Peter Pan
THE SHADOW
Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened, and Nana entered, returned from her out. She and at the boy, who through the window. Again Mrs. Darling screamed, this time in for him, for she he was killed, and she ran into the to look for his little body, but it was not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she see nothing but what she was a star.
She returned to the nursery, and Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy’s shadow. As he at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his had not had time to out; the window and it off.
You may be sure Mrs. Darling the carefully, but it was the ordinary kind.
Nana had no of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She it out at the window, meaning “He is sure to come for it; let us put it where he can it easily without the children.”
But Mrs. Darling not it out at the window, it looked so like the and the whole of the house. She of it to Mr. Darling, but he was up winter great-coats for John and Michael, with a wet around his to keep his brain clear, and it a to trouble him; besides, she what he would say: “It all comes of having a dog for a nurse.”
She to roll the up and put it away in a drawer, until a opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!
The opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be-forgotten Friday. Of it was a Friday.
“I ought to have been on a Friday,” she used to say to her husband, while Nana was on the other of her, her hand.
“No, no,” Mr. Darling always said, “I am for it all. I, George Darling, did it. Mea culpa, culpa.” He had had a education.
They sat thus night after night that Friday, till every detail of it was on their and came through on the other like the on a coinage.
“If only I had not that to at 27,” Mrs. Darling said.
“If only I had not my medicine into Nana’s bowl,” said Mr. Darling.
“If only I had to like the medicine,” was what Nana’s wet said.
“My for parties, George.”
“My gift of humour, dearest.”
“My about trifles, dear master and mistress.”
Then one or more of them would altogether; Nana at the thought, “It’s true, it’s true, they ought not to have had a dog for a nurse.” Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the to Nana’s eyes.
“That fiend!” Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana’s was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling Peter; there was something in the right-hand of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.
They would there in the empty nursery, every smallest detail of that evening. It had so uneventfully, so like a hundred other evenings, with Nana on the water for Michael’s and him to it on her back.
“I won’t go to bed,” he had shouted, like one who still that he had the last word on the subject, “I won’t, I won’t. Nana, it isn’t six o’clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan’t love you any more, Nana. I tell you I won’t be bathed, I won’t, I won’t!”
Then Mrs. Darling had come in, her white evening-gown. She had early Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown, with the necklace George had her. She was Wendy’s on her arm; she had asked for the of it. Wendy loved to her to her mother.
She had her two older children playing at being herself and father on the occasion of Wendy’s birth, and John was saying:
“I am happy to you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother,” in just such a as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the occasion.
Wendy had with joy, just as the Mrs. Darling must have done.
Then John was born, with the that he to the birth of a male, and Michael came from his to ask to be also, but John said that they did not want any more.
Michael had nearly cried. “Nobody wants me,” he said, and of the lady in the evening-dress not that.
“I do,” she said, “I so want a third child.”
“Boy or girl?” asked Michael, not too hopefully.
“Boy.”
Then he had into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana to now, but not so little if that was to be Michael’s last night in the nursery.
They go on with their recollections.
“It was then that I in like a tornado, wasn’t it?” Mr. Darling would say, himself; and he had been like a tornado.
Perhaps there was some for him. He, too, had been for the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It is an thing to have to tell, but this man, though he about stocks and shares, had no of his tie. Sometimes the thing to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it would have been for the house if he had his and used a made-up tie.
This was such an occasion. He came into the with the little of a tie in his hand.
“Why, what is the matter, father dear?”
“Matter!” he yelled; he yelled. “This tie, it will not tie.” He sarcastic. “Not my neck! Round the bed-post! Oh yes, twenty times have I it up the bed-post, but my neck, no! Oh dear no! to be excused!”
He Mrs. Darling was not impressed, and he on sternly, “I you of this, mother, that unless this tie is my we don’t go out to dinner to-night, and if I don’t go out to dinner to-night, I go to the office again, and if I don’t go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be into the streets.”
Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. “Let me try, dear,” she said, and that was what he had come to ask her to do, and with her hands she his tie for him, while the children around to see their decided. Some men would have her being able to do it so easily, but Mr. Darling had too a nature for that; he thanked her carelessly, at once his rage, and in another moment was dancing the room with Michael on his back.
“How we romped!” says Mrs. Darling now, it.
“Our last romp!” Mr. Darling groaned.
“O George, do you Michael said to me, ‘How did you to know me, mother?’”
“I remember!”
“They were sweet, don’t you think, George?”
“And they were ours, ours! and now they are gone.”
The had ended with the of Nana, and most Mr. Darling against her, his with hairs. They were not only new trousers, but they were the he had had with on them, and he had had to bite his lip to prevent the coming. Of Mrs. Darling him, but he to talk again about its being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.
“George, Nana is a treasure.”
“No doubt, but I have an at times that she looks upon the children as puppies.”
“Oh no, dear one, I sure she they have souls.”
“I wonder,” Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, “I wonder.” It was an opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At he pooh-poohed the story, but he when she him the shadow.
“It is nobody I know,” he said, it carefully, “but it look a scoundrel.”
“We were still it, you remember,” says Mr. Darling, “when Nana came in with Michael’s medicine. You will the bottle in your mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault.”
Strong man though he was, there is no that he had over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for that all his life he had taken medicine boldly, and so now, when Michael the spoon in Nana’s mouth, he had said reprovingly, “Be a man, Michael.”
“Won’t; won’t!” Michael naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling this want of firmness.
“Mother, don’t him,” he called after her. “Michael, when I was your age I took medicine without a murmur. I said, ‘Thank you, parents, for me bottles to make me well.’”
He this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her night-gown, it also, and she said, to Michael, “That medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn’t it?”
“Ever so much nastier,” Mr. Darling said bravely, “and I would take it now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn’t the bottle.”
He had not it; he had in the of night to the top of the and it there. What he did not know was that the Liza had it, and put it on his wash-stand.
“I know where it is, father,” Wendy cried, always to be of service. “I’ll it,” and she was off he stop her. Immediately his in the way.
“John,” he said, shuddering, “it’s most stuff. It’s that nasty, sticky, sweet kind.”
“It will soon be over, father,” John said cheerily, and then in Wendy with the medicine in a glass.
“I have been as quick as I could,” she panted.
“You have been quick,” her father retorted, with a that was away upon her. “Michael first,” he said doggedly.
“Father first,” said Michael, who was of a nature.
“I shall be sick, you know,” Mr. Darling said threateningly.
“Come on, father,” said John.
“Hold your tongue, John,” his father out.
Wendy was puzzled. “I you took it easily, father.”
“That is not the point,” he retorted. “The point is, that there is more in my than in Michael’s spoon.” His proud was nearly bursting. “And it isn’t fair: I would say it though it were with my last breath; it isn’t fair.”
“Father, I am waiting,” said Michael coldly.
“It’s all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.”
“Father’s a custard.”
“So are you a custard.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“Neither am I frightened.”
“Well, then, take it.”
“Well, then, you take it.”
Wendy had a idea. “Why not take it at the same time?”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Darling. “Are you ready, Michael?”
Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took his medicine, but Mr. Darling his his back.
There was a of from Michael, and “O father!” Wendy exclaimed.
“What do you by ‘O father’?” Mr. Darling demanded. “Stop that row, Michael. I meant to take mine, but I—I missed it.”
It was the way all the three were looking at him, just as if they did not him. “Look here, all of you,” he said entreatingly, as soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom. “I have just of a joke. I shall my medicine into Nana’s bowl, and she will drink it, it is milk!”
It was the colour of milk; but the children did not have their father’s of humour, and they looked at him as he the medicine into Nana’s bowl. “What fun!” he said doubtfully, and they did not him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned.
“Nana, good dog,” he said, her, “I have put a little milk into your bowl, Nana.”
Nana her tail, ran to the medicine, and it. Then she gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an angry look: she him the great red tear that makes us so sorry for dogs, and into her kennel.
Mr. Darling was of himself, but he would not give in. In a Mrs. Darling the bowl. “O George,” she said, “it’s your medicine!”
“It was only a joke,” he roared, while she her boys, and Wendy Nana. “Much good,” he said bitterly, “my myself to the trying to be in this house.”
And still Wendy Nana. “That’s right,” he shouted. “Coddle her! Nobody me. Oh dear no! I am only the breadwinner, why should I be coddled—why, why, why!”
“George,” Mrs. Darling him, “not so loud; the will you.” Somehow they had got into the way of calling Liza the servants.
“Let them!” he answered recklessly. “Bring in the whole world. But I to allow that dog to lord it in my for an hour longer.”
The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he her back. He he was a man again. “In vain, in vain,” he cried; “the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be up this instant.”
“George, George,” Mrs. Darling whispered, “remember what I told you about that boy.”
Alas, he would not listen. He was to who was master in that house, and when would not Nana from the kennel, he her out of it with words, and her roughly, her from the nursery. He was of himself, and yet he did it. It was all to his too nature, which for admiration. When he had her up in the back-yard, the father and sat in the passage, with his to his eyes.
In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to in and their night-lights. They Nana barking, and John whimpered, “It is he is her up in the yard,” but Wendy was wiser.
“That is not Nana’s bark,” she said, little what was about to happen; “that is her when she danger.”
Danger!
“Are you sure, Wendy?”
“Oh, yes.”
Mrs. Darling and to the window. It was fastened. She looked out, and the night was with stars. They were the house, as if to see what was to take place there, but she did not notice this, that one or two of the smaller ones at her. Yet a at her and her cry, “Oh, how I wish that I wasn’t going to a party to-night!”
Even Michael, already asleep, that she was perturbed, and he asked, “Can anything us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?”
“Nothing, precious,” she said; “they are the a mother her to her children.”
She from to over them, and little Michael his arms her. “Mother,” he cried, “I’m of you.” They were the last she was to from him for a long time.
No. 27 was only a yards distant, but there had been a of snow, and Father and Mother Darling their way over it not to their shoes. They were already the only in the street, and all the were them. Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now what it was. So the older ones have glassy-eyed and speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder. They are not to Peter, who had a way of up them and trying to them out; but they are so of fun that they were on his to-night, and to the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door of 27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a in the firmament, and the smallest of all the in the Milky Way out:
“Now, Peter!”
