1904

                                   PETER PAN

                               by James M. Barrie

                            CHAPTER I.

                        PETER BREAKS THROUGH.

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

  Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was
the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such
a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes,
one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many
you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had
one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was,
perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

  The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had
been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they
loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except
Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He
got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew
about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy
thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying,
and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.

  Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved
him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about
stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite
seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were
down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.

  Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a
Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers
dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without
faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were
Mrs. Darling's guesses.

  Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.

  For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they
would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr.
Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable,
and he sat on the edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and
calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She
wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his
way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him
with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.

  "Now don't interrupt," he would beg of her.

  "I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I
can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two
nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven,
with five naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven,- who
is that moving?- eight nine seven, dot and carry seven- don't speak,
my own- and the pound you lent to that man who came to the door-
quiet, child- dot and carry child- there, you've done it!- did I say
nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven; the question is, can
we try it for a year on nine nine seven?"

  "Of course we can, George," she cried. But she was prejudiced in
Wendy's favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.

  "Remember mumps," he warned her almost threateningly, and off he
went again. "Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I
daresay it will be more like thirty shillings- don't speak- measles
one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six- don't
waggle your finger- whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings"- and so
on it went, and it added up differently each time, but at last Wendy
just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two
kinds of measles treated as one.

  There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a
narrower squeak; but both were kept, and soon, you might have seen the
three of them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school,
accompanied by their nurse.

  Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a
passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had
a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children
drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had
belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She
had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had
become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most
of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by
careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained
of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a