“Putting up” was cook’s especial delight and this year she had certainly done herself proud.
You may be sure it did not take the Teddy bears long to fall upon such an alluring feast, or rather to fall into it, which they did head first, scooping up the dainties with their paws and gorging themselves like little pigs, spoiling what they could not eat out of sheer wantonness, and finally finishing off with a quantity of luscious honey for which they really had not a sufficient capacity after the miscellaneous collection of sweets that they had already devoured.
They now found themselves very thirsty indeed, and recollected that Sally was extremely fond of a good smelling stuff that she called cider.
They at once resolved to have some, and having rummaged all over the now disorderly kitchen without finding any, decided to continue their researches in the cellar.
Therefore in a few moments the whole crew were scrambling down the cellar steps, Peter Pan lighting the way with a candle, which, with plenty of matches, he had found on one of the closet shelves. The matches were a new proposition to him, and it required several attempts and a quantity of wasted matches before the candle was properly lighted. Peter Pan’s only idea of artificial lighting was indissolubly connected with a button in the wall. But as he had frequently seen cook take along a candle when she was going down cellar he felt that it would be highly improper to descend thither without one.
Teddy bears have no powers of deduction as their brains consist solely of raveled silk and tissue paper. Consequently they never draw inferences, a very lucky thing in the case of Peter Pan.
The cellar stairs were quite different from any that the bears had tried before, being open at the back of the steps. When about half way down one of the twins slipped through and fell to the floor below with a resounding thump.
Immediately he set up a fearful shrieking, not because he was hurt in the least, but because he was dreadfully afraid that the rest of the family would get to the cider before he did.
Now Peter Pan was, as a rule, an extremely indulgent parent, but of late it had commenced to dawn upon his inner consciousness that his offspring were being fearfully spoiled.