Before going to sleep he was
sufficiently wide awake to put a paper bag over his head to keep off the flies.
The little Flopsy Bunnies slept delightfully in
the warm sun. From the lawn beyond the garden came the distant clacketty sound of the mowing machine. The
bluebottles buzzed about the wall, and a little old mouse picked over the rubbish among the jam pots.
(I can tell you her name, she was called Thomasina Tittlemouse, a wood-mouse with a
long tail.)
She rustled across the paper bag, and awakened
Benjamin Bunny.
The mouse apologized profusely, and said that she knew Peter Rabbit.
While she and Benjamin were talking, close under
the wall, they heard a heavy tread above their heads; and suddenly Mr. McGregor emptied out a sackful of
lawn mowings right upon the top of the sleeping Flopsy Bunnies! Benjamin shrank down under his paper bag.
The mouse hid in a jam pot.
The little rabbits smiled sweetly in their sleep
under the shower of grass; they did not awake because the lettuces had been so soporific.
They dreamt that their mother Flopsy was tucking them up in a hay bed.
Mr. McGregor looked down after emptying his sack. He saw some funny little brown tips
of ears sticking up through the lawn mowings. He stared at them for some time.
Presently a fly settled on one of them and it
moved.
Mr. McGregor climbed down on to the rubbish heap —
“One, two, three, four! five! six leetle rabbits!” said he as he dropped them into his
sack. The Flopsy Bunnies dreamt that their mother was turning them over in bed. They stirred a little in
their sleep, but still they did not wake up.
Mr. McGregor tied up the sack and left it on the wall.
He went to put away the mowing machine.
While he was gone, Mrs. Flopsy Bunny (who had
remained at home) came across the field.
She looked suspiciously at the sack and wondered where everybody was?
Then the mouse came out of her jam pot, and
Benjamin took the paper bag off his head, and they told the doleful tale.
Benjamin and Flopsy were in despair, they could not undo the string.
But Mrs. Tittlemouse was a resourceful person. She nibbled a hole in the bottom corner
of the sack.
The little rabbits were pulled out and pinched to
wake them.
Their parents stuffed the empty sack with three rotten vegetable marrows, an old
blacking-brush and two decayed turnips.
Then they all hid under a bush and watched for Mr.
McGregor.
Mr. McGregor came back and picked up the sack, and carried it
off.
He carried it hanging down, as if it were rather heavy.
The Flopsy Bunnies followed at a safe distance.
They watched him go into his house.
And then they crept up to the window to listen.
Mr. McGregor threw down the sack on the stone floor in a way
that would have been extremely painful to the Flopsy Bunnies, if they had happened to have been inside
it.
They could hear him drag his chair on the flags, and chuckle —
“One, two, three, four, five, six leetle rabbits!” said Mr. McGregor.
“Eh? What’s that? What have they been spoiling
now?” enquired Mrs. McGregor.
“One, two, three, four, five, six leetle fat rabbits!” repeated Mr. McGregor, counting
on his fingers — “one, two, three —”
“Don’t you be silly; what do you mean, you silly old man?”
“In the sack! one, two, three, four, five, six!” replied Mr. McGregor.
(The youngest Flopsy Bunny got upon the window-sill.)
Mrs. McGregor took hold of the sack and felt it. She said she
could feel six, but they must be old rabbits, because they were so hard
and all different shapes.
“Not fit to eat; but the skins will do fine to line my old cloak.”
“Line your old cloak?” shouted Mr. McGregor — “I shall sell them and buy myself
baccy!”
“Rabbit tobacco! I shall skin them and cut off their heads.”
Mrs. McGregor untied the sack and put her hand inside.
When she felt the vegetables she became very very angry. She said that Mr. McGregor
had “done it a purpose”.
And Mr. McGregor was very angry too. One of the
rotten marrows came flying through the kitchen window, and hit the youngest Flopsy Bunny.
It was rather hurt.
Then Benjamin and Flopsy thought that it was time
to go home.
So Mr. McGregor did not get his tobacco, and Mrs. McGregor did not get her rabbit
skins.
But next Christmas Thomasina Tittlemouse got a present of enough rabbit-wool to make
herself a cloak and a hood, and a handsome muff and a pair of warm mittens.
The End
FREDERICK WARNE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand,
London WC2R
0RL, England
Website: www.peterrabbit.com
First published by Frederick Warne 1909
This electronic edition first published 2010
New reproductions copyright ©Frederick Warne & Co., 2002
Original copyright in text and illustrations ©Frederick Warne & Co., 1909
Frederick Warne & Co.
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