J. M. Barrie..............................................................................................................................................1

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

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 treetops, 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 halfway 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

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 birdstage are mostly reminiscences of

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

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 Lockout 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 waterpails 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

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 gardenchair, reading a postagestamp which some human had let fall, and when he heard Peter's

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 hollyleaves, 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 Lockout 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 sidewalk, 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

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 birdsentinel 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

"Look at your nightgown, if you don't believe me," Solomon said, and with staring eyes Peter looked at his

"How many of your toes are thumbs?" said Solomon a little cruelly, and Peter saw to his consternation, that

"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

"Poor little halfandhalf," said Solomon, who was not really hardhearted, "you will never be able to fly

"How could you get across?" said Solomon. He promised very kindly, however, to teach Peter as many of the

"You will be a BetwixtandBetween," Solomon said, and certainly he was a wise old fellow, for that is

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 motherbirds, 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 nightgown now. You see, the birds were always begging him for bits of it to line their nests

with, and, being very goodnatured, 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 woodpigeon, and nearly as well as a blackbird, though never did he

satisfy the finches, and he made nice little watertroughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young ones

with his fingers. He also became very learned in birdlore, and knew an eastwind from a westwind by its

smell, and he could see the grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the treetrunks. 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

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 chestnuttree 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

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

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

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

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

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

Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.

Shelley was a young gentleman and as grownup as he need ever expect to be. He was a poet; and they are

never exactly grownup. They are people who despise money except what you need for today, and he had

all that and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens, he made a paper boat of

It reached the island at night: and the lookout 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 babysister, always take pains to write your address clearly.

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

But he did not play with his precious banknote, 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

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 byandby, and devoting his

green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yewstump 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, thirtyfour

nuts, sixteen crusts, a penwiper 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 banknote with a

This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted together they called a meeting of the

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 nestbuilding, and this put them into goodhumour 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," cried Mrs. Finch, "that when water gets into the nest it remains there and your little ones are

The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in reply to this, but again he was

"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

Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbrous boats that humans use; the

But still, to Peter's agony, the thrushes were sulky. "We are very busy people," they grumbled, "and this

"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,

grownup people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves bigger than they are, very likely they

Peter was a just master, and paid his workpeople every evening. They stood in rows on the branches,

waiting politely while he cut the paper sixpences out of his banknote, 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 nightgown, and though it was still rather like a nightgown 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

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

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 nightgown 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 kitestring, 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

Lockout Time. This, with much brandishing of their hollyleaves, 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 batteringram.

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 therefrom, 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

nightgown. 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 menfairies 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 Lockout 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

tonight (but, of course, we can't), I daresay we should see him hoisting his nightgown 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

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

hideandseek, 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

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

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 limetree, 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

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 maddog or MaryAnnish. 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 spinningtop, from sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences

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 motherat 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

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

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 Lockout 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

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

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 tonight,

and the mother and their coloured nurse threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled her agitating smile. And

byandby when they were alone with their nightlight she would start up in bed crying "Hsh! what was

that?" Tony beseeches her! "It was nothingdon'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 hornsit 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

"Oh, Tony," she would say, with awful respect, "but the fairies will be so angry!"

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 illwill to you, and so it behoves you to

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 Lockout 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 today. 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

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 timeboard to see when the Gardens closed that night.

It read halfpast five. Poor ayah! she is the one who laughs continuously because there are so many white

Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and when they returned to the timeboard 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 tonight. 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 today?"

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russetcoloured 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

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

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 "Hoitytoity, what is this?" that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole vegetable

"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

"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, "Welladay," 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 goodnaturedly,

"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

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 nighttime, and in the dark, you remember,

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

"Oh, la!" replied the oak bitingly, "how deliciously cosy it is to stand here buttoned to the neck and watch

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

"How I should love to see the Cupids in their dear little fools' caps!" Maimie cried, and away she ran to look

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.

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 highborn 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

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

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

"I don't say that," Maimie answered politely, "of course your face is just a tiny bit homely, but" Really it

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 halfacrown 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

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

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 glowworms 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

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

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

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

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 trapdoor in his diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, "Cold, qui," when he stopped

"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

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

Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, "My Lord Duke," said the physician elatedly, "I have the honour to

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

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,

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 goodnight. 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

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

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, seventyfive 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

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 picturebook 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.

"Not at all," cried a glowworm, "if she were to wake without seeing a nightlight she might be frightened,

"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 doormat. Carpenters arrived with a

"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

forcinghouses, 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

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

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 doorhandle and the roses on the wall, every one complete. The

glowworm 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

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

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.

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 bluebells, 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 fairycradles) they consider garish,

and they sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the tulip weeks is almost the

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 groundivy (from which they make their castoroil), 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,

There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous gentle place, as spots frequented by

fairies are called. Once twentyfour 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

boardingschool 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 pottingshed, 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

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

manycoloured 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

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 makebelieve. 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

You have probably observed that your babysister wants to do all sorts of things that your mother and her

nurse want her not to do: to stand up at sittingdown time, and to sit down at standingup 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 nestbuilding. He distinctly remembers that the birds used to go from spot to spot like ladies at

shopwindows, 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

fairyring. 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 telltale 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 fairyring quite

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 today. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the board on a

ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close at sixthirty for instance, instead of at seven. This enables

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

weddingrings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding up the ladies' trains, and linkmen

running in front carrying winter cherries, which are the fairylanterns, 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 suppertable, 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

The tablecloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made of chestnutblossom. The way the

fairyservants 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

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 wellbehaved and always

cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so wellbehaved and stick their fingers into the

butter, which is got from the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over the tablecloth 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 wallflower and

the other the juice of Solomon's Seals. Wallflower 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 invitationcards sent out by all really good families. They

are grateful little people, too, and at the princess's comingofage ball (they come of age on their second

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

"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."

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

"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

"How do you know?" they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could not explain how he knew.

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

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

The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he fluttered, and there was his mother lying

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 nightgown 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

"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

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

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

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 tonight. 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 hardhearted to fly away without saying goodbye 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

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

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 goodbyes 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 today, because you

can lay tomorrow," 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

But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering inside he saw his mother sleeping

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