James Matthew Barrie

Peter Pan James Matthew Barrie

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendyknew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she pluckedanother flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, forMrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" Thiswas all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must growup. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end. Of course they lived at 14 [their house number on their street], and until Wendy came her motherwas the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kisson it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-handcorner. The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was agirl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to herexcept Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, exceptthe innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for thekiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off ina passion, slamming the door