night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be
said to have begun.
On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It
happened to be Nana s evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and
sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away
into the land of sleep.
All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and
sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.
It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into
shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three
night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling s lap. Then
her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of
them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the
fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.
While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come
too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not
alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many
women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of
some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures
the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through
the gap.
The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was
dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the
floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist,
which darted about the room like a living thing and I think it must
have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.
She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at
once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we
should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling s kiss. He was a
lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of
trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his
first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little
pearls at her.
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