"One, two, three, four! five! six leetle rabbits!" said he as he dropped
them into his sack. The Flopsy Bunnies dreamt that their mother was
turning them over in bed. They stirred a little in their sleep, but
still they did not wake up.
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 Bunny (who had remained at home) came
across the field.
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 Bunnies followed at a safe distance.
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 Bunnies, if they had happened
to have been inside it.