A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories | Page 7

the old man rat (whose name was Samuel
Whiskers),-- "Anna Maria, make me a kitten dumpling roly-poly
pudding for my dinner."
"It requires dough and a pat of butter, and a rolling-pin," said Anna

Maria, considering Tom Kitten with her head on one side.
"No," said Samuel Whiskers, "make it properly, Anna Maria, with
breadcrumbs."
"Nonsense! Butter and dough," replied Anna Maria.
The two rats consulted together for a few minutes and then went away.
Samuel Whiskers got through a hole in the wainscot, and went boldly
down the front staircase to the dairy to get the butter. He did not meet
anybody.
He made a second journey for the rolling- pin. He pushed it in front of
him with his paws, like a brewer's man trundling a barrel.
He could hear Ribby and Tabitha talking, but they were busy lighting
the candle to look into the chest.
They did not see him.
Anna Maria went down by way of the skirting-board and a window
shutter to the kitchen to steal the dough.
She borrowed a small saucer, and scooped up the dough with her paws.
She did not observe Moppet.
While Tom Kitten was left alone under the floor of the attic, he
wriggled about and tried to mew for help.
But his mouth was full of soot and cob- webs, and he was tied up in
such very tight knots, he could not make anybody hear him.
Except a spider, which came out of a crack in the ceiling and examined
the knots critically, from a safe distance.
It was a judge of knots because it had a habit of tying up unfortunate
blue-bottles. It did not offer to assist him.
Tom Kitten wriggled and squirmed until he was quite exhausted.
Presently the rats came back and set to work to make him into a
dumpling. First they smeared him with butter, and then they rolled him
in the dough.
"Will not the string be very indigestible, Anna Maria?" inquired
Samuel Whiskers.
Anna Maria said she thought that it was of no consequence; but she
wished that Tom Kitten would hold his head still, as it disarranged the
pastry. She laid hold of his ears.
Tom Kitten bit and spat, and mewed and wriggled; and the rolling-pin
went roly- poly, roly; roly, poly, roly. The rats each held an end.
"His tail is sticking out! You did not fetch enough dough, Anna Maria."

"I fetched as much as I could carry," replied Anna Maria.
"I do not think"--said Samuel Whiskers, pausing to take a look at Tom
Kitten--"I do NOT think it will be a good pudding. It smells sooty."
Anna Maria was about to argue the point, when all at once there began
to be other sounds up above--the rasping noise of a saw; and the noise
of a little dog, scratching and yelping!
The rats dropped the rolling-pin, and listened attentively.
"We are discovered and interrupted, Anna Maria; let us collect our
property,-- and other people's,--and depart at once."
"I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding."
"But I am persuaded that the knots would have proved indigestible,
whatever you may urge to the contrary."
"Come away at once and help me to tie up some mutton bones in a
counterpane," said Anna Maria. "I have got half a smoked ham hidden
in the chimney."
So it happened that by the time John Joiner had got the plank up--there
was nobody under the floor except the rolling-pin and Tom Kitten in a
very dirty dumpling!
But there was a strong smell of rats; and John Joiner spent the rest of
the morning sniffing and whining, and wagging his tail, and going
round and round with his head in the hole like a gimlet.
Then he nailed the plank down again, and put his tools in his bag, and
came downstairs.
The cat family had quite recovered. They invited him to stay to dinner.
The dumpling had been peeled off Tom Kitten, and made separately
into a bag pudding, with currants in it to hide the smuts.
They had been obliged to put Tom Kitten into a hot bath to get the
butter off.
John Joiner smelt the pudding; but he regretted that he had not time to
stay to dinner, because he had just finished making a wheel-barrow for
Miss Potter, and she had ordered two hen-coops.
And when I was going to the post late in the afternoon--I looked up the
lane from the corner, and I saw Mr. Samuel Whiskers and his wife on
the run, with big bundles on a little wheel-barrow, which looked very
like mine.
They were just turning in at the gate to the barn of Farmer Potatoes.
Samuel Whiskers was puffing and out of breath. Anna Maria was