HOW TO TEACH A CHILD TO READ AT HOME

Above are the big and little letters of the Alphabet.

Below is a story with all these letters in words.

I saw the big ox when I went to the Zoo last week.
It was in a den by the cave and stood near the bars.
I thought it looked quite fierce when it stared at me.
It made me jump when it put its nose out of the bars.
A man fed the ox with some hay that he got from a box.
It then lay down on the hard floor and had a nap.
I should not like to be in the den with the ox.

It is not a proper test of a child’s advance that he should be able to read very early. Neither do we now make the teaching of reading the chief object in first lessons. Rather does the child learn first to master the difficult art of connecting spoken sounds with written signs somehow, on the happy road from babyhood to schooldays, while his mother still holds him by the hand.

The training of your boy’s ear in detecting the sounds that go to make up the words he uses is of the very first importance. You encourage him in the use of language by getting him to talk freely about what you do together, describing in his own pretty way the flowers, birds, toys, pictures that he loves. All the time you are gently insisting on perfect pronunciation, clear, pleasant modulation of his speaking voice, quiet breathing through the nose. Presently, when you see he is quite ready for it, you lay stress on the sounds made at the beginning and end of such words as cat, dog, puss, pig. He will soon copy quite accurately the sounds of the various consonants, and find other words beginning or ending with similar sounds to those in the examples you give.

Later will come the vowel sounds, and patient work will be needed to make him see the difference in the various sounds of a, o, and so on. At this stage it will amuse him to have a looking-glass before him to see how the shape of his mouth alters when speaking. Let him practice working the muscles round his lip and moving his tongue freely. It will also help if he sings the vowels, thus—take deep breath, sing a (as in father) as long as the breath lasts; take breath, sing a (as in fate), in same way; and so on with all the vowel sounds.

You will, of course, make a table of all the sounds you teach him for your own use, with lists of suitable words, and something has really been accomplished in the numberless five-minute sound-lessons when the child can break up the words he uses into the sounds that go to make them—b-u-n, bun; f-i-g, fig.

So much for the first training in recognizing and reproducing the sounds.

And now we come face to face with the much-discussed question—when and how is a child to learn the letters (the printed signs of sounds) and the names given to these letters? Some children settle this question for themselves by “picking up” these letters and their names from picture-books and blocks with little outside help, but they will find it useful later on to know the names of the letters and the order of the alphabet. See to it that your boy learns to call the letters by their sounds, not their names, and help him to realize that the letters are the signs of the sounds, used to tell us what sounds we are to utter.

You have a sand-tray? Let the fat little finger practice making a round o in it, while the rosy lips form the long o, as in no and lord, the short sound, as in not; or tracing crooked s while he hisses like the geese on the common, or says “puss,” “sat,” and so on.

If you have a box of good, plain letters, let him pick out the m in mouse, the t in table and in rat. Your small blackboard will come in handy, for he will be most happy to print on it in chalks the letters as he learns them. Let him model their shapes in clay, draw and paint them in colors, make them out of slips and curves of colored cardboard, varying the practice as much as possible; and see to it that he is never bored. He will soon greatly enjoy identifying and cutting out large and small letters as he learns them from advertisements in big type, and pasting them in a “letter” scrapbook, made by fastening together a few sheets of brown paper. Guide him to class together v and f, r and l, s and z, b and p, m and n, t and d, and the vowels in their order, with a whole page to themselves—this with a view to the time when he begins to study seriously.

But that is looking far ahead. We have now brought him to the point of being ready for his first reading lesson. But do not hurry; give his eyes plenty of distance work, plenty of training in reading Nature’s wide-open book, before you put printed books into his hands. He is to be a keen lover of books, so make him want to read, and see to it that he is interested and happy every moment of the time given to his reading lesson.

Here is the method:

Buy three copies of some well-printed simple stories; put one copy aside, and cut up the other two, pasting the sheets on drawing-paper, alternate pages face down, so that you get one complete copy out of the two books.

Now cut up, line by line, and then word by word, the first little story, and put the words in a small tray or box. Perhaps it is, “Thank you, pretty cow.” So now print on your blackboard two or three of the words—cow, milk, pretty, the child earnestly watching and listening while you say the words very distinctly, giving the component sounds as clearly as you possibly can.

Then hand him the tray, and let him pick out the words and name them as you have done. Proceed in the same way with a few more words of the story, printing them as you go in a column on the board, and when he knows them up and down, in and out, the great moment has arrived. Your heart will beat as you put the little book—the copy that was not cut up—into his hands. He can read, so much at any rate, quite readily.

Note that there must be no spelling; it is “look and say.” Next day you take word-building with the box of letters, and a fine game you have, based on the words learned the day before. Add letters and syllables in every way you can think of, always giving sounds, not names; let the boy read, copy, take from dictation these new words for a happy twenty minutes. He is now learning to spell, that he may be able to write with the sound signs. Go on like this, reading one day, word-building the next, till several sets of little books have been used up.

Let him dramatize the little stories and poems whenever you can; take parts with him, thus laying the foundation of real, live reading aloud, without any disfiguring mannerisms or self-consciousness. His stock of words grows apace—ten a day will give over three thousand in a year—and little by little, as opportunity offers, the more complex sounds in our language and its puzzling irregularities are unfolded and made familiar. Thus reading, elocution, spelling, writing, all advance together.

The study of Nature should go hand in hand with the study of books. Children love the outdoors—the trees, the flowers, the grass,—all living things. Nature trains the special senses, awakens the powers of observation, and creates a love of both the beautiful and the useful.

THE CHILD’S PICTURE GRAMMAR—NOUNS AND VERBS
A NOUN IS THE NAME OF ANY THING—A VERB TELLS WHAT A NOUN DOES OR IS DONE TO


THE HORSE STOPS	THE FISH SWIMS	THE BOY HOPS	THE BIRD SKIMS

THE RAIN FALLS	THE BABE CRIES	THE MAN HAULS	THE BEE FLIES

BALLOONS RISE	ACORNS DROP	THE WOMAN BUYS	AIRGUNS POP

THE CART IS DRAWN	THE HOOP IS ROLLED	THE SHEEP IS SHORN	THE LAWN IS ROLLED

THE DOG IS LED	THE PIG IS DRIVEN	THE LION IS FED	THE PRIZE IS GIVEN

THE FIRE BURNS	THE WATER FLOWS	THE BOAT TURNS	THE TRAIN GOES

WHAT OUR DOMESTIC ANIMALS GIVE US
THE USEFUL THINGS OBTAINED FROM THE COW, HORSE, SHEEP, GOAT, PIG, FOWL, AND DEER



MILK	CHEESE	LEATHER	COMBS	BUTTONS	JELLY
	BUTTER	BEEF	KNIFE-HANDLES	SOAP	GLUE

CHAIR-COVERS	HAIR FOR STUFFING SOFAS		PLUMES	CATGUT	SOCKS

MUTTON	WOOLLEN GOODS		RUGS	BOOK COVERS	CARPETS

MILK	WIGS	GLOVES		BOOK COVERS	WATER SKINS
PERSIAN SHAWLS		SHOE-LACES	KNIFE-HANDLES

PORK	BACON	LEATHER GOODS	BRISTLES		BLADDERS
				LARD	GLYCERINE

EGGS	FLESH	FEATHERS FOR BEDS AND PILLOWS			FEATHERS FOR HATS

KNIFE-HANDLES		GLOVES	HAIR FOR STUFFING SADDLES	VENISON



MILK	CHEESE	LEATHER
	BUTTER	BEEF

COMBS	BUTTONS	JELLY
KNIFE-HANDLES	SOAP	GLUE

CHAIR-COVERS	HAIR FOR STUFFING SOFAS

PLUMES	CATGUT	SOCKS

MUTTON	WOOLLEN GOODS

RUGS	BOOK COVERS	CARPETS

MILK PERSIAN SHAWLS WIGS

SHOE-LACES GLOVES KNIFE-HANDLES

BOOK COVERS WATER SKINS

PORK BACON LEATHER GOODS

	LARD	GLYCERINE
BRISTLES		BLADDERS

EGGS	FLESH	FEATHERS FOR HATS

FEATHERS FOR BEDS AND PILLOWS

KNIFE-HANDLES		GLOVES

HAIR FOR STUFFING SADDLES	VENISON

THE CHILDREN OF THE ANIMALS

The young of some animals have special names, and with many of these we are familiar. But there are other young creatures whose particular names are not so well known. In the pictures on this page we see the young of eighteen different creatures with their mothers, and the special names of these are given.

THE STORY OF THE SPIDER AND THE BUTTERFLY

On the garden wall a brown

was spinning her

. Backwards and forwards she went, making hundreds of little threads at once, twisting them into white ropes, arranging them with her feet and the little hooks on her jaws, and gluing them together where they crossed.

The

stood on a

and watched.

“Is that to put your eggs in?” she asked at last. “Or do you put them on a cabbage?”

“On a cabbage! No, indeed!” said the

, staring with all her eight eyes at once. “I make a soft nest of silken threads to put them in.”

“That would not do for my babies.” And the

nodded her head and looked very wise. “They would get their wings fast in the threads.”

“Their what?” gasped the

, standing suddenly still in the middle of her

“Their wings,” repeated the innocent

. “I don’t think I dare let my children come to play with yours if you always hang

about.”

“But your children won’t have wings!” gasped the

again. “They won’t be baby

!”

The

laughed gaily.

“What a funny idea!” she said. “Your eggs hatch into baby

, don’t they? and they don’t have wings. And the hen’s

hatch into little baby

, and they do have wings, like the hen. I saw them this morning running after her, with all their wings stretched out. I suppose they are not old enough to fly yet. When my babies can fly, I shall go back to the flower garden.”

She flew away, leaving the astonished

still sitting in the middle of her

trying to understand it all.

“Well!” she exclaimed to herself at last. “That’s what comes of having no mother! I always did say that the family arrangements of the

are the most foolish I ever heard of.”

The

was very busy, gumming her eggs safely underneath a cabbage leaf. Each little jar hung by its narrow end, as close to the next as could be.

“What a funny old

!” she thought at last, when she had finished. “I wonder if she has finished that

.”

“Have you found a cabbage to please you?” called the

“Well, I suppose it’s all right,” answered the

a little doubtfully. “I don’t seem to be able to think of a better place to put my eggs, and I suppose the flowers will grow on the cabbage very soon. My baby

will not be able to fly far at first to find honey.”

“You mean your creepy, crawly

!”

“Don’t you mean

?” asked the

, trying to be sarcastic.

“Nothing so sensible! If you want to see——”

“Hush! hush! Don’t quarrel!” said the Breeze, shaking the

’s

and puffing at the

’s wings.

“She says that my babies will be creepy, crawly——”

“Come away! come away! Come and find some honey!” said the Breeze.

He shook the

and the

fell off. Then the Breeze so hurried her across the garden that when they reached the flowers she was out of breath with laughing.

“I suppose that old

is jealous because her children will not be so pretty as my baby

” she said.

LADY GRAY AND THE NUTS

One summer Robert and his father and mother lived in a little

in the woods.

They saw a

running about in the

Robert put some

on the ground, and hid behind a

. Soon the

came and carried them away.

The next day he put the

nearer the

. The

came again and carried them away.

So it went on for some time. Each day Robert put the

nearer the

They named the

Lady Gray.

One day Robert’s mother sat down on a

in the porch. She put some

on the floor and kept very still.

After a while Lady Gray came up on the porch. She looked at Robert’s mother, then she took a

and ran off as fast as she could.

By-and-by Lady Gray became so gentle that she would hunt for

in their pockets.

One morning father put a

on his shoulder. Lady Gray jumped on father’s shoulder and ate the

. How they all laughed!

CUNNING NANCY AND HER KITTENS

Three little

were born in a

where there were two lively

The

were at once named Tom, Dick, and Harry.

As soon as they were big enough to handle, the

began to carry them round, indoors and out. Nancy, the mamma

, did not like her

to be handled so much, for she knew it was not good for them. She mewed, but the children did not notice her distress.

Dick, a lovely grey, seemed to be her pet. She took the best care of him, and seemed most worried when the children picked him up.

One day little Dick could not be found. The

hunted for him, but in vain. They noticed that Nancy did not seem anxious, nor did she go looking for her lost

They did not notice, however, that she would often go up the

, and stay away awhile from Tom and Harry.

When washing day came, they found out all about it. In a low, dark

upstairs, where the soiled clothes were kept, Nancy and Dick were found. Dick was snugly wrapped in the clothes, and purred contentedly. Mamma Nancy lay beside him. She had taken her favorite

and hidden him, so that the children should not play with him.

THE GOOD LITTLE STARS

Once upon a time a great many little

lived up in the sky.

Their father was the

, and their mother was the

Usually these

were good little

. They liked to help brighten the sky and so make the

brighter.

But one night when their mother called to them to come and light up the sky, they came very slowly. They looked very cross. They did not shine when she told them to do so.

Mother

felt sad. She called up from the

some good little

. They were only

, but Mother

changed them into

in the sky.

The naughty

felt themselves falling. Faster and faster they fell, until they sank down into the

They cried and cried until they fell asleep for they were very sorry for what they had done.

In the morning Father

shone out so brightly that everything, even the baby

under the grass, wakened. They began to cry again.

Their father felt sorry for them. He told them they might shine on the

So now the stars shine in the sky at night, and in the morning, when Father

shines for them, the

open their eyes and shine in the grass all day.

NATURE AS THE FIRST INVENTOR AND CRAFTSMAN

THE PANIC IN THE FOREST

A timid hare was resting one day in a grove of palm-trees, and a strange thought came into his head.

“What should I do if an earthquake occurred?”

At that moment a gust of wind shook the palm-trees, and some ripe fruit pattered down.

“An earthquake is beginning!” cried the timorous hare. And, starting up, he fled without daring to look behind him. A deer met him as he was racing along.

“What is the matter?” said the deer, catching up with him and running by his side.

“An earthquake is destroying the forest!” the hare gasped out.

The terrible news quickly spread among the hares, deer and rabbits, and they scampered away in wild terror. As they went on, they were joined by elks, buffaloes, elephants, tigers, and rhinoceroses.

“What is the matter?” said each animal in turn, as he joined the fugitives.

“An earthquake is destroying the forest!” they panted, rushing on, and never stopping to see if it were so. At last the line of frightened animals extended across the country for a full mile. All the smaller beasts standing in the path of the army of fugitives were unable to ask any question; they had to race ahead to avoid being trampled down. But as the maddened host was sweeping blindly down to the bank of a great river, which looked like being choked up with dead bodies, a lion came up, and stopped the frightened beasts with a terrible roar.

“What is the matter?” he said to the tigers.

“The buffaloes told us that an earthquake is coming,” said the tigers.

“Who saw it coming?” said the lion.

“We don’t know,” said the tigers. “The elephants know.”

“The rhinoceroses told us,” said the elephants.

“And we heard it from the buffaloes,” said the rhinoceroses, panting for breath.

The buffaloes heard it from the elks; the elks heard it from the deer; and at last it got down to the timid hare.

“Do you mean to tell me,” roared the lion, “that you have all been frightened to death by a timid little hare? Let us go to the grove of palm-trees, and witness this terrible earthquake.”

When they arrived there, the fruit was still pattering to the ground.

“Now, you see,” said the lion, “what comes of following the lead of the most timorous creature on earth. He has made you all more cowardly than he is himself. You ran away without even hearing the noise that frightened him. Henceforward avoid the gossip of the crowd, and trust to your own judgment.”

THE JOURNEY FROM THE CLOUDS TO THE SEA

When the little drop of rain fell, he didn’t know in the least what was going to happen. For a minute or two he felt quite frightened. Then he suddenly found himself rolling down a hill. He had just begun to think it great fun, when he noticed a lot of other drops beside him, all laughing together and all rolling down the hill.

One of them came close to him and touched him, and he found himself growing bigger. Then more and more came up, and presently he saw that he was quite a big fellow. He felt very proud of himself. “I’m getting bigger and bigger every minute,” he said.

Half-way down the hill he looked back, and saw himself stretched out like a line of silver, glittering and shining between the trees and stones and bushes.

“I’m a stream now,” he murmured proudly as he hurried over sand and gravel and clay, “and I’m getting bigger and bigger still.”

Suddenly he found himself falling over a big black rock. Down, down he fell, thirty feet or more. But he was so big and strong now that he didn’t care a bit.

At the bottom of the hill there were a great many rocks and stones right in front of him. “Get out of my way!” he roared. “I’m a river now! Get out of my way!” And he dashed and splashed and flew right over them.

A little farther on he came to a lovely meadow, with beautiful trees hanging down, and birds singing, and great sleepy red cattle standing knee-deep in the long, sweet grass, and the big blue sky shimmering overhead. It was so very, very pretty that he thought he would stay here a while. So he twisted and wound round and round, just to get another look at the trees, and to watch the birds flying from branch and bush.

He laughed merrily to a little boy who was standing on the bank with a fishing-rod in his hand, and hurried on again.

As he turned a corner quickly he saw a great blue plain stretching for miles and miles, with ships and boats and birds dotted here and there on its broad, heaving, shining surface.

“Hello! There is the sea at last!” he cried joyfully, and rushed forward eagerly to meet it. And as he joined the great ocean he shouted out as if he meant that all the world should hear, “Here I am; I’m a sea now!” (See full page illustration on [page 68].)

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY

The spider was in a rare temper as she hurried back to the dark corner where she had her home.

“Upon my word,” she muttered, “it is too bad! This is the third time that wretched housemaid has swept my web away. The ignorant creature calls me an insect. I am not an insect. My body is in two parts instead of three; my head is part of my chest; and I have eight legs instead of six.”

The spider sat in her dark corner thinking very hard. Presently a buzzing sound caught her ears, which happened to be placed at the end of her feet. Her six pairs of eyes glistened with anger.

“There’s that old bluebottle again,” she murmured. “His noise makes my head ache. If I make haste and spin another web, perhaps I can catch him before the maid comes with her broom.”

Having made up her mind, the spider began. On the underpart of her body were four tiny tubes, each with about a thousand still tinier holes. From each tube came a thousand delicate threads made of a gummy fluid. The spider’s hind feet combed and twisted them into one fine thread.

The thread gradually increased in length until a draught caught it and carried it to the edge of the window-curtain, to which it clung.

Several other threads were then stretched from point to point.

“Now,” said the spider, “I can go on building my web.”

Line after line appeared as if by magic. The lines crossed and recrossed, and at every point where they touched a tiny drop of sticky fluid held them firmly together.

The spider viewed her work with satisfaction.

Lastly, she ran a more delicate thread round and round in spiral fashion. At the end of an hour the web was complete.

“Now I will test it,” said the spider; and she tried her work here and there, and found it quite good.

Only a short time passed before the big fly buzzed into the elastic strands. The more he struggled, the more he became entangled.

The spider was hungry and very impatient. She darted from her lair and seized the fly with her terrible claws.

At the end of the feelers were tubes from which she poured poison into the body of her prisoner, while with her fore feet she entangled still further the fly’s legs and wings.

In a few moments the bluebottle was quite still. Securely bound up in the sticky strands, bitten and poisoned, it was clear that he would never again buzz about in the sunshine. Then the spider enjoyed a better meal than she had had for a long time.

An hour later the housemaid came along, and, catching sight of the web, she flicked it with her duster.

“That miserable insect has been at its tricks again,” she said.

The spider was just settling down to a quiet nap after her hearty meal. She did not like being disturbed, but it did not matter so much now. She simply smiled to herself. (See articles on [Spiders]; [Flies] and [Insects in general] in [Book of the Animal Kingdom].)

THE STORY OF PETER PAN

Every child in the world grows up to be a woman or a man. The only one who doesn’t grow up, and won’t, is Peter Pan. He always stays a little boy, which is very jolly indeed, and he’s friends with all little boys and girls,—as you’ll understand if you read.

The Darlings,—Wendy, John, and Michael,—lived with their father and mother. They were rather poor, but it didn’t matter, they were all so fond of each other. They’d a little maid called ’Liza, and, because they hadn’t the money for a proper nurse, they’d a dog instead, named Nana,—wasn’t it funny?

Peter Pan came every night; the window blew open wide, and in he hopped, without a sound, and hurried to Wendy’s side. And a curious little dancing light came in with Peter as well; this was a fairy lady, and her name was Tinker Bell. Peter was dressed in skeleton leaves; he had pipes on which he played—a delightful person. Wendy was not the least little bit afraid. He talked to her of the Never-Land, where she’d always wanted to go. And he said, “If I only teach you to fly, you can get there now, you know!” So John and Michael were taught to fly, and Wendy too, and they found it’s as easy, when you get used to it, as walking on the ground. And at last, when both their father and mother were out, one Friday night, the Darling children and Peter Pan and Tinker Bell took flight. Away in their little nightgowns they flew, as fast as they could go, till they came to the island, the Never-Land, where all the adventures grow.

Now in this island, I must tell you, were wonderful things to find: unknown birds, and curious beasts, and Redskins, fierce but kind. Fairies were there, and Mermaids, and Wolves,—some wild, some tame; and a Crocodile that had swallowed a clock, and ticked wherever it came. But—hush, let us whisper!—the “Jolly Roger,” a rascally pirate craft, with raking masts, and swelling sails, and guns both fore and aft, was anchored there, and the hideous crew were lying in wait, each man, and the captain, Hook, in particular, to kill little Peter Pan. Hook was not his real name; Peter, some while ago, in open fight, had cut off his hand, so now he’d a hook, you know. And as, with a stern and gloomy air, he paced, on his quarterdeck, he was thinking all the time, “I’d like to wring that Peter’s neck!” And the rest of the horrible band of Pirates were always prowling about, to see if they couldn’t capture Peter, and kill him, without a doubt. They crept along, singing “Yeo-ho-ho”—as stealthily as could be, they, and the bo’sum, who, indeed, was the best of them—one Smee. But the Redskins, with the tomahawks, were on the Pirates’ track, and followed them quite noiselessly,—not a single rustle or crack. For they thought the world of Peter Pan; in fact, they all were rather inclined to kneel at his little feet. And they called him “Great White Father.”

PETER PAN, WHO COULD NEVER GROW UP TO BE A MAN

Upon the island there were also some boys—well, counting rightly, there were six: Nibs, Tootles, Curly, and the Twins (no names), and Slightly. And Tootles, by a silly mistake, when he saw the Darlings near, hastily aimed his swiftest arrow, and drew his bow to his ear, and shot poor Wendy. Just at first she was thought to be dead, by her friends. But, finding she wasn’t, they built her a house, in the hope of making amends. They built it right, round her, with branches, leaves, and moss, and lovely make-believe roses clambering quite across. And when it was completed (and it looked remarkably fine), “Oh, Wendy, do be our mother!” they cried, and they hadn’t to ask her twice. “Come in at once, you naughty children!” Wendy delightedly cried; and they all squeezed in, except Peter Pan, who stayed upon guard outside.

There was also a beautiful house under-ground, where elegant mushrooms grew, and a Never-tree also (but every morning they sawed the trunk right through). You entered the house by hollow trees, going up and down quite fast, which was hard at first, but the children did it exceedingly well at last. And here, in the charming underground house, the eight boys slept alone in a great big bed,—for Wendy lived in that dear little house of her own. But every evening she told them stories, and when the stories were done, they’d have a dance in their night-clothes, and a pillow fight,—Oh, such fun! Peter Pan wasn’t always there, because, as you understand, he was busy strolling about the island, or watching with sword in hand. But in the day-time he would come, and take them, not very far, to the blue lagoon, where the weedy rocks and the hundreds of Mermaids are.

And here, one day, both Peter and Wendy received a bit of a shock; for Hook pursued them, and so they climbed on a rock—the Marooners’ Rock. Wendy fainted, and so did Peter. A Mermaid came to see whoever those two little dripping folks on the slippery rock could be. Then Peter perceived the tide was rising, and he tied up Wendy tight to the tail of a kite which was drifting near, and sent her away with the kite. And there he stayed on the rock alone, and he thought he’d be drowned each minute. But the Never-Bird, in her floating nest, came up, and Peter got in it, while the Never-Bird took to a Pirate’s hat, which was luckily close at hand. So Peter went gaily sailing off, and arrived quite safe at land.

Now every night the Redskins were camped above the underground house. And every night the Pirates were creeping, each as still as a mouse (with the terrible Crocodile after them, showing its crunching teeth), while Wendy was cheerfully telling tales to the children down beneath. But, oh dear me! there came a night when that treacherous pirate Hook contrived to surprise the Redskins, and the children; and he took the whole nine children prisoners, exceedingly sad to tell. The only ones who made their escape were Peter and Tinker Bell. And while the unhappy children were roughly carried on board, Peter was off to rescue them, with his trusty dagger and sword. And, just in the nick of time, he arrived. He armed the boys, and they slew, after a most tremendous fight, fifteen of the Pirate crew. And after a thrilling duel, which lasted a very short while, between Hook and Peter, the wicked Hook was thrown to the Crocodile.

So Peter took command of the ship, and they all sailed home, and then, how glad their father and mother were, to have them back again! They all were dressed in the Pirates’ clothes (cut short), and exceedingly grand; and oh, what tales they had to tell of the wonderful Never-Land! Peter, who didn’t like houses at all,—brick ones, and that sort of thing, returned to the Never-Land by himself. But he comes back every spring, and fetches Wendy to help him do spring-cleaning, and Wendy stops and tidies up the little house, which is now in the high tree-tops. As for the boys, they’ve all grown up, so the Pirates’ clothes won’t fit. And as for the great adventures they had, they’ve forgotten them every bit. Only Wendy and Peter Pan can still do just as they please. How happy they are, as they talk up there in the dear little house in the trees!