I hope you want to know what became of the other boys. Theywere waiting below to give Wendy time to explain about them; andwhen they had counted five hundred they went up. They went up bythe stair, because they thought this would make a betterimpression. They stood in a row in front of Mrs. Darling, withtheir hats off, and wishing they were not wearing their pirateclothes. They said nothing, but their eyes asked her to havethem. They ought to have looked at Mr. Darling also, but theyforgot about him.

Of course Mrs. Darling said at once that she would have them;but Mr. Darling was curiously depressed, and they saw that heconsidered six a rather large number.

"I must say, he said to Wendy, "that you don't do things byhalves." a grudging remark which the twins thought was pointed atthem.

The first twin was the proud one, and he asked, flushing, "Doyou think we should be too much of a handful, sir? Because, ifso, we can go away."

"Father!" Wendy cried, shocked; but still the cloud was on him. He knew he was behaving unworthily, but he could not help it.

"We could lie doubled up," said Nibs.

"I always cut their hair myself," said Wendy.

"George!" Mrs. Darling exclaimed, pained to see her dear oneshowing himself in such an unfavourable light.

Then he burst into tears, and the truth came out. He was asglad to have them as she was, he said, but he thought they shouldhave asked his consent as well as hers, instead of treating himas a cypher [zero] in his own house.

"I don't think he is a cypher," Tootles cried instantly. "Doyou think he is a cypher, Curly?"

"No, I don't. Do you think he is a cypher, Slightly?"

"Rather not. Twin, what do you think?"

It turned out that not one of them thought him a cypher; and hewas absurdly gratified, and said he would find space for them allin the drawing-room if they fitted in.

"We'll fit in, sir," they assured him.

"Then follow the leader," he cried gaily. "Mind you, I am notsure that we have a drawing-room, but we pretend we have, andit's all the same. Hoop la!"

He went off dancing through the house, and they all cried "Hoopla!" and danced after him, searching for the drawing-room; and Iforget whether they found it, but at any rate they found corners,and they all fitted in.

As for Peter, he saw Wendy once again before he flew away. Hedid not exactly come to the window, but he brushed against it inpassing so that she could open it if she liked and call to him. That is what she did.

"Hullo, Wendy, good-bye," he said.

"Oh dear, are you going away?"

"Yes."

"You don't feel, Peter," she said falteringly, "that you wouldlike to say anything to my parents about a very sweet subject?"

"No."

"About me, Peter?"

"No."

Mrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keepinga sharp eye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted allthe other boys, and would like to adopt him also.

"Would you send me to school?" he inquired craftily.

"Yes."

"And then to an office?"

"I suppose so."

"Soon I would be a man?"

"Very soon."

"I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things," he toldher passionately. "I don't want to be a man. O Wendy's mother,if I was to wake up and feel there was a beard!"

"Peter," said Wendy the comforter, "I should love you in abeard"; and Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but herepulsed her.

"Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me aman."

"But where are you going to live?"

"With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are toput it high up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights."

"How lovely," cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darlingtightened her grip.

"I thought all the fairies were dead," Mrs. Darling said.

"There are always a lot of young ones," explained Wendy, whowas now quite an authority, "because you see when a new babylaughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there arealways new babies there are always new fairies. They live innests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and thewhite ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillieswho are not sure what they are."

"I shall have such fun," said Peter, with eye on Wendy.

"It will be rather lonely in the evening," she said, "sittingby the fire."

"I shall have Tink."

"Tink can't go a twentieth part of the way round," she remindedhim a little tartly.

"Sneaky tell-tale!" Tink called out from somewhere round thecorner.

"It doesn't matter," Peter said.

"O Peter, you know it matters."

"Well, then, come with me to the little house."

"May I, mummy?"

"Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I mean to keepyou."

"But he does so need a mother."

"So do you, my love."

"Oh, all right," Peter said, as if he had asked her frompoliteness merely; but Mrs. Darling saw his mouth twitch, and shemade this handsome offer: to let Wendy go to him for a weekevery year to do his spring cleaning. Wendy would have preferreda more permanent arrangement; and it seemed to her that springwould be long in coming; but this promise sent Peter away quitegay again. He had no sense of time, and was so full ofadventures that all I have told you about him is only ahalfpenny-worth of them. I suppose it was because Wendy knewthis that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones:

"You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring cleaningtime comes?"

Of course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Mrs.Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else,Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied.

Of course all the boys went to school; and most of them gotinto Class III, but Slightly was put first into Class IV and theninto Class V. Class I is the top class. Before they hadattended school a week they saw what goats they had been not toremain on the island; but it was too late now, and soon theysettled down to being as ordinary as you or me or Jenkins minor[the younger Jenkins]. It is sad to have to say that the powerto fly gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to thebed-posts so that they should not fly away in the night; and oneof their diversions by day was to pretend to fall off buses [theEnglish double-deckers]; but by and by they ceased to tug attheir bonds in bed, and found that they hurt themselves when theylet go of the bus. In time they could not even fly after theirhats. Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant wasthat they no longer believed.

Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeeredat him; so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the endof the first year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she hadwoven from leaves and berries in the Neverland, and her one fearwas that he might notice how short it had become; but he nevernoticed, he had so much to say about himself.

She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about oldtimes, but new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.

"Who is Captain Hook?" he asked with interest when she spoke ofthe arch enemy.

"Don't you remember," she asked, amazed, "how you killed himand saved all our lives?"

"I forget them after I kill them," he replied carelessly.

When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would beglad to see her he said, "Who is Tinker Bell?"

"O Peter," she said, shocked; but even when she explained hecould not remember.

"There are such a lot of them," he said. "I expect she is nomore."

I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but theyare so little that a short time seems a good while to them.

Wendy was pained too to find that the past year was but asyesterday to Peter; it had seemed such a long year of waiting toher. But he was exactly as fascinating as ever, and they had alovely spring cleaning in the little house on the tree tops.

Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frockbecause the old one simply would not meet; but he never came.

"Perhaps he is ill," Michael said.

"You know he is never ill."

Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver,"Perhaps there is no such person, Wendy!" and then Wendy wouldhave cried if Michael had not been crying.

Peter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was thathe never knew he had missed a year.

That was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For alittle longer she tried for his sake not to have growing pains;and she felt she was untrue to him when she got a prize forgeneral knowledge. But the years came and went without bringingthe careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a marriedwoman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the boxin which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You neednot be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to growup. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quickerthan other girls.

All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it isscarcely worth while saying anything more about them. You maysee the twins and Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, eachcarrying a little bag and an umbrella. Michael is an engine-driver [train engineer]. Slightly married a lady of title, andso he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out atthe iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man whodoesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.

Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange tothink that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid thebanns [formal announcement of a marriage].

Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This oughtnot to be written in ink but in a golden splash.

She was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, asif from the moment she arrived on the mainland she wanted to askquestions. When she was old enough to ask them they were mostlyabout Peter Pan. She loved to hear of Peter, and Wendy told herall she could remember in the very nursery from which the famousflight had taken place. It was Jane's nursery now, for herfather had bought it at the three per cents [mortgage rate] fromWendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs. Mrs. Darlingwas now dead and forgotten.

There were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and hernurse's; and there was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age, and at the end she had been rather difficultto get on with; being very firmly convinced that no one knew howto look after children except herself.

Once a week Jane's nurse had her evening off; and then it wasWendy's part to put Jane to bed. That was the time for stories. It was Jane's invention to raise the sheet over her mother's headand her own, this making a tent, and in the awful darkness towhisper:

"What do we see now?"

"I don't think I see anything to-night," says Wendy, with afeeling that if Nana were here she would object to furtherconversation.

"Yes, you do," says Jan, "you see when you were a little girl."

"That is a long time ago, sweetheart," says Wendy. "Ah me, howtime flies!"

"Does it fly," asks the artful child, "the way you flew whenyou were a little girl?"

"The way I flew? Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whetherI ever did really fly."

"Yes, you did."

"The dear old days when I could fly!"

"Why can't you fly now, mother?"

"Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up theyforget the way."

"Why do they forget the way?"

"Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It isonly the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly."

"What is gay and innocent and heartless? I do wish I were gayand innocent and heartless."

Or perhaps Wendy admits she does see something.

"I do believe," she says, "that it is this nursery."

"I do believe it is," says Jane. "Go on."

They are now embarked on the great adventure of the night whenPeter flew in looking for his shadow.

"The foolish fellow," says Wendy, "tried to stick it on withsoap, and when he could not he cried, and that woke me, and Isewed it on for him."

"You have missed a bit," interrupts Jane, who now knows thestory better than her mother. "When you saw him sitting on thefloor crying, what did you say?"

"I sat up in bed and I said, `Boy, why are you crying?'"

"Yes, that was it," says Jane, with a big breath.

"And then he flew us all away to the Neverland and the fairiesand the pirates and the redskins and the mermaid's lagoon, andthe home under the ground, and the little house."

"Yes! which did you like best of all?"

"I think I liked the home under the ground best of all."

"Yes, so do I. What was the last thing Peter ever said toyou?"

"The last thing he ever said to me was, `Just always bewaiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.'"

"Yes,"

"But, alas, he forgot all about me," Wendy said it with asmile. She was as grown up as that.

"What did his crow sound like?" Jane asked one evening.

"It was like this," Wendy said, trying to imitate Peter's crow.

"No, it wasn't," Jane said gravely, "it was like this"; and shedid it ever so much better than her mother.

Wendy was a little startled. "My darling, how can you know?"

"I often hear it when I am sleeping," Jane said.

"Ah yes, many girls hear it when they are sleeping, but I wasthe only one who heard it awake."

"Lucky you," said Jane.

And then one night came the tragedy. It was the spring of theyear, and the story had been told for the night, and Jane was nowasleep in her bed. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close tothe fire, so as to see to darn, for there was no other light inthe nursery; and while she sat darning she heard a crow. Thenthe window blew open as of old, and Peter dropped in on thefloor.

He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that hestill had all his first teeth.

He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by thefire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.

"Hullo, Wendy," he said, not noticing any difference, for hewas thinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her whitedress might have been the nightgown in which he had seen herfirst.

"Hullo, Peter," she replied faintly, squeezing herself as smallas possible. Something inside her was crying Woman, Woman, letgo of me."

"Hullo, where is John?" he asked, suddenly missing the thirdbed.

"John is not here now," she gasped.

"Is Michael asleep?" he asked, with a careless glance at Jane.

"Yes," she answered; and now she felt that she was untrue toJane as well as to Peter.

"That is not Michael," she said quickly, lest a judgment shouldfall on her.

Peter looked. "Hullo, is it a new one?"

"Yes."

"Boy or girl?"

"Girl."

Now surely he would understand; but not a bit of it.

"Peter," she said, faltering, "are you expecting me to fly awaywith you?"

"Of course; that is why I have come." He added a littlesternly, "Have you forgotten that this is spring cleaning time?"

She knew it was useless to say that he had let many springcleaning times pass.

"I can't come," she said apologetically, "I have forgotten howto fly."

"I'll soon teach you again."

"O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me."

She had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him. "What isit?" he cried, shrinking.

"I will turn up the light," she said, "and then you can see foryourself."

For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter wasafraid. "Don't turn up the light," he cried.

She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She wasnot a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown womansmiling at it all, but they were wet eyed smiles.

Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry ofpain; and when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him inher arms he drew back sharply.

"What is it?" he cried again.

She had to tell him.

"I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grewup long ago."

"You promised not to!"

"I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby."

"No, she's not."

But he supposed she was; and he took a step towards thesleeping child with his dagger upraised. Of course he did notstrike. He sat down on the floor instead and sobbed; and Wendydid not know how to comfort him, though she could have done it soeasily once. She was only a woman now, and she ran out of theroom to try to think.

Peter continued to cry, and soon his sobs woke Jane. She satup in bed, and was interested at once.

"Boy," she said, "why are you crying?"

Peter rose and bowed to her, and she bowed to him from the bed.

"Hullo," he said.

"Hullo," said Jane.

"My name is Peter Pan," he told her.

"Yes, I know."

"I came back for my mother," he explained, "to take her to theNeverland."

"Yes, I know," Jane said, "I have been waiting for you."

When Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on thebed-post crowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flyinground the room in solemn ecstasy.

"She is my mother," Peter explained; and Jane descended andstood by his side, with the look in her face that he liked to seeon ladies when they gazed at him.

"He does so need a mother," Jane said.

"Yes, I know." Wendy admitted rather forlornly; "no one knowsit so well as I."

"Good-bye," said Peter to Wendy; and he rose in the air, andthe shameless Jane rose with him; it was already her easiest wayof moving about.

Wendy rushed to the window.

"No, no," she cried.

"It is just for spring cleaning time," Jane said, "he wants mealways to do his spring cleaning."

"If only I could go with you," Wendy sighed.

"You see you can't fly," said Jane.

Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Ourlast glimpse of her shows her at the window, watching themreceding into the sky until they were as small as stars.

As you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, andher figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane isnow a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and everyspring cleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes forMargaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells himstories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. WhenMargaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter'smother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as children aregay and innocent and heartless.