Chapter 14

Peter Pan

If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she
was a little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child,"
and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she
will say, "What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did."
Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan
when she was a girl, she also says, "Why, of course, I did,
child," but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those
days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she
has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls
you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could
hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore
there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This
shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the
goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket
before your vest.

Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is
really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least.
His age is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has
never had a birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his
ever having one. The reason is that he escaped from being a
human when he was seven days' old; he escaped by the window and
flew back to the Kensington Gardens.

If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it
shows how completely you have forgotten your own young days.
When David heard this story first he was quite certain that he
had never tried to escape, but I told him to think back hard,
pressing his hands to his temples, and when he had done this
hard, and even harder, he distinctly remembered a youthful desire
to return to the tree-tops, and with that memory came others, as
that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his mother
was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way up the
chimney. All children could have such recollections if they
would press their hands hard to their temples, for, having been
birds before they were human, they are naturally a little wild
during the first few weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders,
where their wings used to be. So David tells me.

I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a
story: First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the
understanding being that it is quite a different story; and then
I retell it with his additions, and so we go on until no one
could say whether it is more his story or mine. In this story of
Peter Pan, for instance, the bald narrative and most of the moral
reflections are mine, though not all, for this boy can be a stern
moralist, but the interesting bits about the