TOMMY’S WISHES COME TRUE
CHAPTER ONE
WHY PETER RABBIT HAS ONE LESS ENEMY
Peter Rabbit was happy. There was no question about that. You had only to watch him a few minutes to know it. He couldn’t hide that happiness any more than the sun at midday can hide when there are no clouds in the sky. Happiness seemed to fairly shoot from his long heels as they twinkled merrily this way and that way through the dear Old Briar-patch.
Peter was doing crazy things. He was so happy that he was foolish. Happiness, you know, is the only excuse for foolishness. And Peter was foolish, very, very foolish. He would suddenly jump into the air, kick his long heels, dart off to one side, change his mind and dart the other way, run in a circle, and then abruptly plump himself down under a bush and sit as still as if he couldn’t move. Then, without any warning at all, he would cut up some other funny antic.
He was so foolish and so funny that finally Tommy, who, unseen by Peter, was watching him, laughed aloud. Perhaps Peter doesn’t like being laughed at. Most people don’t. It may be Peter was a little bit uncertain as to why he was being laughed at. Anyway, with a sudden thump of his stout hind-feet, he scampered out of sight along one of his private little paths which led into the very thickest tangle in the dear Old Briar-patch.
“I’ll have to come over here with my gun and get that rabbit for my dinner,” said Tommy, as he trudged homeward. “Probably though, if I have a gun, I won’t see him at all. It’s funny how a fellow is forever seeing things when he hasn’t got a gun, and when he goes hunting he never sees anything!”
Tommy had come to the great gray stone which was his favorite resting-place. He sat down from sheer force of habit. Somehow, he never could get past that stone without sitting on it for a few minutes. It seemed to just beg to be sat on. He was still thinking of Peter Rabbit.
“I wonder what made him feel so frisky,” thought Tommy. Then he laughed aloud once more as he remembered how comical Peter had looked. It must be fun to feel as happy as all that. Without once thinking of where he was, Tommy exclaimed aloud: “I declare, I wish I were a rabbit!”
He was. His wish had come true. Just as quick as that, he found himself a rabbit. You see, he had been sitting on the wishing-stone. If he had remembered, perhaps, he wouldn’t have wished. But he had forgotten, and now here he was, looking as if he might very well be own brother to Peter Rabbit.
Not only did he look like Peter, but he felt like him. Anyway, he felt a crazy impulse to run and jump and do foolish things, and he did them. He just couldn’t help doing them. It was his way of showing how good he felt, just as shouting is a boy’s way, and singing is the way of a bird.