“Wendy,” remonstrated [scolded] Michael, “I’m too big for a cradle.”

  “I must have somebody in a cradle,” she said almost tartly, “and you are the littlest. A cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a house.”

  While she sewed they played around her; such a group of happy faces and dancing limbs lit up by that romantic fire. It had become a very familiar scene, this, in the home under the ground, but we are looking on it for the last time.

  There was a step above, and Wendy, you may be sure, was the first to recognize it.

  “Children, I hear your father’s step. He likes you to meet him at the door.”

  Above, the redskins crouched before Peter.

  “Watch well, braves. I have spoken.”

  And then, as so often before, the gay children dragged him from his tree. As so often before, but never again.

  He had brought nuts for the boys as well as the correct time for Wendy.

  “Peter, you just spoil them, you know,” Wendy simpered [exaggerated a smile].

  “Ah, old lady,” said Peter, hanging up his gun.

  “It was me told him mothers are called old lady,” Michael whispered to Curly.

  “I complain of Michael,” said Curly instantly.

  The first twin came to Peter. “Father, we want to dance.”

  “Dance away, my little man,” said Peter, who was in high good humour.

  “But we want you to dance.”

  Peter was really the best dancer among them, but he pretended to be scandalised.

  “Me! My old bones would rattle!”

  “And mummy too.”

  “What,” cried Wendy, “the mother of such an armful, dance!”

  “But on a Saturday night,” Slightly insinuated.

  It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did it.

  “Of course it is Saturday night, Peter,” Wendy said, relenting.

  “People of our figure, Wendy!”

  “But it is only among our own progeny [children].”

  “True, true.”

  So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties first.

  “Ah, old lady,” Peter said aside to Wendy, warming himself by the fire and looking down at her as she sat turning a heel, “there is nothing more pleasant of an evening for you and me when the day’s toil is over than to rest by the fire with the little ones near by.”

  “It is sweet, Peter, isn’t it?” Wendy said, frightfully gratified. “Peter, I think Curly has your nose.”

  “Michael takes after you.”

  She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Dear Peter,” she said, “with such a large family, of course, I have now passed my best, but you don’t want to [ex]change me, do you?”

  “No, Wendy.”

  Certainly he did not want a change, but he looked at her uncomfortably, blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.

  “Peter, what is it?”

  “I was just thinking,” he said, a little scared. “It is only make-believe, isn’t it, that I am their father?”

  “Oh yes,” Wendy said primly [formally and properly].

  “You see,” he continued apologetically, “it would make me seem so old to be their real father.”

  “But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.”

  “But not really, Wendy?” he asked anxiously.

  “Not if you don’t wish it,” she replied; and she distinctly heard his sigh of relief. “Peter,” she asked, trying to speak firmly, “what are your exact feelings to [about] me?”

  “Those of a devoted son, Wendy.”

  “I thought so,” she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end of the room.

  “You are so queer,” he said, frankly puzzled, “and Tiger Lily is just the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.”

  “No, indeed, it is not,” Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we know why she was prejudiced against the redskins.

  “Then what is it?”

  “It isn’t for a lady to tell.”

  “Oh, very well,” Peter said, a little nettled. “Perhaps Tinker Bell will tell me.”

  “Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you,” Wendy retorted scornfully. “She is an abandoned little creature.”

  Here Tink, who was in her bedroom, eavesdropping, squeaked out something impudent.

  “She says she glories in being abandoned,” Peter interpreted.

  He had a sudden idea. “Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother?”

  “You silly ass!” cried Tinker Bell in a passion.

  She had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation.

  “I almost agree with her,” Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping! But she had been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the night was out. If she had known she would not have snapped.

  None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows, little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy’s good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled not only the others but himself, and he said happily:

  “Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end.”

  And then at last they all got into bed for Wendy’s story, the story they loved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell this story he left the room or put his hands over his ears; and possibly if he had done either of those things this time they might all still be on the island. But to-night he remained on his stool; and we shall see what happened.

  Chapter 11 WENDY’S STORY

  “Listen, then,” said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at her feet and seven boys in the bed. “There was once a gentleman—”

  “I had rather he had been a lady,” Curly said.

  “I wish he had been a white rat,” said Nibs.

  “Quiet,” their mother admonished [cautioned] them. “There was a lady also, and—”

  “Oh, mummy,” cried the first twin, “you mean that there is a lady also, don’t you? She is not dead, is she?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I am awfully glad she isn’t dead,” said Tootles. “Are you glad, John?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Are you glad, Nibs?”

  “Rather.”

  “Are you glad, Twins?”

  “We are glad.”

  “Oh dear,” sighed Wendy.

  “Little less noise there,” Peter called out, determined that she should have fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion.

  “The gentleman’s name,” Wendy continued, “was Mr. Darling, and her name was Mrs. Darling.”

  “I knew them,” John said, to annoy the others.

  “I think I knew them,” said Michael rather doubtfully.

  “They were married, you know,” explained Wendy, “and what do you think they had?”

  “White rats,” cried Nibs, inspired.

  “No.”

  “It’s awfully puzzling,” said Tootles, who knew the story by heart.

  “Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants.”

  “What is descendants?”

  “Well, you are one, Twin.”

  “Did you hear that, John? I am a descendant.”

  “Descendants are only children,” said John.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” sighed Wendy. “Now these three children had a faithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and chained her up in the yard, and so all the children flew away.”

  “It’s an awfully good story,” said Nibs.

  “They flew away,” Wendy continued, “to the Neverland, where the lost children are.”

  “I just thought they did,” Curly broke in excitedly. “I don’t know how it is, but I just thought they did!”

  “O Wendy,” cried Tootles, “was one of the lost children called Tootles?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs.”

  “Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents with all their children flown away.”

  “Oo!” they all moaned, though they were not really considering the feelings of the unhappy parents one jot.

  “Think of the empty beds!”

  “Oo!”

  “It’s awfully sad,” the first twin said cheerfully.

  “I don’t see how it can have a happy ending,” said the second twin. “Do you, Nibs?”

  “I’m frightfully anxious.”

  “If you knew how great is a mother’s love,” Wendy told them triumphantly, “you would have no fear.” She had now come to the part that Peter hated.

  “I do like a mother’s love,” said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow. “Do you like a mother’s love, Nibs?”

  “I do just,” said Nibs, hitting back.

  “You see,” Wendy said complacently, “our heroine knew that the mother would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.”

  “Did they ever go back?”

  “Let us now,” said Wendy, bracing herself up for her finest effort, “take a peep into the future;” and they all gave themselves the twist that makes peeps into the future easier. “Years have rolled by, and who is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station?”

  “O Wendy, who is she?” cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn’t know.

  “Can it be—yes—no—it is—the fair Wendy!”

  “Oh!”

  “And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown to man’s estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are!”

  “Oh!”

  “‘See, dear brothers,’ says Wendy pointing upwards, ‘there is the window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime faith in a mother’s love.’ So up they flew to their mummy and daddy, and pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil.”

  That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair narrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.

  So great indeed was their faith in a mother’s love that they felt they could afford to be callous for a bit longer.

  But there was one there who knew better, and when Wendy finished he uttered a hollow groan.

  “What is it, Peter?” she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. “Where is it, Peter?”

  “It isn’t that kind of pain,” Peter replied darkly.

  “Then what kind is it?”

  “Wendy, you are wrong about mothers.”

  They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation; and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.

  “Long ago,” he said, “I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed.”

  I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it scared them.

  “Are you sure mothers are like that?”

  “Yes.”

  So this was the truth about mothers. The toads!

  Still it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child when he should give in. “Wendy, let us [let’s] go home,” cried John and Michael together.

  “Yes,” she said, clutching them.

  “Not to-night?” asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can’t.

  “At once,” Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come to her: “Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time.”

  This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter’s feelings, and she said to him rather sharply, “Peter, will you make the necessary arrangements?”

  “If you wish it,” he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass the nuts.

  Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.

  But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.

  Then having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he returned to the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his absence. Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced upon her threateningly.

  “It will be worse than before she came,” they cried.

  “We shan’t let her go.”

  “Let’s keep her prisoner.”

  “Ay, chain her up.”

  In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.

  “Tootles,” she cried, “I appeal to you.”

  Was it not strange? She appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one.

  Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped his silliness and spoke with dignity.

  “I am just Tootles,” he said, “and nobody minds me. But the first who does not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him severely.”

  He drew back his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon. The others held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once that they would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the Neverland against her will.

  “Wendy,” he said, striding up and down, “I have asked the redskins to guide you through the wood, as flying tires you so.”

  “Thank you, Peter.”

  “Then,” he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be obeyed, “Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs.”

  Nibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really been sitting up in bed listening for some time.

  “Who are you? How dare you? Go away,” she cried.

  “You are to get up, Tink,” Nibs called, “and take Wendy on a journey.”

  Of course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going; but she was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in still more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again.

  “She says she won’t!” Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination, whereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady’s chamber.

  “Tink,” he rapped out, “if you don’t get up and dress at once I will open the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your negligee [nightgown].”

  This made her leap to the floor. “Who said I wasn’t getting up?” she cried.

  In the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now equipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were dejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.

  Crediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted.

  “Dear ones,” she said, “if you will all come with me I feel almost sure I can get my father and mother to adopt you.”

  The invitation was meant specially for Peter, but each of the boys was thinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy.

  “But won’t they think us rather a handful?” Nibs asked in the middle of his jump.

  “Oh no,” said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, “it will only mean having a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind the screens on first Thursdays.”

  “Peter, can we go?” they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones.

  “All right,” Peter replied with a bitter smile, and immediately they rushed to get their things.

  “And now, Peter,” Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right, “I am going to give you your medicine before you go.” She loved to give them medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much. Of course it was only water, but it was out of a bottle, and she always shook the bottle and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal quality. On this occasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught [portion], for just as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made her heart sink.

  “Get your things, Peter,” she cried, shaking.

  “No,” he answered, pretending indifference, “I am not going with you, Wendy.”