Free The Velveteen Rabbit & Other Stories by Margery Williams Page B

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, orplay 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 thesame 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.

    They stared at him, and the little Rabbit stared back. And all the time their noses twitched.
    â€œWhy don’t you get up and play with us?” one of them asked.
    â€œI don’t feel like it,” said the Rabbit, for he didn’t want to explain that he had no clockwork.
    â€œHo!” said the furry rabbit. “It’s as easyas anything.” And he gave a big hop sideways and stood on his hind legs.
    â€œI don’t believe you can!” he said.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œCan 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.
    â€œI don’t want to!” he said again.
    But the wild rabbits have very sharpeyes. And this one stretched out his neck and looked.
    â€œHe hasn’t got any hind legs!” he called out. “Fancy a rabbit without any hind legs!” And he began to laugh.
    â€œI have!” cried the little Rabbit. “I have got hind legs! I am sitting on them!”
    â€œThen 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.
    â€œI 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 jumpabout 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.
    â€œHe doesn’t smell right!” he exclaimed. “He isn’t a rabbit at all! He isn’t real!”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œCome back and play with me!” called thelittle Rabbit. “Oh, do come back! I know I am Real!”
    But there was no answer, only the little ants