WHEN WENDY GREW UP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14853, 2 December 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

WHEN WENDY GREW UP.

Mil. BARRIES NEW "PETER PAN"

i BOOK. I | Mr. .1. M. R.vnniE long ago wrote one j jof the most- delightful plays for children i ever put upon the stage. Thousands of . little ones watched enthralled the adren- ' ; tares of Peter Pan, the boy who never j grew up. Wendy, Captain Hook, and the [rest, and doubtless there were many of ■ them who would have given their eyes to * know what became of all those entranc- , ing folk. They may learn now, for Mr. JBarrie has written a delightful.book called "Peter and Wendy" (Hodder and Stougb- ' ton, London), which • tells many things I Mr.Ba.rrie forgot to put in the play, and ' also carries the adventures of the hero and ' heroine much farther. The book is de- : lightfully illustrated by Mr. F. D. Bed I ford. • ' "• "'" ■ [ *"' What happened .when Wendy grew up? j The book will tell you that she- had a | daughter : named Jane, that Jane grew ( up and had a daughter named Margaret, i and that Peter Pan taught each in turn jto fly to the. Neverland. And," says I Mr. Barrie, " thus it will go on so long las children are gay and innocent and heartless." ; Wendy knew in the beginning, the book ' tells us, that " all children, except one, ; grow up.," For one day when she was j two she picked another rose and ran with ; it to her mother, and Mrs. Darling cried, j " Oh, why can't you remain like this for ' ever I" ■:. ■■ .- '■ " "This was all that, passed between 1 them on the subject,; but henceforth ; Wendy knew! that she must grow. up. j You always know after you are two. Two 1 is the beginning of the end." The Courting Of The Darling. j. How Mr. Darling won Mrs. Darling is I thus described : "The many gentlemen who had been i boys when she was a girl discovered j simultaneously that Lhoy loved her, * and ; they all ran to her house to propose to ! her, except Mi. Darling, who took a cab j and nipped in first, and so he got her." ! This- wonderful book maintains that (■"it is the' nightly custom of every good I mother after her children are asleep to '■ rummage in their minds and put things ' straight for next morning, repacking into i their proper places the many articles that j have wandered ring,the day. ,1-And that wonderrul Neverland, the scene of iso many thrilling adventures! Here is a pen * picture of it: —"The Neverland' is always more or less an ; island, with, astonishing splashes of col- ! our here and there, and coral reefs and ; rakish-looking, craft •♦in; the offing, and ! savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who | are mostly tailors, and caves through j which a river runs, and princes with six ; elder brothers, and a hut going fast to j decay, and one very fjjnall old lady with a I hooked nose."

i - The Growing Fains. \ And in the* end, after, Captain Hook, ! and the Indians, and our old friend the ! crocodile—with the clock still ticking as I noisily inside him as ever— the twins, J and all th.> rest of the dear, delightful j crowd have had their day, then it is that I we discover what happened to Wendy. j What happened, we mean, when *he grew too old to return to Peter Pan for : a week every year, in order to do his I springy cleaning. For, of course, she ! couldn't, like Peter, go on doing that for j over. No; she only went once or twice, and then Peter stopped calling. •'For a little longer she tried for his J sake not to have growing pains; and she j felt she was untrue to him when she sot j a prize for general knowledge. But The years came and went without bringing thej careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a- married woman, and Peter was no more, to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You need not'be, sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. For all that she j could not help crying when she did see Peter Pan again. And poor Peter himself i could only sob when she turned up the light and showed him how old she had ! grown. But if she could not keep Peter j tor her very own, or mother him any 1 longer, she had. a little daughter instead j called Jane, who was probably worth a I great deal more to her even than Peter, j though Mr. Barrie does not tell us so. ' And she allowed Peter to carry Jane off j to do hie spring cleaning in her place. | The same thing happened to Jane when her turn came to grow up, except that j her little girl was called Margaret. And that is where you now have to leave them all. 'When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on,' as Mr. Barrie says, '«o long as children are 'gay and innocent and heartless. - ... ■'■■■-■. ■ ■:;■'*