A Millennium Fulcrum Edition produced in 1991 by Duncan Research. Note thatwhile a copyright was initially claimed for the labor involved in digitization,that copyright claim is not consistent with current copyright requirements.This text, which matches the 1911 original publication, is in the public domainin the US.
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, andthe way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playingin a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. Isuppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her handto her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, buthenceforth 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, 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. Herromantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from thepuzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and hersweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though thereit was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys whenshe was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ranto her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped infirst, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and thekiss. 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, andthen going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him butrespected him. He was