It is all rather sad . 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 -LRB- as most people do -RRB- 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 ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences of David 's , recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking hard . Well , Peter Pan got out by the window , which had no bars . Standing on the ledge he could see trees far away , which were doubtless the Kensington Gardens , and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that he was now a little boy in a nightgown , and away he flew , right over the houses to the Gardens . It is wonderful that he could fly without wings , but the place itched tremendously , and , perhaps we could all fly if we were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter Pan that evening . He alighted gaily on the open sward , between the Baby 's Palace and the Serpentine , and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick .
He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human , and thought he was a bird , even in appearance , just the same as in his early XXXXX , and when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he missed it was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand , which , of course , a bird never does .
David Gardens Palace Pan Peter days evening nightgown sward tree-tops