A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories Part 12

"Oh those are wooly coats belonging to the little lambs at Skelghyl."

"Will their jackets take off?"

asked Lucy.

"Oh yes, if you please'm; look at the sheep-mark on the shoulder. And here's one marked for Gatesgarth, and three that come from Little-town.

They're ALWAYS marked at was.h.i.+ng!" said Mrs. Tiggy- winkle.

AND she hung up all sorts and sizes of clothes-- small brown coats of mice; and one velvety black mole- skin waist-coat; and a red tail- coat with no tail belonging to Squirrel Nutkin; and a very much shrunk blue jacket belonging to Peter Rabbit; and a petticoat, not marked, that had gone lost in the was.h.i.+ng --and at last the basket was empty!

THEN Mrs. Tiggy-winkle made tea--a cup for herself and a cup for Lucie. They sat before the fire on a bench and looked sideways at one another. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle's hand, holding the tea-cup, was very very brown, and very very wrinkly with the soap-suds; and all through her gown and her cap, there were HAIR-PINS sticking wrong end out; so that Lucie didn't like to sit too near her.

WHEN they had finished tea, they tied up the clothes in bundles; and Lucie's pocket-handkerchiefs were folded up inside her clean pinny, and fastened with a silver safety-pin.

And then they made up the fire with turf, and came out and locked the door, and hid the key under the door-sill.

THEN away down the hill trotted Lucie and Mrs.

Tiggy-winkle with the bundles of clothes!

All the way down the path little animals came out of the fern to meet them; the very first that they met were Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny!

AND she gave them their nice clean clothes; and all the little animals and birds were so very much obliged to dear Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.

SO that at the bottom of the hill when they came to the stile, there was nothing left to carry except Lucie's one little bundle.

LUCIE scrambled up the stile with the bundle in her hand; and then she turned to say "Good-night," and to thank the washer-woman-- But what a VERY odd thing!

Mrs. Tiggy-winkle had not waited either for thanks or for the was.h.i.+ng bill!

She was running running running up the hill--and where was her white frilled cap? and her shawl? and her gown--and her petticoat?

AND how small she had grown--and how brown --and covered with p.r.i.c.kLES!

Why! Mrs. Tiggy-winkle was nothing but a HEDGEHOG.

(Now some people say that little Lucie had been asleep upon the stile-- but then how could she have found three clean pocket-handkins and a pinny, pinned with a silver safety-pin?

And besides--_I_ have seen that door into the back of the hill called Cat Bells--and besides _I_ am very well acquainted with dear Mrs. Tiggy-winkle!)

THE TALE OF GINGER & PICKLES

ONCE upon a time there was a village shop. The name over the window was "Ginger and Pickles."

It was a little small shop just the right size for Dolls--Lucinda and Jane Doll-cook always bought their groceries at Ginger and Pickles.

The counter inside was a convenient height for rabbits. Ginger and Pickles sold red spotty pocket- handkerchiefs at a penny three farthings.

They also sold sugar, and snuff and galoshes.

In fact, although it was such a small shop it sold nearly everything --except a few things that you want in a hurry--like bootlaces, hair-pins and mutton chops.

Ginger and Pickles were the people who kept the shop. Ginger was a yellow tom-cat, and Pickles was a terrier.

The rabbits were always a little bit afraid of Pickles.

The shop was also patronized by mice--only the mice were rather afraid of Ginger.

Ginger usually requested Pickles to serve them, because he said it made his mouth water.

"I cannot bear," said he, "to see them going out at the door carrying their little parcels."

"I have the same feeling about rats," replied Pickles, "but it would never do to eat our own customers; they would leave us and go to Tabitha Twitchit's."

"On the contrary, they would go nowhere," replied Ginger gloomily.

(Tabitha Twitchit kept the only other shop in the village. She did not give credit.)

Ginger and Pickles gave unlimited credit.

Now the meaning of "credit" is this--when a customer buys a bar of soap, instead of the customer pulling out a purse and paying for it--she says she will pay another time.

And Pickles makes a low bow and says, "With pleasure, madam,"

and it is written down in a book.

The customers come again and again, and buy quant.i.ties, in spite of being afraid of Ginger and Pickles.

But there is no money in what is called the "till."

The customers came in crowds every day and bought quant.i.ties, especially the toffee customers.

But there was always no money; they never paid for as much as a pennyworth of peppermints.

But the sales were enormous, ten times as large as Tabitha Twitchit's.

As there was always no money, Ginger and Pickles were obliged to eat their own goods.

Pickles ate biscuits and Ginger ate a dried haddock.