 CHAPTER 1 THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens. They are in London where the king lives, and they used to take David there nearly every day unless he was looking decidedly fleshed. No child has ever been in the whole of the gardens because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back is that if you are as small as David you sleep from twelve to one. If your mother was not so sure that you sleep from twelve to one you could most likely see the whole of them. The gardens are bounded on one side by a never ending line of omnibuses over which your nurse has such authority that if she holds up her finger to any one of them it stops immediately. She then crosses with you in safety to the other side. There are more gates to the gardens than one gate, but that is the one you go in at. And before you go in you speak to the lady with the balloons who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as she may venture. Because if she were to let go her hold of the railings for one moment the balloons would lift her up and she would be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons are always tugging at her and the strain has given her quite a red face. Once she was a new one because the old one had let go and David was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go he wished he had been there to see. The gardens are a tremendous big place with millions and hundreds of trees and first you come to the figs, but you scorn to loiter there for the figs is the resort of superior little persons who are forbidden to mix with the commonality and is so named according to legend because they dress in full fig. These dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called figs by David and other heroes and you have a key to the manners and customs of this dandiacal section of the gardens when I tell you that cricket is called crickets here. Occasionally a rebel fig climbs over the fence into the world and such a one was Miss Mabel Gray of whom I shall tell you when we come to Miss Mabel Gray's gate. She was the only really celebrated fig. We are now in the broad walk and it is as much bigger than the other walks as your father is bigger than you. David wondered if it began little and grew and grew until it was quite grown up and whether the other walks are its babies and he drew a picture which diverted him very much of the broad walk giving a tiny walk and airing in a perambulator. In the broad walk you meet all the people who are worth knowing and there is usually a grown up with them to prevent them going on the damp grass and to make them stand disgraced at the corner of a seat if they have been Mad Dog or Mary Anish. To be Mary Anish is to behave like a girl whimpering because nurse won't carry you or simpering with your thumb in your mouth and it is a hateful quality. But to be Mad Dog is to kick out at everything and there is some satisfaction in that. If I were to point out all the notable places as we pass up the broad walk it would be time to turn back before we reach them and I simply wave my stick at Cheko Hewlett's tree. That memorable spot where a boy called Cheko lost his penny and looking for it found tuppence. There has been a good deal of excavation going on there ever since. Farther up the walk is the Little Wooden House in which Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful story of the gardens than this of Marmaduke Perry who had been Mary Anish three days in succession and was sentenced to appear in the broad walk dressed in his sister's clothes. He hid in the Little Wooden House and refused to emerge until they brought him knickerbockers with pockets. You now try to go to the round pond but nurses hate it because they are not really manly and they make you look the other way at the big penny and the baby's palace. She was the most celebrated baby of the gardens and lived in the palace all alone with ever so many dolls so people rang the bell and up she got out of her bed though it was past six o'clock and she lighted a candle and opened the door in her nighty and then they all cried with great rejoicings Hail Queen of England! What puzzled David most was how she knew where the matches were kept. The big penny is a statue about her. Next we come to the hump which is the part of the broad walk where all the big races are run and even though you had no intention of running you do run when you come to the hump it is such a fascinating slide down kind of place often you stop when you have run about halfway down it and then you are lost but there is another little wooden house near here called the lost house and so you tell the man that you are lost and then he finds you it is glorious fun racing down the hump but you can't do it on windy days because then you are not there but the fallen leaves do it instead of you there is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf from the hump we can see the gate that is called after Miss Mabel Gray the fig I promise to tell you about there were always two nurses with her or else one mother and one nurse and for a long time she was a pattern child who always coughed off the table and said how do you do to the other figs and the only game she played at was flinging a ball gracefully and letting the nurse bring it back to her then one day she tired of it all and went mad dog and first to show that she really was mad dog she unloosened both her bootlaces and put out her tongue east west north and south she then flung her sash into a puddle and danced on it till dirty water was squirted over her frock after which she climbed the fence and had a series of incredible adventures one of the least of which was that she kicked off both her boots at last she came to the gate that is now called after her out of which she ran into streets David and I have never been in though we have heard them roaring and still she ran on and would never again have been heard of had not her mother jumped into a bus and thus overtaken her it all happened I should say long ago and this is not the Mabel Gray whom David knows returning up the broad walk we have on our right the baby walk which is so full of perambulators that you could cross from side to side stepping on babies but the nurses won't let you do it from this walk a passage called Bunting's thumb because it is that length leads into picnic street where there are real kettles and chestnut blossom falls into your mug as you're drinking quite common children picnic here also and the blossom falls into their mugs just the same next comes Saint Gover's well which was full of water when Malcolm the Bold fell into it he was his mother's favorite and he let her put her arm round his neck in public because she was a widow but he was also partial to adventures and liked to play with a chimney sweep who had killed a good many bears the sweep's name was Sooty and one day when they were playing near the well Malcolm fell in and would have been drowned had not Sooty dived in and rescued him and the water had washed Sooty clean and he now stood revealed as Malcolm's long-lost father so Malcolm would not let his mother put her arm round his neck anymore between the well and the round pond are the cricket pitches and frequently the choosing of sides exhausts so much time that there is scarcely any cricket everybody wants to bat first and as soon as he is out he bowls unless you are the better wrestler and while you are wrestling with him the fielders have scattered to play at something else the gardens are noted for two kinds of cricket boy cricket which is real cricket with a bat and a girl cricket which is with a racket and the governess girls can't really play cricket and when you are watching their futile efforts you make funny sounds at them nevertheless there was a very disagreeable incident one day when some forward girls challenged David's team and a disturbing creature called Angela Claire sent down so many yorkers that however instead of telling you the result of that regrettable match I shall pass on hurriedly to the round pond which is the wheel that keeps all the gardens going it is round because it is in the very middle of the gardens and when you are come to it you never want to go any farther you can't be good all the time at the round pond however much you try you can be good in the broad walk all the time but not at the round pond and the reason is that you forget and when you remember you are so wet that you may as well be wetter there are men who sail boats on the round pond such big boats that they bring them in barrows and sometimes in perambulators and then the baby has to walk the bow-legged children in the gardens are those who had to walk too soon because their father needed the perambulator you always want to have a yacht to sail on the round pond and in the end your uncle gives you one and to carry it to the pond the first day is splendid also to talk about it to boys who have no uncle is splendid but soon you like to leave it at home for the sweetest craft that slips from warrings in the round pond is what is called a stickboat because she is rather like a stick until she is in the water and you are holding the string then as you walk round pulling her you see little men running about her deck and sails rise magically and catch the breeze and you put in on dirty nights at snug harbors which are unknown to the lordly yachts night passes in a twink and again your rakish craft noses for the wind wail spout you glide over buried cities and have brushes with pirates and cast anchor on quarrel aisles you are a solitary boy while all this is taking place for two boys together cannot adventure far upon the round pond and though you may talk to yourself throughout the voyage giving orders and executing them with dispatch you know not when it is time to go home where you have been or what swelled your sails your treasure trove is all locked away in your hold so to speak which will be opened perhaps by another little boy many years afterwards but those yachts have nothing in their hold does anyone return to this haunt of his youth because of the yachts that used to sail it oh no it is the stick boat that is freighted with memories the yachts are toys their owner a freshwater mariner they can cross and recross a pond only while the stick boat goes to sea you yachtsmen with your wands who think we are all there to gaze on you your ships are only accidents of this place and were they all to be boarded and sunk by the docks the real business of the round pond would be carried on as usual paths from everywhere crowd like children to the pond some of them are ordinary paths which have a rail on each side and are made by men with their coats off but others are vagrants wide at one spot and at another so narrow that you can stand to stride them they are called paths that have made themselves and david did wish he could see them doing it but like all the most wonderful things that happen in the gardens it is done we concluded at night after the gates are closed we have also decided that the paths make themselves because it is their only chance of getting to the round pond one of these gypsy paths comes from the place where the sheep get their hair cut when david shed his curls at the hairdressers I am told he said goodbye to them without a tremor though his mother has never been quite the same bright creature since so he despises the sheep as they run from their shearer and calls out tauntingly cowardly cowardly custard but when the man grips them between his legs david shakes a fist at him for using such big scissors another startling moment is when the man turns back the grimy wall from the sheep's shoulders and they look suddenly like ladies in the stalls of a theater the sheep are so frightened by the shearing that it makes them quite white and thin and as soon as they are set free they begin to nibble the grass at once quite anxiously as if they feared that they would never be worth eating david wonders whether they know each other now that they are so different and if it makes them fight with the wrong ones they are great fighters and thus so unlike country sheep that every year they give my saint bernard dog porthos a shock he can make a field of country sheep fly by merely announcing his approach but these town sheep come toward him with no promise of gentle entertainment and then a light from last year breaks upon porthos he cannot with dignity retreat but he stops and looks about him as if lost in admiration of the scenery and presently he strolls away with a fine indifference and a glint at me from the corner of his eye the serpentine begins near here it is a lovely lake and there is a drowned forest at the bottom of it if you peer over the edge you can see the trees all growing upside down and they say that at night there are also drowned stars in it if so peter pan sees them when he is sailing across the lake in the thrush's nest a small part only of the serpentine is in the gardens for soon it passes beneath the bridge too far away where the island is on which all the birds are born that become baby boys and girls no one who is human except peter pan and he is only half human can land on the island but you may write what you want boy or girl dark or fair on a piece of paper and then twisted into the shape of a boat and slip it into the water and it reaches peter pan's island after dark we are on the way home now though of course it is all pretense that we can go to so many of the places in one day I should have had to be carrying david long ago and resting on every seat like old mr. solford that was what we called him because he always talked to us of a lovely place called solford where he had been born he was a crab apple of an old gentleman who wandered all day in the gardens from seat to seat trying to fall in with somebody who was acquainted with the town of solford and when we had known him for a year or more we actually did meet another aged solitary who had once spent saturday to monday in solford he was meek and timid and carried his address inside his hat and whatever part of london he was in search of he always went to west minster abbey first as a starting point him we carried in triumph to our other friend with the story of that saturday to monday and never shall I forget the gloating joy with which mr. solford leapt at him they have been cronies ever since and I noticed that mr. solford who naturally does most of the talking keeps tight grip of the other old man's coat the last two places before you come to our gate are the dog cemetery and the chaff inches nest but we pretend not to know what the dog cemetery is as porthos is always with us the nest is very sad it is quite white and the way we found it was wonderful we were having another look among the bushes for david's lost worsted ball and instead of the ball we found a lovely nest made of the worsted and containing four eggs with scratches on them very like david's handwriting so we think they must have been the mother's love letters to the little ones inside every day we were in the gardens we paid a call at the nest taking care that no cruel boy should see us and we dropped crumbs and soon the bird knew us as friends and sat in the nest looking at us kindly with our shoulders hunched up but one day when we went there were only two eggs in the nest and the next time there were none the saddest part of it was that the poor little chaff inch flattered about the bushes looking so reproachfully at us that we knew she thought we had done it and though david tried to explain to her it was so long since he had spoken the bird language that i fear she did not understand he and i left the gardens that day with our knuckles in our eyes end of chapter one chapter two of peter pan in kensington gardens this is a libra fox recording all libra fox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra fox dot org recording by peter eastman peter pan in kensington gardens by j m berry chapter two peter pan if you asked her 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 her 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 the 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're 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 the 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 editions and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more his story or mine in the 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 davids 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 night dress 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 and perhaps we could all fly if we were as dead confident sure of our capacity to do it as was bolt peter pan that evening he alighted gaily on the open sword 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 side 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 beach in the babywalk 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 on such a cold night he had really been out on 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 babywalk 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 an 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 pale upside down and hated 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 rub it up 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 jagged 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 a 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 pretense 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 beach had flown away when he alighted on it and though this 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 around 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 solemn caw and he alighted on it with relief much hardened to find himself at last at home as the birds call the island all of them were asleep including the sentinels except solemn 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 nightgown if you don't believe me solemn 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 solemn 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 solemn 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 goodbye replied solemn 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 solemn he 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 can you get across said solemn he promised very kindly however to teach peter as many of the birdways as could be learned by one of such an awkward shape then i shan't be exactly a human peter asked no nor exactly a bird no what shall i be you will be a betwixt and between solemn 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 ones to break their shells a day before the right time by whispering to them that now is 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 solemn'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 down 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 solemn'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 solemn 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 you could see the grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree trunks but the best thing solemn 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 solemn 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 an instrument so he made a pipe of reeds and he used to sit by the shore of the island of an evening practicing the so 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 or the bridge which comes out and flower first of all the chestnuts but perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the way it is because peter worries for summer and plays that it has come and the chestnut being so near here's 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 saw it 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 been 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 shelly's boat as i am now to tell you end of chapter two chapter three of peter pan in kensington gardens this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by peter Eastman peter pan in kensington gardens by j m berry chapter three the thrush's nest Shelly was a young gentleman and is 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 today and he had all that in five pounds over so when he was walking in the kensington gardens he made a paper boat of his banknote and sent it sailing on the serpentine it reached the island at night and the lookout brought it to solemn kaw 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 make 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 solemn has sent to the wrong house shelly's boat when opened completely puzzled solemn 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 pre-posterous cried solemn in a rage and he presented it to Peter anything useless which drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a plaything but he did not play with his precious banknote for he knew what it was at once having been very observant drink 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 shelly'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 solemn 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 solemn was on your side you never got anything done for you in the island so he followed him and tried to harden him nor was this all that Peter did to gain the powerful old fellow's goodwill you must know that solemn 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 eustump 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 180 crumbs 34 nuts 16 crusts a pen wiper and a boot lace when his stocking was full solemn 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 sharp stick this made solemn his friend forever 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 solemn 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 humor 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 solemn 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 solemn 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 solemn with a look to say something crushing and reply to this but again he was perplexed try another drink suggested mrs. finch pertly kate was her name and all kates are saucy solemn did try another drink and it inspired him if said he a finch's nest is placed on the serpentine it fills and breaks two 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 solemn 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 solemn explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the cumbers 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 solemn 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 authorizes me to say that you shall all be paid six pence 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 solemn 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 solemn 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 afterwards on the island as the sparrows year and so when you meet grown up people in the gardens 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 six pence's out of his banknote and presently he called the roll and then each bird as the names were mentioned flew down and got six pence it must have been a fine sight and at last after months of labor the boat was finished oh the glory of peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great thrushes 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 his 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 that moment his eyes were pinned to the west he had promised the thrushes to begin by making short voyages with them as 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 backwards by a contrary breeze to his no small peril he now let go the sail with the result that he was drifted towards the far shore where our black shadows he knew not the dangers of but suspected them and so once more hoisted his nightgown and went rumor of the shadows until he caught a favoring 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 veined to hold off seeking from warage 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 clamored back into the vessel there now arose a mighty storm accompanied by a roaring of waters such as he had never heard the light and he was tossed this way and that and his hands were 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 rowed at peace nevertheless he was not yet in safety for I'm 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 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 this pleasure but to be their friend nevertheless having found a jolly harbour he was in no temper to draw off their from and he warned them that 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 straight away 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 let him civilly to their queen who conferred upon him the courtesy of the gardens after lockout time and henceforth Peter could go with her 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 dare say we should see him hoisting his nightgown and sailing or paddling towards 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 are all more or less in hiding until dusk and so know nothing and though the birds 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 waited in for it and sometimes he dragged it gleefully around 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 left the railing and stuttered 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 any other one i have promised to tell you also about his paddle it was a child spade which he had found near st. gover'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 you 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 marianish 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 and 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 right 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 end of chapter three chapter four of peter pan in kencington gardens this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by peter eastman peter pan in kencington gardens by j m berry chapter four lockout 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 lockout time but until lockout 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 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 kencington 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 fairy's 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 color 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 on 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 girl's 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 the 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 color 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 colors 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 colored glasses and it 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 role 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 bassinet 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 downtime and to sit down at stand-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 or 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 gush means give it to me at once while wah 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 is remembered a number of their phrases which I shall tell you someday 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 birdland when she 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 color my dear and how would that do with a soft lighting and but will it wear and what hitty is 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 afterwards 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 tow 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 bores 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 630 for instance instead of at 7 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 Mamie Manoring 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 linkman 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 tablecloth 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 tablecloth and that is how they get their tablecloth they have real glasses and real wine of three kinds namely blackthorn wine berberus wine and cow slip 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 three-penny 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 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 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 seals wallflower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall to the ground in a fit and Solomon 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 pp 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 princesses 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 choose to go back to mother he asked it 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 boo asked 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 own home he skimmed away over st paul's to the crystal palace and back by the river and regions 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 flattered and there was his mother lying asleep peter lighted 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 something and he knew what it wanted to go round oh mother said peter to himself if you just knew who was sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed very gently he padded 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 you 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 should 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 he next 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 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 hard hearted 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 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 weaken 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 goodbyes to say not only to his particular friends but to a hundred favorite 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 honor 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 mottos 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 forever and always they had to tickle his shoulders 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 around 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 lockout time the iron bars are up for life end of chapter four