Miss Potter Doesn't Live Here

One night, not too long ago, my children and I settled down for a little Beatrix Potter before bedtime. As we read about the scamperings of naughty rabbits and rooted for Benjamin Bunny and little Peter to escape Mr. McGregor’s garden, cabbages clutched in their furry little paws, I suddenly had a horrible moment of clarity.

I am Mr. McGregor.

I finished the story, bundled the children into bed and went to think about this disturbing development in the relative quiet of my living room – yet no matter how I approached it, I couldn’t dispute the facts.

I have run after rabbits screaming hellfire at the top of my lungs. I have walked through my cabbages examining each leaf for telltale nibbles, and grumbling non-sensibly when evidence of tampering was found. I have thrown trowels, flower pots, and anything conveniently at hand at various four-legged creatures found loitering amongst the lettuces. I have even encouraged my friendly Labrador to access his ferocious side and chase a varmint or two under the fence. And yes, I have eaten rabbit pie (albeit not of the homegrown variety).

It’s pretty shocking to come face to face with the fact that you are, in effect, closely aligned with one of literature’s great villains. But think carefully before you judge me dear friends. Remember, we never heard this classic story from Mr. McGregor’s point of view – and a story always has two sides.

From Peter Rabbit’s perspective, Mr. McGregor’s garden was infinite in scope and variety, a veritable wonderland of fruit and veg. But then again, Peter was all of eight inches high. Perhaps Mr. McGregor was just a small landowner like myself, using every square inch of available space to grow prized lettuces or showpiece peonies. Perhaps he and Mrs. McGregor bought themselves a little place on the edge of a woodland, never dreaming that it housed a menagerie of cardigan-toting bunnies and literate hedgehogs. And when they began to descend like an Egyptian plague, we know that he tried every preventative trick in the book to save his cabbages, such as fencing his property, putting up a scarecrow and hiring an attack cat. Yet still the hoards of rabbits came. And came regularly by all accounts. Some even brought pocket handkerchiefs for the express purpose of stuffing them full of onions, and still others had their portraits painted holding carrots in one hand and radishes in the other. The sheer effrontery of these creatures must have played havoc with Mr. McGregor’s sanity. Would you convict the man for trying to catch every one of the Flopsy Bunnies in order to line his old cloak?

There are days on my little plot when the homicidal ravings of this poor Scottish gardener seem quite harmless, and even well-tempered. Last month I had nineteen cabbages sprouting beautifully from rich loamy soil. This month I have nineteen stumps where nineteen cabbages used to be. Now granted, rabbits weren’t directly responsible, and Beatrix Potter never immortalized ‘Charlie the Loveable Cabbage Looper’ in her stories. But when one has endured such loss with stoicism, and then comes out on to the deck early one morning to find Benjamin Bunny collecting lettuces for his Sunday dinner, can one be faulted for charging half-clothed down the staircase, spewing fire and brimstone and ending up upside down in the raspberry canes?

And yet, I am not totally without feeling for the creatures who call my garden home. When Squirrel Nutkin and his cousin Timmy Tiptoes visit my bird feeder in the middle of winter, I let them gorge themselves. After all, they are as hungry as most of the chickadees, and infinitely more entertaining. When Jeremy Fisher’s brother-in-law Mr. Toad showed up in my chard bed last week, I upturned a broken terracotta pot, so he should have a place to hang his hat. I even threw a few slugs in after him so he wouldn’t have far to go for a square meal. And everyone knows I would be happy to give a warm home to Jemima Puddle-Duck and her good friend Chicken Little, should zoning permit it. For every groundhog I have trapped, every raven I have verbally abused, every rabbit I have charged, there is a snake that I have tried not to disturb, a newt I have re-covered with a stone, a praying mantis I have welcomed with a smile.

And yes, there is a method to my madness – and some might say, blatant cross-species discrimination. I have a garden…a precious garden. Each cabbage is loved; each flower bud watched and fawned over. The creatures who wish to help me in this enterprise are welcome. They are encouraged to build families and establish great estates – they can even have their portraits painted among the petunias with my blessing.

But woe to those who have decided that the chickweed growing on the other side of the fence no longer holds its allure, and that lettuce is a far more respectable dish for a growing varmint. To these determined creatures I have only this to say:

“Welcome to Mr. McGregor’s Garden. Enter at your peril.”