class="tdlsc">Nurse to the Papooses!

PART I
EARLY DAYS

In one of the nicest nurseries in the world there were beds for three young people called John Napoleon, and Wendy Moira Angela, and Michael, the children of Mr. and Mrs. Darling. The nursery was wide and airy, with a large window, and a bright fire with a high fire-guard round it, and a big clock, and prettily-coloured nursery-rhyme pictures over the walls. It was in many ways a most interesting household. For one thing, although there was a pretty little parlour-maid called Liza, the children were bathed and dressed by a big dog called Nana, whose kennel was kept in the nursery.

On the evening on which our story begins, Nana was dozing peacefully by the fireside, with her head between her paws. Mr. and Mrs. Darling were getting ready to go out to dinner and Nana was to be left in sole charge of the children. Presently the clock went off with a whirr, and struck—one, two, three, four, five, six—time to begin to put the children to bed.

Nana got up, and stretched herself, and carefully switched on the electric light. You would have been surprised to see how cleverly she managed to do that with her mouth. Then she turned the bedclothes neatly down and hung the little pyjamas over the fire-guard. She then trotted up to the bathroom and turned on the water; after feeling it with her paw to make sure that it was not too hot, she went off to look for Michael, who, being the youngest of the three children, must go to bed first. She returned immediately with him sitting astride on her back as though she were a pony. Michael, of course, did not want to be bathed, but Nana was firm and, taking him to the bathroom, shut the door so that he should not be in a draught. Then Mrs. Darling came to peep at him as he splashed about in the nice warm water.

Whilst Mrs. Darling was in the nursery she heard a wee noise outside the window, as a tiny figure, no bigger than a little boy, tried the window-latch, and vanished suddenly at her cry of surprise. She flung the window open, but there was nothing to be seen, nothing but the dim roofs of the neighbouring houses, and the deep blue sky above. She began to frighten herself with eerie bogie tales, for the same thing had happened the day before, when Nana had gone to the window and shut it down so quickly that she had cut off the boy's shadow. Mrs. Darling had found it in Nana's mouth, and had carefully folded it and put it away. But she soon felt reassured when her children came in together in answer to her call. John Napoleon and Wendy were playing at their favourite game of being Father and Mother, and Mrs. Darling's beautiful face beamed with delight as she listened to them. Suddenly, in rushed Mr. Darling, very much excited because he could not fasten his evening tie (evening ties are difficult things to fasten, you know). Mrs. Darling easily managed that for him, and he was soon skipping about the room with Michael on his back, dropping him finally into his bed with a big "bump-ah!"——

WITH MICHAEL SITTING ON HER BACK.

Unfortunately, in going to the bathroom, Nana accidentally brushed against Mr. Darling's beautifully pressed black trousers, and left some of her grey clinging hairs upon them. Now no grown-up person likes hairy trousers, so Mr. Darling was very cross with Nana, and spoke of dismissing her. But Mrs. Darling told him about the weird apparition at the window, how Nana had barked at it and shut the window down so fast that its shadow had been cut clean off and left behind. She showed him the shadow, and told him how glad she was to have such a treasure as Nana for a nurse. "You see how very useful Nana is," concluded Mrs. Darling, as the faithful dog came in with Michael's bottle of cough mixture. But Michael was naughty, and would not take it; there was a fine fuss over it, when Wendy, being a clever little girl, hit on a brilliant idea.

"Father should take some of his medicine to keep Michael company."

"Very well," said Mr. Darling, "we shall see who is the braver." Two glasses were fetched and filled in a moment. "One, two, three," cried Wendy; Michael took his like a man, but Mr. Darling only pretended to, and quietly hid the glass behind his back. John caught him in the act: "Father hasn't taken his!" he cried, and Michael, seeing that he had been tricked, burst into a loud "Boo-hoo-oo!" Mr. Darling, to appease Michael, thought of what seemed to him an excellent joke. He poured his medicine into Nana's drinking-bowl, and when poor Nana, thinking that it was something nice, ran eagerly to lap it up, he roared with laughter to see the reproachful eyes she turned upon him. The children, who loved their old nurse very dearly, were terribly distressed as she slunk to her kennel, looking as woeful and as hurt in her feelings as ever a dog did. Mr. Darling, angry that they did not enjoy his joke in the least, coaxed Nana out of her kennel, seized her by the collar and dragged her off in disgrace, to be chained up in the yard, "the proper place for dogs," he said, in spite of the persuasions and pleadings of them all. Mrs. Darling comforted the children, kissing them very tenderly as mothers always do, tucked them up in their beds, sang them to sleep and, leaving the night-lights burning for company, crept softly out of the room to go to the dinner-party with Mr. Darling.

Everything in the big nursery was now still and quiet. Suddenly the night-lights flickered, waned, and went out one by one, and there darted into the room a tiny ball of fire, which flitted uneasily about and finally vanished into a jug. Then the same slender graceful figure that had so startled Mrs. Darling leapt from the darkness outside the window. There was just one click, the window was open, and the little creature stepped cautiously in. He seemed to be looking for something; and you will easily guess that what he was looking for was his shadow.