by Moe Zilla

Created on: July 24, 2010

"The Tale of Samuel Whiskers" is a surprisingly intense story by Beatrix Potter. The story opens with Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, who's locking her mischievous kittens into a cupboard.  But one of her three kittens has escaped, and she searches futilely for him throughout the book's first 10 pages. Then the story's point of view to follow the lost kitten's adventure - and the rats who have kidnapped him!

An "old woman rat" ties up poor Tom Kitten with a knotty string, while her husband requests that he be cooked into "a kitten dumpling roly-poly pudding". There's at least three realistic images of the poor, bound kitten - and in one image, an indifferent spider looks on. Then the kitten is rolled up in a tube of dough, which the rats try to flatten with a rolling pin. "His tail is sticking out! You did not fetch enough dough...!" one of the rats complains.

Beatrix Potter dedicates this story "In remembrance of Sammy, the intelligent pink-eyed representative of a persecuted (but irrespressible) race." Its original title was "The Tale of Samuel Whiskers," though she seems to have later abandoned the idea of naming her fairy tale after the hungry rat. Early on in the book, the mother kitten worries that her house is "infested with rats" - and it's apparently inspired by a real-life event. According to Wikipedia, Beatrix Potter's own estate was once invaded by rats - and the "Sammy" she's remembering had been one of her own pets!

It's always fun to read a Beatrix Potter story where you recognize the characters from her earlier books. Tom Kitten had his own tale (where the fancy clothing that his mother dressed him in was eventually stolen by Jemimah Puddle-duck). And in this story, Tom's mother (Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit) receives a visit from another cat - her cousin Ribby - who you may remember as the hostess trying to serve a mouse pie in "The Pie and  the Patty-pan." And a new character - the dog who comes to the rescue - was apparently modeled on one of Potter's handyman neighbors. In the story, he turns down a dinner invitation with the cat family because "he had just finished making a wheelbarrow for Miss Potter, and she had ordered two hen coops!"

Fortunately, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit deduces what the rats are up to from the items she notices missing in her kitchen  - butter, dough, and a rolling pin. Plus she'd heard "a roly-poly noise" in the attic, and concludes that it's being used to try to roll her missing kitten into a dumpling! The kitten is rescued, and this story ends with a surprisingly grand conclusion. Potter looks omnisciently at the lives of the two kittens, saying they have now grown up - into very good rat-catchers.

But after his own experiences, poor Tom Kitten had a lifelong aversion to rats!

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