This is the story of the Velveteen Rabbit and it's by Marjorie Williams.
The version I have is in a tiny little book,
It's a miniature version with very beautiful illustrations by Don Daly.
Are you ready for me to begin?
Good.
There was once a Velveteen Rabbit,
And he was really splendid.
On Christmas morning,
When he sat wedged in the top of the boy's stocking,
With a sprig of holly between his paws,
The effect was charming.
For at least two hours,
The boy loved him.
And then aunts and uncles came to dinner,
And in the excitement,
The Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.
For a long time,
He lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor,
And no one thought very much about him.
The only person who was kind to him was the skin horse,
Who was very wise.
What is real?
Asked the rabbit one day.
It's the thing that happens to you,
Said the skin horse,
When a child loves you for a long,
Long time,
Not just to play with,
But really loves you.
Then you become real.
Does it happen all at once?
He asked,
Or bit by bit?
It doesn't happen all at once.
It takes a long time.
Generally,
By the time you are real,
Most of your hair has been loved off,
And your eyes drop out,
And you get loose in the joints and very shabby.
The rabbit sighed.
He thought it would be a long time before this magic called real happened to him.
One evening,
When the boy was going to bed,
He couldn't find the china dog that always slept with him.
Here,
Nana said,
Take your old bunny,
He'll do to sleep with you.
That night,
And for many nights after,
The Velveteen Rabbit slept in the boy's bed.
When the boy dropped off to sleep,
The rabbit would snuggle close and dream.
And so time went on,
And the little rabbit was very happy.
So happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier,
And his tail was coming unsewn,
And all the pink rubbed off his nose where the boy had kissed him.
Spring came,
And they had long days in the garden,
For wherever the boy went,
The rabbit went too.
Once,
The rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk,
And Nana had to look for him because the boy couldn't sleep unless he was there.
Fancy all that fuss for a toy,
She said.
You mustn't say that,
The boy said,
He isn't a toy,
He's real.
When the little rabbit heard that,
He was happy,
For he knew that what the skin horse had said was true at last.
He was real.
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.
One evening,
While the rabbit was lying there alone,
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.
Why don't you get up and play with us?
One of them asked.
I don't feel like it,
Said the rabbit,
But he didn't want to explain that he had no clockwork.
Ha,
Said the furry rabbit,
It's as easy as anything,
And he gave a big hop sideways.
I don't believe you can.
I can,
Said the little rabbit,
I can jump higher than anything.
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 said,
And began to laugh.
I have,
Cried the little rabbit,
I have got hind legs,
I'm sitting on them.
Then stretch them out and show me,
Like this,
Said the wild rabbit,
And he began to dance.
I don't like dancing,
The little rabbit said,
I'd rather sit still.
But all the while he was longing to dance,
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 doesn't smell right,
He exclaimed.
He isn't a rabbit at all.
He isn't real.
I am real,
Said the little rabbit,
The boy said so.
Just then there was a sound of footsteps,
And with a flash of white tails,
The two strange rabbits disappeared.
Come back and play with me,
Called the little rabbit,
I know I am real.
For a long time he lay very still,
Hoping that they would come back,
But they never returned,
And the boy came and carried him home.
One day the boy was ill.
Strange people came and went in the nursery,
And a light burned all night.
It was a long,
Weary time,
For the boy was too ill to play,
But the rabbit looked forward to the time when the boy should be well again.
Eventually he got better and was able to sit up in bed and look at picture books.
The boy was going to the seaside tomorrow.
Everything was arranged,
And now it only remained to carry out the doctor's orders.
The room was to be disinfected,
And all the boys,
Books and toys that he had played with had to be burnt.
Just then,
Nana caught sight of the little rabbit.
How about this old bunny,
She asked.
That,
Said the doctor,
Why,
It's a mass of scarlet fever germs,
Burn it at once.
And so the little rabbit was put into a sack with the old picture books and a lot of rubbish,
And carried out to the end of the garden.
The sack had been left untied,
And so by wriggling a bit,
He was able to get his head through the opening.
Nearby he could see the thicket of raspberry canes,
Growing tall and close like a tropical jungle,
In whose shadow he had played with the boy on bygone mornings.
Of what use was it to be loved,
And lose one's beauty,
And become real,
If it all ended like this?
And a tear,
A real tear,
Trickled down his shabby velvet nose,
And fell to the ground.
And then a strange thing happened,
For where the tear had fallen,
A flower grew out of the ground,
A mysterious flower,
Not at all like any that grew in the garden.
And presently,
The blossom opened,
And out of it,
There stepped a fairy.
I am the nursery magic fairy,
She said.
I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved.
When they are old and worn out,
I come and take them away with me,
And turn them into real.
Wasn't I real before?
Asked the little rabbit.
You were real to the boy,
The fairy said,
Because he loved you.
Now you shall be real to everyone.
She held the little rabbit close in her arms,
And flew with him into the wood.
In an open glade,
Between the tree trunks,
The wild rabbit danced on velvet grass.
I've brought you a new playfellow,
The fairy said.
You must be very kind to him,
For he's going to live with you forever and ever.
And she kissed the little rabbit,
And put him down on the grass.
Run and play,
Little rabbit,
She said.
But the little rabbit sat quite still for a moment,
And never moved,
For when he saw all the wild rabbits dancing around him,
He suddenly remembered about his hind legs.
He might have sat there for a long time,
Too shy to move,
If just then something hadn't tickled his nose,
And before he thought what he was doing,
He lifted his hind toe to scratch it.
And he found that he actually had hind legs.
He gave one leap,
And the joy of using those hind legs was so great that he went springing about the turf on them.
He was a real rabbit at last,
At home with the other rabbits.
In the spring,
When the days grew warm and sunny,
The boy went out to play in the wood behind the house.
While he was playing,
Two rabbits crept out from the bracken,
And peeped at him.
One of them had strange markings under his fur,
As though long ago he had been spotted,
And a spot still showed through.
And about his soft little nose,
And his round black eyes,
There was something familiar,
So that the boy thought to himself,
Why,
He looks just like my old bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever.
But he never knew that it really was his own bunny.
Come back to look at the child,
Who had first helped him to be real.
The end.
