barrie_testing.txt

Chapter 1 PETER BREAKS THROUGH

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow
up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old
she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with
it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for
Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you
remain like this for ever!” This was all that passed between them on
the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. 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 mother was 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 kiss on it that Wendy could never get,
though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been
boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her,
and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who
took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,
except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and
in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could
have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a
passion, slamming the door.

Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him
but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks
and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,
and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that
would have made any woman respect him.

Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a
Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped
out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces.
She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs.
Darling’s guesses.

Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.

For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would
be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was
frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the
edge of Mrs. Darling’s bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,
while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what
might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece
of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at
the beginning again.

“Now don’t interrupt,” he would beg of her.

“I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can
cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine
and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five
naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven--who is that
moving?--eight nine seven, dot and carry seven--don’t speak, my own--and
the pound you lent to that man who came to the door--quiet, child--dot
and carry child--there, you’ve done it!--did I say nine nine seven? yes,
I said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on
nine nine seven?”

“Of course we can, George,” she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy’s
favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.

“Remember mumps,” he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went
again. “Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay
it will be more like thirty shillings--don’t speak--measles one five,
German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six--don’t waggle your
finger--whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings”--and so on it went, and
it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,
with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated
as one.

There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower
squeak; but both were kept, and soon, you might have seen the three of
them going in a row to Miss Fulsom’s Kindergarten school, accompanied by
their nurse.

As you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her
figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a
common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring
cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and
takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself,
to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a
daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus it will go on,
so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.