Once upon a time there were three children named Wendy, John, and
Michael, who lived with their father and mother in London. One evening
the father and mother were invited to a party, and the mother, after
lighting the dim lamp in the nursery and kissing them good-night, went
away. That evening a little boy climbed in through the window, whose
name was Peter Pan. He was a curious little fellow, very conceited,
very forgetful, and yet very lovable. The most remarkable thing about
him was that he never grew up. There came flitting in through the
window with him his fairy, whose name was Tinker Bell. Peter Pan woke
all the children up, and after he had sprinkled fairy dust on their
shoulders, he took them away to the Neverland, where he lived with a
family of lost boys. Tinker Bell was jealous of the little girl Wendy,
and she hurried ahead of Peter Pan and persuaded the boys that Wendy
was a bird who might do them harm, and so one of the boys shot her
with his bow and arrow.
When Peter Pan came and found Wendy lying lifeless upon the ground in
the woods he was very angry, but he was also very quick-witted. So
he told the boys that if they would build a house around Wendy he was
sure that she would be better. So they hurried to collect everything
they had out of which they could make a house. Though she was not yet
strong enough to talk, they thought perhaps she might sing the kind of
house she would like to have, so Wendy sang softly this little verse:
"I wish I had a pretty house,
The littlest ever seen,
With funny little red walls
And roof of mossy green."
When the house was done Peter Pan took John's hat for the chimney, and
the little house was so pleased to have such a capital chimney that
smoke at once began to come out through the hat. All that night Peter
Pan walked up and down in front of Wendy's house, to watch over her
and keep her from danger while she slept.
All these children lived in an underground cave, and the next day,
when Wendy got well, they all went down into the cave and Wendy agreed
to be their mother and Peter their father. They had many good times
together. They also had some exciting adventures with the red-skins
and with a pirate named Captain Hook and his crew. After a time the
redskins became their friends, and Peter rescued his family from the
pirates' ship.
One day Wendy and her brothers realized that they had been away so
long that perhaps their mother had forgotten them and shut the window
of the nursery so that they could not get back. They decided to hurry
home. When they reached home Peter Pan was before them, and he closed
the window so that they could not get back. But when he heard the
children's mother singing such a sad song inside, his heart was made
tender and he opened the window and the children crept back safely
into their mother's arms. Wendy's mother invited Peter Pan to stay
and be her child, but Peter was so afraid that he would have to go
to school and grow up and be a man that he went back to his home in
fairy-land.
Wendy promised to go once a year and stay a few days with Peter Pan
and clean house and mend his clothes. Let us picture them in the
little house that was built for Wendy, which the fairies had put up in
the branches of a pine-tree. The birds are singing in their nests and
in the branches, and far below the clouds you can see the land and
the sea. Wendy is sewing for Peter and Peter Pan is playing his pipes
while she works. When night comes the woods are full of flashing
lights like little stars, because the fairies are flitting around the
house where Peter and Wendy live, and are singing to them as they go
to sleep.
In a few days Wendy will go back to John and Michael to tell them what
a good time she had on her visit in the little house in the woods.
* * * * *