The Velveteen Rabbit Read online

  This eBook is courtesy of the Celebration of Women Writers, online at https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/.

  THE Velveteen Rabbit

  OR HOW TOYS BECOME REAL

  by Margery Williams Illustrations by William Nicholson

  DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. Garden City New York _________________________________________________________________

  To Francesco Bianco from The Velveteen Rabbit _________________________________________________________________

  List of Illustrations

  Christmas Morning The Skin Horse Tells His Story Spring Time Summer Days Anxious Times The Fairy Flower At Last! At Last! _________________________________________________________________

  HERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was reallysplendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat wasspotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his earswere lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedgedin the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between hispaws, the effect was charming.

  There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toyengine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbitwas quite the best of all. For at least two hours the Boy loved him,and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a greatrustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in theexcitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit wasforgotten.

  Christmas Morning

  For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor,and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, andbeing only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quitesnubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked downupon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretendedthey were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons andlost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed anopportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbitcould not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know thatreal rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdustlike himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date andshould never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointedwooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should havehad broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected withGovernment. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feelhimself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person whowas kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.

  The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others.He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed theseams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulledout to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a longsuccession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, andby-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that theywere only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nurserymagic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings thatare old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand allabout it.

  "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side byside near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Doesit mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

  "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing thathappens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not justto play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

  "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

  "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "Whenyou are Real you don't mind being hurt."

  "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bitby bit?"

  "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. Ittakes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people whobreak easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been lovedoff, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and veryshabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you areReal you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

  "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he hadnot said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But theSkin Horse only smiled.

  The Skin Horse Tells His Story

  "The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many yearsago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts foralways."

  The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before thismagic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to knowwhat it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing hiseyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become itwithout these uncomfortable things happening to him.

  There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes shetook no notice of the playthings lying about, and sometimes, for noreason whatever, she went swooping about like a great wind and hustledthem away in cupboards. She called this "tidying up," and theplaythings all hated it, especially the tin ones. The Rabbit didn'tmind it so much, for wherever he was thrown he came down soft.

  One evening, when the Boy was going to bed, he couldn't find the chinadog that always slept with him. Nana was in a hurry, and it was toomuch trouble to hunt for china dogs at bedtime, so she simply lookedabout her, and seeing that the toy cupboard door stood open, she madea swoop.

  "Here," she said, "take your old Bunny! He'll do to sleep with you!"And she dragged the Rabbit out by one ear, and put him into the Boy'sarms.

  That night, and for many nights after, the Velveteen Rabbit slept inthe Boy's bed. At first he found it rather uncomfortable, for the Boyhugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, andsometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit couldscarcely breathe. And he missed, too, those long moonlight hours inthe nursery, when all the house was silent, and his talks with theSkin Horse. But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talkto him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that hesaid were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in. And they hadsplendid games together, in whispers, when Nana had gone away to hersupper and left the night-light burning on the mantelpiece. And whenthe Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down closeunder his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands claspedclose round him all night long.

  And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy-so happythat he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was gettingshabbier and shabbier, and his tail becoming unsewn, and all the pinkrubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him.

  Spring came, and they had long days in the garden, for wherever theBoy went the Rabbit went too. He had rides in the wheelbarrow, andpicnics on the grass, and lovely fairy huts built for him under theraspberry canes behind the flower border. And once, when the Boy wascalled away suddenly to go out to tea, the Rabbit was left out on thelawn until long after dusk, and Nana had to come and look for him withthe candle because the Boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there.He was wet through with the dew and quite earthy from diving into theburrows the Boy had made for him in the flower bed, and Nana grumbledas she rubbed him off with a corner of her apron.

 
Spring Time

  "You must have your old Bunny!" she said. "Fancy all that fuss for atoy!"

  The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands.

  "Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy.He's REAL!"

  When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew that whatthe Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic hadhappened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boyhimself had said it.

  That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirredin his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into hisboot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came alook of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morningwhen she picked him up, and said, "I declare if that old Bunny hasn'tgot quite a knowing