"Once upon a time there were three little kittens, and their names were Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet."
Beatrix Potter does a wonderful job with her story-telling in this book, creating not just a family of cats, but their personalities. Soon their mother cat has called her kittens in to dress for "the fine company" she's expecting, and she scrubs their faces, brushers their fur, and combs their whiskers. Tom Kitten is the naughtiest kitten, and scratches, but eventually the children are wearing their best clothes. But then their mother "unwisely turned them out into the garden, to be out of the way while she made hot buttered toast."
Honestly, it seems unwise to even try dressing up kittens in the first place, and soon enough Tom's accidentally popped out of all his "elegant uncomfortable clothes". Their mother expected the three kittens to keep their clothing clean by walking on their hind legs - but that's going to be the least of their problems. In the garden, Potter introduces a new set of unpredictable characters, saying three Puddle-ducks "came along the hard high road, marching one behind the other and going the goose step - pit pat, paddle pat! pit pat, waddle pat!"
I was fascinated by the Puddle-ducks, who at first simply stared up at the kittens on the wall. Then two of the ducks, without saying a word, put on Tom Kitten's hat and shirt, making one of the kittens laugh. Soon they're wearing all of the clothes, and waddling off down the road. Then the mother cat "came down the garden and found her kittens on the wall with no clothes on.
The story offers another interesting glimpse into the world of Beatrix Potter. (My first thought while reading this story was, "Hey, I remember Miss Moppet! She chased a mouse in 'The Tale of Miss Moppet.'") And it turns out their mother is named Tabitha Twitchit, who you may remember as the shopkeeper-cat in "The Pie and the Patty-Pan." (Her cousin was Ribby, the black cat who invited a dog over for lunch - only to discover that the dog really didn't want to eat the mouse pie she'd prepared...) One of the Puddle-ducks is named Jemima, who Potter would write about in a later story. I'm not sure why she dedicated the book to "all pickles - especially to those that get upon my garden wall," though according to Wikipedia, she'd used a real kitten for her illustrations, and later described the energetic rascal as "a most fearful pickle."
The story ends on an almost nihlistic note, since the kittens never recover their clothes, and don't get to meet the fine guests. And when they're sent to their rooms, they make a lot of noise anyways, so they still manage to ruin their mother's tea party. The duck's who stole the clothes lose them almost immediately when the clothes fall off and sink into the lake ("because there were no buttons"). It's a funny story, but it could've been called "The Tale of Tom Kitten's Pants," and towards the end Potter seems to recognize it was all a delightfully rebellious digression.
"I think that some day I shall have to make another, larger book, to tell you more about Tom Kitten!"