Adapted from The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter
This is a Tale about a girl named Abigail, and a gale—a wind and rain storm like no other—oh, and a tale about the tail of a little red squirrel.
Abigail had a brother named Theo, and a great many cousins. They all lived in a wood at the edge of a large blue lake.
In the middle of the large blue lake there was an island covered with trees and blueberry bushes. And amongst those trees stood a little log cabin, which was the home of an old woman who everyone called Old Claire.
One late summer day when the blueberries were ripe, and the leaves on the hazel bushes were golden and green—Abigail and Theo and two of their cousins, Sarah and Matthew, came out of the wood and walked down to the edge of the lake.
Their mothers bade them safe journey, and they took their sturdy green and red rowboats, and they paddled away over the water to Tivoli Island where Old Claire lived.
Each cousin had a cotton sack and a large oar and rowed with all their might over the blue water.
They also took with them an offering of savory pies as a present for Old Claire, which they placed upon her door-step, then politely knocked.
When Old Claire opened the door, Theo, Sarah and Matthew each made a low bow, and said politely,
“Ms. Claire, will you favor us with permission to gather blueberries upon your island?”
But Abigail was excessively impertinent in her manners. She hopped from foot to foot in her pretty red dress, like a little clanging bell, singing,
“Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote!
A little wee man in a red, red coat!
A staff in his hand, and a stone in his throat.
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a goat.”
“It’s a cherry!” cried Sarah, afraid Old Claire wouldn’t allow them to pick blueberries, and she was so looking forward to blueberry pie that night!
“Sarah!” Abigail said indignantly. “You gave away the answer!”
Old Claire frowned and harrumphed, and strode grumpily back into her house.
“Abigail! Stop that!” Theo commanded. “Mother said to be polite.”
A little red squirrel chittered at her from the branch of a tree, voicing his displeasure.
The cousins filled their sacks with blueberries and rowed away home in the evening.
Next morning they all came back to Tivoli Island. Theo brought a bowl of fisherman’s stew, his mother’s special recipe, and laid it on the stone in front of Old Claire’s doorway, knocked politely, and when Old Claire appeared, said,
“Ms. Claire, will you favor us with your gracious permission to gather some more blueberries?”
Abigail, began to twirl in front of Old Claire and sang,
“Old Mrs. C! Riddle-me-ree!
Hitty Pitty within the wall,
Hitty Pitty without the wall.
If you touch Hitty Pitty,
Hitty Pitty will bite you!”
“It’s a stinging nettle!” Matthew guessed.
Abigail frowned at her cousin.
Old Claire picked up the bowl of stew and shut the door in Abigail’s face without a word.
The red squirrel flicked its tail from a nearby tree and chattered disagreeably.
Presently a little thread of blue smoke from a wood fire came up from the top of the chimney, and Abigail peeped through the key-hole and sang,
“A house full, a hole full!
And you cannot gather a bowl-full!”
“Is it smoke?” Matthew asked.
“Leave Old Claire be!” Theo hissed at his sister. “You’re going to get us into trouble.”
The cousins searched for blueberries all over the island and filled their little sacks.
Abigail had grown tired of looking for blueberries, so she gathered oak-apples—yellow and scarlet—and sat upon a beech-stump playing marbles, and watching the door of Old Claire’s house.
On the third day the cousins got up very early and went fishing. They caught three fat perch as a present for Old Claire.
They paddled across the blue-green waters of the lake and landed under a crooked chestnut tree on Tivoli Island.
Theo and his cousins each carried a fat perch. But Abigail, who had tired of the work, brought no present at all. She ran onto Old Claire’s porch and sang,
“The man in the wilderness said to me,
‘How many strawberries grow in the sea?’
I answered him as I thought good—
‘As many red herrings as grow in the wood.’”
Old Claire took no interest in riddles and glared at the sassy girl.
On the fourth day the cousins brought a present of four purple plums; each plum was wrapped carefully in tissue paper that rustled within the basket.
Abigail sang as rudely as ever,
“Old Mrs. C! Riddle-me-ree!
Flour of England, fruit of Spain,
Met together in a shower of rain,
Put in a bag tied round with a string.
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a ring!”
Which was ridiculous, because Abigail didn’t have a ring to give to Old Claire.
“Plum pudding,” muttered Sarah, as Old Claire silently retrieved the basket of plums.
The cousins hunted up and down the blueberry bushes, but Abigail gathered robin’s pin cushions off a briar bush, and shook her finger at the red squirrel who scolded her from a nearby tree.
On the fifth day the cousins brought a present of wild honey. It was so sweet and sticky that they licked their fingers as they put it down upon the stone. They had stolen it out of a bumble bees’ nest in the hollow of a tree.
Abigail skipped about below Old Claire’s window and sang,
“Hum-a-bum! Buzz! Buzz! Tipple-tine
I met a flock of bonny swine.
Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed!
They were the very bonniest swine
That ever went over Tipple-tine.”
Old Claire turned up her eyes in disgust at the impertinence of Abigail, but she nodded at the others for the gift of honey!
The cousins filled their sacks with blueberries while Abigail sat on a big flat rock and played a bowling game with a crab apple and green fir-cones, and watched as the little red squirrel gathered acorns for his winter pantry.
On the sixth day, which was Saturday, the cousins came again for the last time. They brought half a dozen purple quail eggs in a little wire basket as a last parting present for Old Claire.
Abigail turned cartwheels and giggled.
“Humpty Dumpty lies on his back,
With a white counterpane round his neck.
Forty doctors and forty men,
Can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!”
Now Old Claire liked eggs, especially quail eggs. The hint of a smile played upon her lips.
Abigail became more and more impertinent.
“Old Mrs. C! Old Mrs. C!
Hickamore, Hackamore, on the King’s kitchen door.
All the King’s horses, and all the King’s men,
Couldn’t drive Hickamore, Hackamore,
Off the King’s kitchen door.”
Abigail danced up and down like a sunbeam. Still Old Claire said nothing at all.
Abigail began again,
“Arthur O’Bower has broken his band,
He comes roaring up the land!
The King of Scots with all his power,
Cannot turn Arthur of the Bower!”
Abigail made a whirring noise to sound like the wind. Old Claire went into her house and shut the door.
The children left in their green and red rowboats, just as dark clouds covered the sun, and a fearsome wind and storm blew over the lake, as if Abigail had called the wind with her riddle. Sarah and Matthew, a little further ahead, were able to row to the shore near their home, but Abigail and Theo were blown back toward the island.
The little red squirrel saw Old Claire at one of the open windows and leaped onto the window sill to tell her the children were in trouble. Unfortunately, Old Claire did not see the red squirrel before she closed the window upon the poor little squirrel’s tail. The red squirrel pulled so very hard to get away that his tail broke in two, the remainder of his tail trapped under the wooden frame.
That’s the last time I try to help those nasty humans, he thought, running quickly into a tree to lament and chudder against his bad fortune.
Old Claire braved the storm to make sure her little boat was securely tied to the pier. That’s when she saw Abigail and Theo struggling to row against the might of the storm. The rain lashed them with cold fury and the wind piled waves up against their small craft. Abigail was terrified the boat would be capsized.
This is what I get for being rude to Old Claire, she thought miserably.
Old Claire shouted words of encouragement that were torn away by the wind’s clawing fingers. Theo made his last strenuous efforts, and Abigail grabbed onto the pier. Old Claire tied the craft to the dock and helped the children up and to her house.
When they were dry and warm by the fire, and full of hibiscus tea, Old Claire unexpectedly said,
“If you can’t answer this riddle, my young impudent girl, you’ll never come here to taunt me again. Deal?”
“Deal,” Abigail answered, contrite about her earlier behavior.
“Voiceless it cries,
Wingless it flutters,
Toothless it bites
Mouthless it mutters.”
Abigail thought for a moment. A shutter banged against the outside of the log cabin.
“The wind!” Abigail cried triumphantly. They would come back next year for blueberries.
And Old Claire had no more to say, as usual.
Abigail and Theo rowed home the next day under calm as a blue bird skies.
And to this day, if you meet a red squirrel with half a tail up in a tree, he will throw a stick at you, and stamp his feet and scold and shout.
August, 2021 Laura Deane LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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