Сказки про кролика Питера. Уровень 1 / The Tale of Peter Rabbit

B! Riddle-me-ree!

Hitty Pitty within the wall,

Hitty Pitty without the wall;

If you touch Hitty Pitty,

Hitty Pitty will bite you!’

Mr. Brown woke up suddenly and carried the mole into his house.

He shut the door in Nutkin’s face. Presently a little thread of blue smoke from a wood fire came up from the top of the tree, and Nutkin peeped through the key-hole and sang —

�A house full, a hole full!

And you cannot gather a bowl-full!’

The squirrels searched for nuts all over the island and filled their little sacks.

But Nutkin gathered oak-apples – yellow and scarlet – and sat upon a beech-stump playing marbles, and watching the door of old Mr. Brown.

On the third day the squirrels got up very early and went fishing; they caught seven fat minnows as a present for Old Brown.

They paddled over the lake and landed under a crooked chestnut tree on Owl Island.

Twinkleberry and six other little squirrels each carried a fat minnow; but Nutkin, who had no nice manners, brought no present at all.

�The man in the wilderness said to me,

�How many strawberries grow in the sea?’

I answered him as I thought good —

�As many red herrings

as grow in the wood.’’

But old Mr. Brown took no interest in riddles – not even when the answer was provided for him.

On the fourth day the squirrels brought a present of six fat beetles, which were as good as plums in plum-pudding for Old Brown.

But Nutkin sang as rudely as ever —

�Old Mr. B! riddle-me-ree

Flour of England, fruit of Spain,

Met together in a shower of rain;

Put in a bag tied round with a string,

If you’ll tell me this riddle,

I’ll give you a ring!’

Which was ridiculous of Nutkin, because he had not got any ring to give to Old Brown.

The other squirrels hunted up and down the nut bushes; but Nutkin gathered robin’s pincushions off a briar bush, and stuck them full of pine-needle pins.

On the fifth day the squirrels brought a present of wild honey; it was so sweet and sticky that they licked their fingers as they put it down upon the stone. They had stolen it out of a bumble bees’ nest on the tippitty top of the hill.