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FOR ALL LITTLE FRIENDS OF
MR. MCGREGOR &
PETER & BENJAMIN
The Tale of
the Flopsy Bu
( 1909 )
It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is “soporific”.
I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit.
They certainly had a very soporific effect upon the Flopsy Bu
When Benjamin Bu
I do not remember the separate names of their children; they were generally called the “Flopsy Bu
As there was not always quite enough to eat – Benjamin used to borrow cabbages from Flopsy’s brother, Peter Rabbit, who kept a nursery garden.
Sometimes Peter Rabbit had no cabbages to spare.
When this happened, the Flopsy Bu
Mr. McGregor’s rubbish heap was a mixture. There were jam pots and paper bags, and mountains of chopped grass from the mowing machine (which always tasted oily), and some rotten vegetable marrows and an old boot or two. One day – oh joy! – there were a quantity of overgrown lettuces, which had “shot” into flower.
The Flopsy Bu
Benjamin was not so much overcome as his children. 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 Bu
(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 Bu
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 Bu
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 fu
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 Bu
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 Bu
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 Bu
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 Bu
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 Bu