A Surprise Encounter with Samuel Whiskers!

Stolen Items for a "Roly-Poly Pudding"!

The rat in the portrait above is not nearly as horrid looking as the one seen in the barn last evening!
Last evening, as I was about to hitch up the chain on one of the goat pens, what should pop up from the other side of the wall, just a couple of inches away from me, but a big fat rat! His head suddenly came out from behind and over the goat pen wall! We were face to face! I immediately jumped back, screamed to the rafters (which are 45 feet high) and started jumping up and down screaming "It's a Raaaat!!!!!" When Sarah realized what was going on she started screaming, also up to the rafters! My husband stood there and nonchalantly said "You had better set a trap."

In "The Tale of Samuel Whiskers" or "The Roly-Poly Pudding", written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, Samuel Whiskers and his wife Anna Maria steal a pat of butter, a rolling pin, and some dough. In the photograph above, Samuel Whiskers is seen running away with a pat of butter. Below the book is a pat of hand churned butter from Corgyncombe Dairy Goat Carmella Lucille.

In Beatrix Potter's book there are illustrations of the goings on in the dairy whilst the mischievous, missing kittens were being sought. Whilst Tabitha Twitchit was looking for her missing son Tom Kitten, another one of her kittens, Mittens, had hidden in an empty jar near the milk pans in the dairy. When Tabitha finally found her, Mittens exclaimed to her mother that she had seen "a dreadful 'normous big rat" who swiped away a rolling pin and a pat of butter. Another kitten, Moppet, reported that she had spied a woman rat who had pilfered some dough from Tabitha's dough pan. Upon hearing the news of the stolen items, and remembering a roly-poly sound in the attic under the floor, they feared that perhaps a roly-poly pudding, with Tom as the main ingredient, was in the make...

John Joiner the Terrier was summoned to find and free Tom Kitten. In the photograph above, he can be found at the bottom of the page carrying his bag of tools.

In "The Private World of Tasha Tudor", by Tasha Tudor and Richard Brown, Tasha speaks of trapping a rat that reminded her of Samuel Whiskers.

Here is a link to:
"The Tale of Samuel Whiskers", part of "The Word Peter Rabbit and Friends, Beatrix Potter", from YouTube.

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