The Velveteen Rabbit | Page 3

beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked
him up, and said, "I declare if that old Bunny hasn't got quite a
knowing expression!"
That was a wonderful Summer!
Near the house where they lived there was a wood, and in the long June
evenings the Boy liked to go there after tea to play. He took the
Velveteen Rabbit with him, and before he wandered off to pick flowers,
or play at brigands among the trees, he always made the Rabbit a little

nest somewhere among the bracken, where he would be quite cosy, for
he was a kind-hearted little boy and he liked Bunny to be comfortable.
One evening, while the Rabbit was lying there alone, watching the ants
that ran to and fro between his velvet paws in the grass, he saw two
strange beings creep out of the tall bracken near him.
They were rabbits like himself, but quite furry and brand-new. They
must have been very well made, for their seams didn't show at all, and
they changed shape in a queer way when they moved; one minute they
were long and thin and the next minute fat and bunchy, instead of
always staying the same like he did. Their feet padded softly on the
ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses, while
the Rabbit stared hard to see which side the clockwork stuck out, for he
knew that people who jump generally have something to wind them up.
But he couldn't see it. They were evidently a new kind of rabbit
altogether.
Summer Days
They stared at him, and the little Rabbit stared back. And all the time
their noses twitched.
"Why don't you get up and play with us?" one of them asked.
"I don't feel like it," said the Rabbit, for he didn't want to explain that
he had no clockwork.
"Ho!" said the furry rabbit. "It's as easy as anything," And he gave a big
hop sideways and stood on his hind legs.
"I don't believe you can!" he said.
"I can!" said the little Rabbit. "I can jump higher than anything!" He
meant when the Boy threw him, but of course he didn't want to say so.
"Can you hop on your hind legs?" asked the furry rabbit.
That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs

at all! The back of him was made all in one piece, like a pincushion. He
sat still in the bracken, and hoped that the other rabbits wouldn't notice.
"I don't want to!" he said again.
But the wild rabbits have very sharp eyes. And this one stretched out
his neck and looked.
"He hasn't got any hind legs!" he called out. "Fancy a rabbit without
any hind legs!" And he began to laugh.
"I have!" cried the little Rabbit. "I have got hind legs! I am sitting on
them!"
"Then stretch them out and show me, like this!" said the wild rabbit.
And he began to whirl round and dance, till the little Rabbit got quite
dizzy.
"I don't like dancing," he said. "I'd rather sit still!"
But all the while he was longing to dance, for a funny new tickly
feeling ran through him, and he felt he would give anything in the
world to be able to jump about like these rabbits did.
The strange rabbit stopped dancing, and came quite close. He came so
close this time that his long whiskers brushed the Velveteen Rabbit's
ear, and then he wrinkled his nose suddenly and flattened his ears and
jumped backwards.
"He doesn't smell right!" he exclaimed. "He isn't a rabbit at all! He isn't
real!"
"I am Real!" said the little Rabbit. "I am Real! The Boy said so!" And
he nearly began to cry.
Just then there was a sound of footsteps, and the Boy ran past near
them, and with a stamp of feet and a flash of white tails the two strange
rabbits disappeared.

"Come back and play with me!" called the little Rabbit. "Oh, do come
back! I know I am Real!"
But there was no answer, only the little ants ran to and fro, and the
bracken swayed gently where the two strangers had passed. The
Velveteen Rabbit was all alone.
"Oh, dear!" he thought. "Why did they run away like that? Why
couldn't they stop and talk to me?"
For a long time he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping that
they would come back. But they never returned, and presently the sun
sank lower and the little white moths fluttered out, and the Boy came
and carried him home.
Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the
Boy loved him just as much. He loved him