Still , she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat . Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl . This shows that , in telling the story of Peter Pan , to begin with the goat -LRB- as most people do -RRB- is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest . Of course , it also shows that Peter is ever so old , but he is really always the same age , so that does not matter in the least . His age is one week , and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday , nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one . The reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days old ; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens . If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape , it shows how completely you have forgotten your own young days . When David heard this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape , but I told him to think back hard , pressing his hands to his temples , and when he had done this hard , and even harder , he distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops , and with that memory came others , as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his mother was asleep , and how she had once caught him half-way up the chimney . All children could have such recollections if they would press their hands hard to their temples , for , having been birds before they were human , they are naturally a little wild during the first few weeks , and very itchy at the shoulders , where their wings used to be . So David tells me . -LSB- Illustration : The fairies have their tiffs with the birds -RSB- I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story : First I tell it to him , and then he tells it to me , the understanding being that it is quite a different story ; and then I retell it with his additions , and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more his story or mine . In this story of Peter Pan , for instance , the bald narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine , though not all , for this boy can be a stern moralist ; but the interesting bits about the ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences of David 's , recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking hard . Well , Peter Pan got out by the window , which had no bars . Standing on the ledge he could see trees far away , which were doubtless the Kensington Gardens , and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that he was now a little boy in a nightgown , and away he flew , right over the houses to the Gardens . It is wonderful that he could fly without wings , but the place itched tremendously , and -- and -- perhaps we could all fly if we were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter Pan that evening . He alighted gaily on the open sward , between the Baby 's Palace and the Serpentine , and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and kick . He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human , and thought he was a bird , even in appearance , just the same as in his early days , and when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he missed it was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand , which , of course , a bird never does . He saw , however , that it must be past Lock-out Time , for there were a good many fairies about , all too busy to notice him ; they were getting breakfast ready , milking their cows , drawing water , and so on , and the sight of the water-pails made him thirsty , so he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink . He stooped and dipped his beak in the pond ; he thought it was his beak , but , of course , it was only his nose , and therefore , very little water came up , and that not so refreshing as usual , so next he tried a puddle and he fell flop into it . When a real bird falls in flop , he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry , but Peter could not remember what was the thing to do , and he decided rather sulkily to go to sleep on the weeping-beech in the Baby Walk .
At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch , but presently he remembered the way , and XXXXX asleep .
fell forgot getting go having lain lie made saw tell