Short Fiction

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The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Mrs. Rabbit (wearing a blue dress and white apron) tucks Peter into bed. Only the tips of his ears and paws are visible.

Rabbits peek out from underneath and around the roots of a tree.

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

They lived with their Mother in a sandbank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.

“Now my dears,” said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, “you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden.”

Mrs. Rabbit says goodbye to her children. Peter, in his blue coat, is looking away from Mrs. Rabbit.

“Your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

Mr. McGregor, knife and fork in hand, looks at a steaming pie being brought to him by Mrs. McGregor.

“Now run along, and don’t get into mischief. I am going out.”

Mrs. Rabbit buttons up Peter’s coat while his siblings walk away.

Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella, and went through the wood to the baker’s. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.

Mrs. Rabbit walks through the wood with her basket and umbrella. She’s wearing a red scarf, red coat, and a yellow and black striped skirt.

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries;

Peter’s siblings are picking blackberries, while blackbirds try to steal them.

But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Peter runs over the fields, in his blue coat.

And squeezed under the gate!

Peter squeezes under a wooden gate, which is tugging on his coat.

First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes;

Peter sits in the garden with a carrot in each paw, and another on the ground next to him. Behind him, perched on a fork handle, a robin in singing.

And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.

Peter walks through a vegetable garden, with his paws on his tummy.

But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!

Mr. McGregor kneels on the ground with a tool for planting small plants. He looks surprised to see Peter.

Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, “Stop thief!”

Peter, looking scared, runs across a green lawn, pursued by Mr. McGregor waving a rake.

Peter was most dreadfully frightened; he rushed all over the garden, for he had forgotten the way back to the gate.

He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.

One of Peter’s shoes lies under a cabbage plant, watched by a yellow bird.

After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new.

Peter tumbles over, with a button on his coat stuck in a net under a gooseberry bush.

Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears; but his sobs were overheard by some friendly sparrows, who flew to him in great excitement, and implored him to exert himself.

Three sparrows tweet at Peter, who is still stuck in the net and looks sad.

Mr. McGregor came up with a sieve, which he intended to pop upon the top of Peter; but Peter wriggled out just in time, leaving his jacket behind him.

Peter and the three sparrows flee from underneath the sieve, leaving his blue jacket on the ground.

And rushed into the tool-shed, and jumped into a can. It would have been a beautiful thing to hide in, if it had not had so much water in it.

Peter jumps into a watering can as water splashes out of the top.

Mr. McGregor was quite sure that Peter was somewhere in the tool-shed, perhaps hidden underneath a flowerpot. He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each.

Presently Peter sneezed⁠—“Kertyschoo!” Mr. McGregor was after him in no time.

Peter’s ears stick out from the watering can, while Mr. McGregor hunts under flowerpots in the background.

And tried to put his foot upon Peter, who jumped out of a window, upsetting three plants. The window was too small for Mr. McGregor, and he was tired of running after Peter. He went back to his work.

Peter escapes from the potting shed, followed by Mr. McGregor’s boot. He knocks over three geraniums in pots as he jumps.

Peter sat down to rest; he was out of breath and trembling with fright, and he had not the least idea which way to go. Also he was very damp with sitting in that can.

Peter stands, dripping wet, in a flowerbed, next to a robin.

After a time he began to wander about, going lippity⁠—lippity⁠—not very fast, and looking all round.

He found a door in a wall; but it was locked, and there was no room for a fat little rabbit to squeeze underneath.

Peter runs up to a closed door in a garden wall.

An old mouse was running in and out over the stone doorstep, carrying peas and beans to her family in the wood. Peter asked her the way to the gate, but she had such a large pea in her mouth that she could not answer. She only shook her head at him. Peter began to cry.

Peter tries to squeeze through the door, while a mouse watches him.

Then he tried to find his way straight across the garden, but he became more and more puzzled. Presently, he came to a pond where Mr. McGregor filled his water-cans. A white cat was staring at some goldfish, she sat very, very still, but now and then the tip of her tail twitched as if it were alive. Peter thought it best to go away without speaking to her; he had heard about cats from his cousin, little Benjamin Bunny.

A white cat looks into a pond filled with goldfish, who look back. Peter is in the distance on the other side of a lawn.

He went back towards the tool-shed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he heard the noise of a hoe⁠—scr‑r‑ritch, scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter scuttered underneath the bushes. But presently, as nothing happened, he came out, and climbed upon a wheelbarrow and peeped over. The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate!

Peter sits in a wheelbarrow, looking out over a field with a gate on the other side. Mr. McGregor is directly between Peter and the gate.

Peter got down very quietly off the wheelbarrow; and started running as fast as he could go, along a straight walk behind some black-currant bushes.

Mr. McGregor caught sight of him at the corner, but Peter did not care. He slipped underneath the gate, and was safe at last in the wood outside the garden.

Peter runs down a path and under a gate. Mr. McGregor is in the distance, chasing Peter with a rake.

Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scarecrow to frighten the blackbirds.

Peter’s blue coat and little black shoes are hanging from a stick in a vegetable garden. Three blackbirds look on, while Mr. McGregor tends to the cabbages in the background.

Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir-tree.

Peter arrives at the entrance to the family burrow. His three siblings, still in their red coats, look on.

He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole and shut his eyes. His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the second little jacket and pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a fortnight!

Peter sleeps on his side, while his mother in her blue dress and white apron looks at him while cooking. His three siblings look on from the entrance to the burrow.

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.

His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter!

“One tablespoonful to be taken at bedtime.”

Mother heats some tea in a kettle over the fire, while Peter watches from his bed.

But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail hold spoons and stand around a tall blue pot and pitcher. There’s a basket of blackberries on the floor.

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin

Two red squirrels, Nutkin and Twinkleberry, harvest hazelnuts from a tree into a small bag.

Nutkin sits on a tree branch, nibbling on a hazelnut.

This is a Tale about a tail⁠—a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.

He had a brother called Twinkleberry, and a great many cousins: they lived in a wood at the edge of a lake.

In the middle of the lake there is an island covered with trees and nut bushes; and amongst those trees stands a hollow oak-tree, which is the house of an owl who is called Old Brown.

Many red squirrels run down to the edge of a lake. One is standing on a raft made of twigs on the water.

One autumn when the nuts were ripe, and the leaves on the hazel bushes were golden and green⁠—Nutkin and Twinkleberry and all the other little squirrels came out of the wood, and down to the edge of the lake.

They made little rafts out of twigs, and they paddled away over the water to Owl Island to gather nuts.

Each squirrel had a little sack and a large oar, and spread out his tail for a sail.

In front of a heather-covered hill, many red squirrels travel on twig rafts to an island.

Red squirrels stand in a rough circle around the owl Old Brown, who is standing asleep at the base of a tree.

They also took with them an offering of three fat mice as a present for Old Brown, and put them down upon his doorstep.

Then Twinkleberry and the other little squirrels each made a low bow, and said politely⁠—

“Old Mr. Brown, will you favour us with permission to gather nuts upon your island?”

But Nutkin was excessively impertinent in his manners. He bobbed up and down like a little red cherry, singing⁠—

“Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote!
A little wee man, in a red red coat!
A staff in his hand, and a stone in his throat;
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a groat.”

Now this riddle is as old as the hills; Mr. Brown paid no attention whatever to Nutkin.

He shut his eyes obstinately and went to sleep.

A sleepy-looking Mr. Brown sits at the base of a tree with a mouse in each claw, while Nutkin jumps up and down next to him.

Squirrels sitting on a tree branch next to a reedbed place nuts in sacks, and lower them down to their cousins below.

The squirrels filled their little sacks with nuts, and sailed away home in the evening.

But next morning they all came back again to Owl Island; and Twinkleberry and the others brought a fine fat mole, and laid it on the stone in front of Old Brown’s doorway, and said⁠—

“Mr. Brown, will you favour us with your gracious permission to gather some more nuts?”

Red squirrels carrying sacks stand in front of Old Brown, while Twinkleberry talks to him.

Nutkin stands in front of Old Brown and tickles his beak with a nettle.

But Nutkin, who had no respect, began to dance up and down, tickling old Mr. Brown with a nettle and singing⁠—

“Old Mr. B! Riddle-me-ree!
Hitty Pitty within the wall,
Hitty Pitty without the wall;
If you touch Hitty Pitty,
Hitty Pitty will bite you!”

Mr. Brown woke up suddenly and carried the mole into his house.

He shut the door in Nutkin’s face. Presently a little thread of blue smoke from a wood fire came up from the top of the tree, and Nutkin peeped through the keyhole and sang⁠—

“A house full, a hole full!
And you cannot gather a bowl-full!”

Nutkin bends down in front of a door set into the base of a tree and sings into the keyhole.

Nutkin picks up acorns from a beech stump outside Old Brown’s door.

The squirrels searched for nuts all over the island and filled their little sacks.

But Nutkin gathered oak-apples⁠—yellow and scarlet⁠—and sat upon a beech-stump playing marbles, and watching the door of old Mr. Brown.

On the third day the squirrels got up very early and went fishing; they caught seven fat minnows as a present for Old Brown.

They paddled over the lake and landed under a crooked chestnut tree on Owl Island.

Five red squirrels fish with poles from rocks and rafts in the lake.

Nutkin runs on ahead of a line of other red squirrels, all on a grassy path running through a forest.

Twinkleberry and six other little squirrels each carried a fat minnow; but Nutkin, who had no nice manners, brought no present at all. He ran in front, singing⁠—

“The man in the wilderness said to me,
“How many strawberries grow in the sea?”
I answered him as I thought good⁠—
“As many red herrings as grow in the wood.”

But old Mr. Brown took no interest in riddles⁠—not even when the answer was provided for him.

On the fourth day the squirrels brought a present of six fat beetles, which were as good as plums in plum-pudding for Old Brown. Each beetle was wrapped up carefully in a dock-leaf, fastened with a pine-needle pin.

But Nutkin sang as rudely as ever⁠—

“Old Mr. B! riddle-me-ree
Flour of England, fruit of Spain,
Met together in a shower of rain;
Put in a bag tied round with a string,
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a ring!”

Which was ridiculous of Nutkin, because he had not got any ring to give to Old Brown.

Four red squirrels stand around a china plate, on which is a set of leaf parcels.

The other squirrels hunted up and down the nut bushes; but Nutkin gathered robin’s pincushions off a briar bush, and stuck them full of pine-needle pins.

On the fifth day the squirrels brought a present of wild honey; it was so sweet and sticky that they licked their fingers as they put it down upon the stone. They had stolen it out of a bumble bees’ nest on the tippitty top of the hill.

But Nutkin skipped up and down, singing⁠—

“Hum-a-bum! buzz! buzz! Hum-a-bum buzz!
As I went over Tipple-tine
I met a flock of bonny swine;
Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed!
They were the very bonniest swine
That e’er went over Tipple-tine.”

Three red squirrels inspect their collection of nuts.

Old Brown sits in a carved wooden chair, eating some food from a plate on a table in front of him. Nutkin peers in through the window behind him.

Old Mr. Brown turned up his eyes in disgust at the impertinence of Nutkin.

But he ate up the honey!

The squirrels filled their little sacks with nuts.

But Nutkin sat upon a big flat rock, and played ninepins with a crab apple and green fir-cones.

Nutkin stands on a rock and bowls an apple towards some fir-cones that he’s arranged.

Five red squirrels walk out of the lake, carrying an egg in a basket. Nutkin runs ahead up the shore.

On the sixth day, which was Saturday, the squirrels came again for the last time; they brought a new-laid egg in a little rush basket as a last parting present for Old Brown.

But Nutkin ran in front laughing, and shouting⁠—

“Humpty Dumpty lies in the beck,
With a white counterpane round his neck,
Forty doctors and forty wrights,
Cannot put Humpty Dumpty to rights!”

Now old Mr. Brown took an interest in eggs; he opened one eye and shut it again. But still he did not speak.

Mr. Brown inspects the egg that the squirrels have brought. Nutkin has climbed up to the level of his beak and is gesturing at the egg.

Nutkin dances for the other squirrels and Old Brown. The squirrels look a little worried, and Old Brown looks more annoyed than impressed.

Nutkin became more and more impertinent⁠—

“Old Mr. B! Old Mr. B!
Hickamore, Hackamore, on the King’s kitchen door;
All the King’s horses, and all the King’s men,
Couldn’t drive Hickamore, Hackamore,
Off the King’s kitchen door.”

Nutkin danced up and down like a sunbeam; but still Old Brown said nothing at all.

Nutkin began again⁠—

“Arthur O’Bower has broken his band,
He comes roaring up the land!
The King of Scots with all his power,
Cannot turn Arthur of the Bower!”

Nutkin made a whirring noise to sound like the wind, and he took a running jump right onto the head of Old Brown!⁠ ⁠…

Then all at once there was a flutterment and a scufflement and a loud “Squeak!”

The other squirrels scuttered away into the bushes.

Old Brown shrieks with his claws out and beak open wide. The squirrels scatter away from his tree.

The squirrels peek back around the side of the tree. Old Brown can just be seen, standing still with his eyes almost closed.

When they came back very cautiously, peeping round the tree⁠—there was Old Brown sitting on his doorstep, quite still, with his eyes closed, as if nothing had happened.

But Nutkin was in his waistcoat pocket!

This looks like the end of the story; but it isn’t.

Old Brown stands in the doorway to his house, with one foot on Nutkin’s neck. The other red squirrels in the background look shocked.

Old Brown carried Nutkin into his house, and held him up by the tail, intending to skin him; but Nutkin pulled so very hard that his tail broke in two, and he dashed up the staircase and escaped out of the attic window.

Nutkin, missing most of his tail, jumps down from the tree and runs off to his cousins in the distance. Old Brown peers out of the attic window after him.

Nutkin, missing half his tail, plays with his cousins on a tree branch.

And to this day, if you meet Nutkin up a tree and ask him a riddle, he will throw sticks at you, and stamp his feet and scold, and shout⁠—

“Cuck‑cuck‑cuck‑cur‑r‑r‑cuck‑k‑k!”

The Tailor of Gloucester

“I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass; and entertain a score or two of tailors.”
Richard III

My dear Freda,

Because you are fond of fairytales, and have been ill, I have made you a story all for yourself⁠—a new one that nobody has read before.

And the queerest thing about it is⁠—that I heard it in Gloucestershire, and that it is true⁠—at least about the tailor, the waistcoat, and the “No more twist!”

A tailor sits next to a window surrounded by scraps of cloth. He is sewing a piece of cloth on his lap.

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets⁠—when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta⁠—there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

He sat in the window of a little shop in Westgate Street, cross-legged on a table, from morning till dark.

All day long while the light lasted he sewed and snippeted, piecing out his satin and pompadour, and lutestring; stuffs had strange names, and were very expensive in the days of the Tailor of Gloucester.

But although he sewed fine silk for his neighbours, he himself was very, very poor⁠—a little old man in spectacles, with a pinched face, old crooked fingers, and a suit of threadbare clothes.

He cut his coats without waste, according to his embroidered cloth; they were very small ends and snippets that lay about upon the table⁠—“Too narrow breadths for nought⁠—except waistcoats for mice,” said the tailor.

One bitter cold day near Christmastime the tailor began to make a coat⁠—a coat of cherry-coloured corded silk embroidered with pansies and roses, and a cream coloured satin waistcoat⁠—trimmed with gauze and green worsted chenille⁠—for the Mayor of Gloucester.

A mouse in a mob cap and extremely puffy dress is holding a large magnifying glass and sitting on a large expanse of embroidered green fabric. Another mouse is peeking through a seam in the background.

The tailor worked and worked, and he talked to himself. He measured the silk, and turned it round and round, and trimmed it into shape with his shears; the table was all littered with cherry-coloured snippets.

“No breadth at all, and cut on the cross; it is no breadth at all; tippets for mice and ribbons for mobs! for mice!” said the Tailor of Gloucester.

When the snowflakes came down against the small leaded windowpanes and shut out the light, the tailor had done his day’s work; all the silk and satin lay cut out upon the table.

There were twelve pieces for the coat and four pieces for the waistcoat; and there were pocket flaps and cuffs, and buttons all in order. For the lining of the coat there was fine yellow taffeta; and for the buttonholes of the waistcoat, there was cherry-coloured twist. And everything was ready to sew together in the morning, all measured and sufficient⁠—except that there was wanting just one single skein of cherry-coloured twisted silk.

The tailor came out of his shop at dark, for he did not sleep there at nights; he fastened the window and locked the door, and took away the key. No one lived there at night but little brown mice, and they run in and out without any keys!

The tailor walks out of his shop, leaving behind him cut pieces of cloth and some coats hanging on pegs.

The tailor walks down the snowy street. The buildings on either side are close together and overhang the road.

For behind the wooden wainscots of all the old houses in Gloucester, there are little mouse staircases and secret trapdoors; and the mice run from house to house through those long narrow passages; they can run all over the town without going into the streets.

But the tailor came out of his shop, and shuffled home through the snow. He lived quite near by in College Court, next the doorway to College Green; and although it was not a big house, the tailor was so poor he only rented the kitchen.

He lived alone with his cat; it was called Simpkin.

Now all day long while the tailor was out at work, Simpkin kept house by himself; and he also was fond of the mice, though he gave them no satin for coats!

“Miaw?” said the cat when the tailor opened the door. “Miaw?”

The tailor replied⁠—“Simpkin, we shall make our fortune, but I am worn to a ravelling. Take this groat (which is our last fourpence) and Simpkin, take a china pipkin; buy a penn’orth of bread, a penn’orth of milk and a penn’orth of sausages. And oh, Simpkin, with the last penny of our fourpence buy me one penn’orth of cherry-coloured silk. But do not lose the last penny of the fourpence, Simpkin, or I am undone and worn to a thread-paper, for I have no more twist.”

Simpkin the cat sits on a chair next to a dresser full of plates and jugs, with its paws on a china pot with pink decorations. Also on the chair and dresser are three mice in cage traps.

The tailor dozes in a chair in front of a wide fireplace.

Then Simpkin again said, “Miaw?” and took the groat and the pipkin, and went out into the dark.

The tailor was very tired and beginning to be ill. He sat down by the hearth and talked to himself about that wonderful coat.

“I shall make my fortune⁠—to be cut bias⁠—the Mayor of Gloucester is to be married on Christmas Day in the morning, and he hath ordered a coat and an embroidered waistcoat⁠—to be lined with yellow taffeta⁠—and the taffeta sufficeth; there is no more left over in snippets than will serve to make tippets for mice⁠—”

Then the tailor started; for suddenly, interrupting him, from the dresser at the other side of the kitchen came a number of little noises⁠—

Tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!

“Now what can that be?” said the Tailor of Gloucester, jumping up from his chair. The dresser was covered with crockery and pipkins, willow pattern plates, and teacups and mugs.

The tailor crossed the kitchen, and stood quite still beside the dresser, listening, and peering through his spectacles. Again from under a teacup, came those funny little noises⁠—

Tip tap, tip tap, Tip tap tip!

“This is very peculiar,” said the Tailor of Gloucester; and he lifted up the teacup which was upside down.

The tailor stands in front of the dresser, and peers underneath a teacup.

Out stepped a little live lady mouse, and made a curtsey to the tailor! Then she hopped away down off the dresser, and under the wainscot.

The tailor sat down again by the fire, warming his poor cold hands, and mumbling to himself⁠—

“The waistcoat is cut out from peach-coloured satin⁠—tambour stitch and rosebuds in beautiful floss silk. Was I wise to entrust my last fourpence to Simpkin? One-and-twenty buttonholes of cherry-coloured twist!”

But all at once, from the dresser, there came other little noises:

Tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!

“This is passing extraordinary!” said the Tailor of Gloucester, and turned over another teacup, which was upside down.

Out stepped a little gentleman mouse, and made a bow to the tailor!

And then from all over the dresser came a chorus of little tappings, all sounding together, and answering one another, like watch-beetles in an old worm-eaten window-shutter⁠—

Tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!

And out from under teacups and from under bowls and basins, stepped other and more little mice who hopped away down off the dresser and under the wainscot.

Three mice stand on the dresser in front of the tailor. At his feet looking up at him are two more mice, while six more run away.