A Collection of Beatrix Potter StoriesPotter, Beatrix
General
A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories
Potter, Beatrix
Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, English; Short stories
AND rushed into the toolshed, 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.
MR. McGREGOR was quite sure that Peter was somewhere in the toolshed,
perhaps hidden underneath a flower-pot. He began to turn them over
carefully, looking under each.
Presently Peter sneezed--"Kertyschoo!" Mr. McGregor was after him in no
time,
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 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.
After a time he began to wander about, going lippity--lippity--not very
fast, and looking all around.
HE found a door in a wall; but it was locked, and there was no room for
a fat little rabbit to squeeze underneath.
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.
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 gold-fish; 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.
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 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.
MR. McGREGOR hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scare-crow to
frighten the blackbirds.
PETER never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the
big fir-tree.
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!
I AM sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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