At least he thinks so , and it is one of the pathetic things about him that he often plays quite wrongly . You see , he had no one to tell him how children really play , for the fairies were all more or less in hiding until dusk , and so know nothing , and though the buds pretended that they could tell him a great deal , when the time for telling came , it was wonderful how little they really knew . They told him the truth about hide-and-seek , and he often plays it by himself , but even the ducks on the Round Pond could not explain to him what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys . Every night the ducks have forgotten all the events of the day , except the number of pieces of cake thrown to them . They are gloomy creatures , and say that cake is not what it was in their young days . So Peter had to find out many things for himself . He often played ships at the Round Pond , but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on the grass . Of course , he had never seen a hoop , and he wondered what you play at with them , and decided that you play at pretending they are boats . This hoop always sank at once , but he waded in for it , and sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim of the pond , and he was quite proud to think that he had discovered what boys do with hoops . Another time , when he found a child 's pail , he thought it was for sitting in , and he sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of it . Also he found a balloon . It was bobbing about on the Hump , quite as if it was having a game by itself , and he caught it after an exciting chase . But he thought it was a ball , and Jenny Wren had told him that boys kick balls , so he kicked it ; and after that he could not find it anywhere . Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was a perambulator . It was under a lime-tree , near the entrance to the Fairy Queen 's Winter Palace -LRB- which is within the circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts -RRB- , and Peter approached it warily , for the birds had never mentioned such things to him . Lest it was alive , he addressed it politely , and then , as it gave no answer , he went nearer and felt it cautiously . He gave it a little push , and it ran from him , which made him think it must be alive after all ; but , as it had run from him , he was not afraid . So he stretched out his hand to pull it to him , but this time it ran at him , and he was so alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat . You must not think , however , that he was a coward , for he came back next night with a crust in one hand and a stick in the other , but the perambulator had gone , and he never saw another one . I have promised to tell you also about his paddle .
It was a child 's spade which he had found near St. Govor 's Well , and he XXXXX it was a paddle .
approached gone kicked run sank stretched tell think thought waded