Biblioteca Escolar EBS Muralhas do Minho, Valença

The Story of Peter Pan

Once upon a time there were three children named Wendy, John, and Michael, who lived with their father and mother in London.

One evening the father and mother were invited to a party, and the mother, after lightening the dim lamp in the nursery, and kissing them goodnight, went away.

That evening a little boy climbed in through the window whose name was Peter Pan. He was a curious little fellow, very conceited, very forgetful, and yet very lovable. The most remarkable thing about him was that he never grew up.

There came in fleeting through the window with him, his fairy, whose name was Tinker Bell.

Peter Pan woke all the children up, and after he had sprinkled fairy dust on their shoulders, he took them away to the Neverland, where he lived with a family of lost boys.

Tinker Bell was jealous of the little girl, Wendy, and she hurried ahead of Peter Pan, and persuaded the boys that Wendy was a bird that might do them harm, and so one of the boys shot her with his bow and arrow.

When Peter Pan came and found Wendy lying lifeless upon the ground in the woods, he was very angry, but he was also very quick whited, so he told the boys that if they built a house around Wendy, he was sure she would be better. So they hurried to collect everything they had out of which they could build a house.

Tough she was not yet strong enough to talk, they thought perhaps she might sing the kind of house she would like to have. So Wendy sang softly this little verse:

I wish I had a pretty house, the littlest ever seen
With funny little red walls, and roof of mossy green

When the house was done, Peter Pan took John’s hat for the chimney, and the little house was so pleased to have such a capital chimney that smoke at once began to come out through the hat.

All that night Peter Pan walked up and down in front of Wendy’s house to watch over her and keep her from danger while she slept.

All these children lived in an underground cave, and the next day, when Wendy got well, they all went down into the cave, and Wendy agree to be their mother and Peter their father. They had many good times together. They also had some exciting adventures with the Redskins and with a pirate named Captain Hook, and his crew.

After a time, the Redskins became their friends, and Peter rescued his family from the pirates’ ship.

One day, Wendy and her brothers realised that had been away so long that perhaps their mother had forgotten them and shut the window of the nursery so that they could not get back. They decided to hurry home.

When they reached home, Peter Pan was before them, and he closed the window so they could not get back, but when he heard the children’s mother sing such a sad song inside, his heart was made tender, and he opened the window, and the children crept back safely into their mother’s arms

Wendy’s mother invited Peter Pan to stay and be her child, but Peter was so afraid that he would have to go to school and grow up and be a man, that he went back to his home in fairyland.

Wendy promised to go once a year and stay a few days with Peter Pan, and clean the house and mend his clothes.

Let us picture them in the little house that was built for Wendy which the fairies had put up in the branches of a pine tree. The birds are singing in their nests and in the branches. And far below the clouds you can see the land and the sea. Wendy is sewing for Peter and Peter Pan is playing his pipes while she works. When night comes, the woods are full of flashing lights, like little stars, because the fairies are fleeting around the house where Peter and Wendy live, and are singing to them as they go to sleep. In a few days, Wendy will go back to John and Michael to tell them what a good time she had on her visit in the little house in the woods.

Illustration: Chiara Carapellese