policeman has
+been appointed to hold on at the other end.
+
+One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they
+never do anything useful.  When the first baby laughed for the first
+time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went
+skipping about.  That was the beginning of fairies.  They look
+tremendously busy, you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but
+if you were to ask them what they are doing, they could not tell you
+in the least.  They are frightfully ignorant, and everything they do
+is make-believe.  They have a postman, but he never calls except at
+Christmas with his little box, and though they have beautiful schools,
+nothing is taught in them; the youngest child being chief person is
+always elected mistress, and when she has called the roll, they all go
+out for a walk and never come back.  It is a very noticeable thing
+that, in fairy families, the youngest is always chief person, and
+usually becomes a prince or princess, and children remember this, and
+think it must be so among humans also, and that is why they are often
+made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new
+frills on the basinette.
+
+You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts
+of things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do:  to stand
+up at sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for
+instance, or to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on
+the floor when she is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps
+you put this down to naughtiness.  But it is not; it simply means that
+she is doing as she has seen the fairies do; she begins by following
+their ways, and it takes about two years to get her into the human
+ways.  Her fits of passion, which are awful to behold, and are usually
+called teething, are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation,
+because we don't understand her, though she is talking an intelligible
+language.  She is talking fairy.  The reason mothers and nurses know
+what her remarks mean, before other people know, as that "Guch" means
+"Give it to me at once," while "Wa" is "Why do you wear such a funny
+hat?" is because, mixing so much with babies, they have picked up a
+little of the fairy language.
+
+Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with
+his hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of
+their phrases which I shall tell you some day if I don't forget.  He
+had heard them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I
+suggested to him that perhaps it is really bird language he is
+remembering, he says not, for these phrases are about fun and
+adventures, and the birds talked of nothing but nest-building.  He
+distinctly remembers that the birds used to go from spot to spot like
+ladies at shop-windows, looking at the different nests and saying,
+"Not my colour, my dear," and "How would that do with a soft lining?"
+and "But will it wear?" and "What hideous trimming!" and so on.
+
+The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first
+things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry
+when you do it.  They hold their great balls in the open air, in what
+is called a fairy-ring.  For weeks afterward you can see the ring on
+the grass.  It is not there when they begin, but they make it by
+waltzing round and round.  Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside
+the ring, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten
+to clear away.  The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks
+these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even
+these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very
+moment of the opening of the gates.  David and I once found a
+fairy-ring quite warm.
+
+But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takes
+place.  You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
+close to-day.  Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the
+board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at
+six-thirty for instance, instead of at seven.  This enables them to
+get begun half an hour earlier.
+
+If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the
+famous Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights, hundreds
+of lovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing
+their wedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform,
+holding up the ladies' trains, and linkmen running in front carrying
+winter cherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where
+they put on their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps,
+the flowers streaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always
+welcome because they can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab
+at the head of it, and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who
+carries a dandelion on which he blows when Her Majesty wants to know
+the time.
+
+The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made
+of chestnut-blossom.  The way the fairy-servants do is this:  The men,
+scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the
+blossom falls like snow.  Then the lady servants sweep it together by
+whisking their skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and that
+is how they get their table-cloth.
+
+They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely,
+blackthorn wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours
+out, but the bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out.
+There is bread and butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny
+bit; and cakes to end with, and they are so small that they have no
+crumbs.  The fairies sit round on mushrooms, and at first they are
+very well-behaved and always cough off the table, and so on, but after
+a bit they are not so well-behaved and stick their fingers into the
+butter, which is got from the roots of old trees, and the really
+horrid ones crawl over the table-cloth chasing sugar or other
+delicacies with their tongues.  When the Queen sees them doing this
+she signs to the servants to wash up and put away, and then everybody
+adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in front while the Lord
+Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little pots, one of which
+contains the juice of wall-flower and the other the juice of Solomon's
+Seals.  Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall to the
+ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seals juice is for bruises.  They
+bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and faster they foot it
+till they fall down in fits.  For, as you know without my telling you,
+Peter Pan is the fairies' orchestra.  He sits in the middle of the
+ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays
+without him.  "P. P." is written on the corner of the invitation-cards
+sent out by all really good families.  They are grateful little
+people, too, and at the princess's coming-of-age ball (they come of
+age on their second birthday and have a birthday every month) they
+gave him the wish of his heart.
+
+The way it was done was this.  The Queen ordered him to kneel, and
+then said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish
+of his heart.  Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the
+wish of his heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain
+what it was himself.
+
+"If I chose to go back to mother," he asked at last, "could you give
+me that wish?"
+
+Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
+should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
+said, "Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that."
+
+"Is that quite a little wish?" he inquired.
+
+"As little as this," the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
+other.
+
+"What size is a big wish?" he asked.
+
+She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.
+
+Then Peter reflected and said, "Well, then, I think I shall have two
+little wishes instead of one big one."
+
+Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather
+shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mother,
+but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her
+disappointing.  His second wish he would hold in reserve.
+
+They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.
+
+"I can give you the power to fly to her house," the Queen said, "but I
+can't open the door for you."
+
+"The window I flew out at will be open," Peter said confidently.
+"Mother always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.
+
+"How do you know?" they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter
+could not explain how he knew.
+
+"I just do know," he said.
+
+So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it.  The way they
+gave him power to fly was this:  They all tickled him on the shoulder,
+and soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose
+higher and higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the
+house-tops.
+
+It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he
+skimmed away over St. Paul's to the Crystal Palace and back by the
+river and Regent's Park, and by the time he reached his mother's
+window he had quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to
+become a bird.
+
+The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
+fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.
+
+Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and
+had a good look at her.  She lay with her head on her hand, and the
+hollow in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair.
+He remembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave
+her hair a holiday at night.
+
+How sweet the frills of her night-gown were.  He was very glad she was
+such a pretty mother.
+
+But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad.  One of her arms
+moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it
+wanted to go round.
+
+"Oh, mother," said Peter to himself, "if you just knew who is sitting
+on the rail at the foot of the bed."
+
+Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he
+could see by her face that she liked it.  He knew he had but to say
+"Mother" ever so softly, and she would wake up.  They always wake up
+at once if it is you that says their name.  Then she would give such a
+joyous cry and squeeze him tight.  How nice that would be to him, but
+oh, how exquisitely delicious it would be to her.  That I am afraid is
+how Peter regarded it.  In returning to his mother he never doubted
+that he was giving her the greatest treat a woman can have.  Nothing
+can be more splendid, he thought, than to have a little boy of your
+own.  How proud of him they are; and very right and proper, too.
+
+But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
+mother that he has come back?
+
+I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two
+minds.  Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he
+looked longingly at the window.  Certainly it would be pleasant to be
+her boy again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in
+the Gardens!  Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes
+again?  He popped off the bed and opened some drawers to have a look
+at his old garments.  They were still there, but he could not remember
+how you put them on.  The socks, for instance, were they worn on the
+hands or on the feet?  He was about to try one of them on his hand,
+when he had a great adventure.  Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any
+rate, his mother woke up, for he heard her say "Peter," as if it was
+the most lovely word in the language.  He remained sitting on the
+floor and held his breath, wondering how she knew that he had come
+back.  If she said "Peter" again, he meant to cry "Mother" and run to
+her.  But she spoke no more, she made little moans only, and when next
+he peeped at her she was once more asleep, with tears on her face.
+
+It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first
+thing he did?  Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a
+beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe.  He had made it up
+himself out of the way she said "Peter," and he never stopped playing
+until she looked happy.
+
+He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist
+wakening her to hear her say, "Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play."
+However, as she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the
+window.  You must not think that he meditated flying away and never
+coming back.  He had quite decided to be his mother's boy, but
+hesitated about beginning to-night.  It was the second wish which
+troubled him.  He no longer meant to make it a wish to be a bird, but
+not to ask for a second wish seemed wasteful, and, of course, he could
+not ask for it without returning to the fairies.  Also, if he put off
+asking for his wish too long it might go bad.  He asked himself if he
+had not been hard-hearted to fly away without saying good-bye to
+Solomon.  "I should like awfully to sail in my boat just once more,"
+he said wistfully to his sleeping mother.  He quite argued with her as
+if she could hear him.  "It would be so splendid to tell the birds of
+this adventure," he said coaxingly.  "I promise to come back," he said
+solemnly and meant it, too.
+
+And in the end, you know, he flew away.  Twice he came back from the
+window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it
+might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe,
+and then he flew back to the Gardens.
+
+Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his
+second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so
+long.  One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only
+to his particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots.  Then he
+had his last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all,
+and so on.  Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in his
+honour; and another comfortable reason was that, after all, there was
+no hurry, for his mother would never weary of waiting for him.  This
+last reason displeased old Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the
+birds to procrastinate.  Solomon had several excellent mottoes for
+keeping them at their work, such as "Never put off laying to-day,
+because you can lay to-morrow," and "In this world there are no second
+chances," and yet here was Peter gaily putting off and none the worse
+for it.  The birds pointed this out to each other, and fell into lazy
+habits.
+
+But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother,
+he was quite decided to go back.  The best proof of this was his
+caution with the fairies.  They were most anxious that he should
+remain in the Gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they
+tried to trick him into making such a remark as "I wish the grass was
+not so wet," and some of them danced out of time in the hope that he
+might cry, "I do wish you would keep time!"  Then they would have said
+that this was his second wish.  But he smoked their design, and though
+on occasions he began, "I wish--" he always stopped in time.  So when
+at last he said to them bravely, "I wish now to go back to mother for
+ever and always," they had to tickle his shoulder and let him go.
+
+He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother
+was crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and
+that a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile.
+Oh, he felt sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms
+that this time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be
+open for him.
+
+But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
+inside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round
+another little boy.
+
+Peter called, "Mother! mother!" but she heard him not; in vain he beat
+his little limbs against the iron bars.  He had to fly back, sobbing,
+to the Gardens, and he never saw his dear again.  What a glorious boy
+he had meant to be to her.  Ah, Peter, we who have made the great
+mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance.  But
+Solomon was right; there is no second chance, not for most of us.
+When we reach the window it is Lock-out Time.  The iron bars are up
+for life.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
+
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