Chapter IX: Why Taffy the Welshman Stole Meat

Taffy the Welshman had come to Pudding Lane and that quiet village was in a turmoil. For Taffy was not only a Welshman but Taffy was a thief. Perhaps you have heard of him. He specialized in meat.

Some thieves go in for gold watches, some deal in silver spoons. Taffy confined himself to meat. Once in a while he descended to bones, but usually it was meat, here a knuckle of veal, there a shoulder of lamb, yonder a round of beef. If ever a man knew how to steal meat, Taffy was that man. He could nip off a roast as you or I couldn’t nip off a feather, airily, easily, with jaunty grace. He could nip it when you weren’t looking or when you were. He could nip ten pounds or one pound with equal art. A born genius was Taffy, and he loved his work and pursued it diligently.

Thus it was that every morning Mrs. Dumpty, Mrs. Claus, the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Mrs. Jack Spratt and all the other women of Pudding Lane would trot to the butcher’s and buy meat; every afternoon Taffy would steal it, and every night--no meat for supper. And the men were getting tired of it. Especially Jack Spratt.

“It’s all very well,” he said to Mrs. Spratt one day, “it’s all very well for these foreigners to come swarming into our fair city, but I must have lean meat soon, or I don’t guarantee, Mrs. Spratt, I don’t guarantee that nothing will happen.”

Mrs. Spratt quailed. Her husband’s was a delicate constitution and she well knew what the effect would be if he were deprived of meat much longer. He would probably slam doors and kick things. He might even hurl his shoe. Once he had hurled his shoe when there was a shortage of lean meat in Pudding Lane. Awful to think of it, but he did do it.

“Yes,” repeated Jack Spratt, “it’s all very well for foreign robbers to come swarming--”

Really though, Jack Spratt was talking nonsense. In the first place, poor Taffy hadn’t “swarmed” into Pudding Lane. If there’s only one of you, you can’t swarm; there was only one of Taffy. In the second place, Jack Spratt needn’t have laid down the law like that to his wife. She couldn’t help it if Taffy was a thief. She was tired of eggs and lettuce herself, and thought yearningly of her own favorite fat meat. At night she dreamed of it, juicy, dripping chunks of it.

It was like that in every house in Pudding Lane, the men demanding meat, the women buying it, and then losing it that way. It did seem rather queer that the women couldn’t keep their meat once they had bought it, but they couldn’t. Even the Queen of Hearts couldn’t keep her meat, and the unfortunate lady had many a scene with Old King Cole over the disappearance of the royal chops.

“I can’t help it,” she told him, “if your friend Taffy steals meat all over the place. But if I were the King--of course, I’m only a woman, a mere Queen--but if I were the King, I’d soon fix that fellow. I’d take it up with the Welsh ambassador.” Which shows how much she knew about diplomatic matters. And it wasn’t any use talking to her, for if Old King Cole had said there wasn’t any Welsh ambassador, the Queen would have demanded, “Well, why isn’t there one?” and a long argument would have ensued. Some women are like that.

Only two people in Pudding Lane did not suffer from the ravages of the thieving Taffy. One was Little Miss Muffett, who was quite content now, as always, with her curds and whey; and the other was the butcher. For the more meat Taffy stole, the more meat the butcher sold. He was doing a rushing business and he was very happy. Furiously he bought pigs and sheep and beeves at the big market in Banbury Cross, and brought them back on loads and droves to Pudding Lane. Furiously the women bought his meat butchered from these pigs and sheep and beeves. Furiously Taffy nipped the meat from their cupboards and cellars and shelves. Yes, the butcher was very happy.

But as Jack Spratt had intimated, this state of affairs could not go on forever. The men were getting worse. They stalked savagely; they had glitterings in their eyes; they gathered in the candlestick-maker’s shop and muttered together. Even that mild husband and father, Mr. Claus, was a changed man, and one day, as he eyed his wife in an odd, bloodthirsty way, Mrs. Claus spoke her mind.

“Look here, Mr. Claus,” said she, “I’m not a roast of mutton, sir.”

Mr. Claus gaped.

“Nor am I a leg of pork,” went on the extraordinary woman.

Mr. Claus gaped wider.

“So you needn’t look at me like a cannibal,” she told him. “I won’t be cooked and eaten, even by you. Pray don’t delude yourself.”

“My dear--” remonstrated the baker with a ghastly smile.

“No,” continued Mrs. Claus, “nor shall you cast your eyes upon my children in that fashion. No doubt Santa Claus would make a delicious meal, Mr. Claus, but you shall not feast yourself upon him. Yes, and the twins would probably be as tender flesh as a man could taste, but you are not the man who will taste it. I am surprised at you, Mr. Claus, that you should turn heathen like this and want to eat your family alive; I really am.”

Oh, what a woman she was! Had Mr. Claus mentioned eating his family? Had he even thought of such an atrocious thing? Yet on and on rattled Mrs. Claus, and she probably would have been rattling on yet, if just then the Town Crier had not come along, ringing his bell and shouting something. What was he saying?

“Make your sandwiches! Bake your cakes! To-morrow is picnic day!”

Picnic day, oh, yes, so it was. To-morrow was picnic day; Mrs. Claus had quite forgotten it.

Now the picnic that the Town Crier was calling was the picnic that Pudding Lane had been talking about all summer, but never, until now, had really got around to. It was a bit late for picnics, being September, but you have to have at least one picnic a year, and if it won’t come off early in the season, it just has to come off late, that’s all. And to-morrow, finally, Pudding Lane’s annual picnic was to come off.

But how can you have a picnic without ham? Mrs. Claus wanted to know. And what is a picnic without cold tongue? demanded Mrs. Dumpty. Nevertheless, the women went ahead making their sandwiches just the same, cheese sandwiches and currant jam sandwiches, and sandwiches of watercress. They baked their cakes and stuffed their eggs and fished out their pickles and collected their bananas and packed their baskets with all these things. And the next morning at nine o’clock the whole town started out for Honeysuckle Hill.

The picnic went off with a bang, despite the meat crisis. Indeed, so successful an affair was that picnic that Old King Cole felt moved to make a formal statement, and he did so, saying that it was very gratifying to him as king for a picnic to attain such heights as this. Although just why he should have been gratified, I don’t know, since all he did for the picnic was to come to it and eat at it. Still, his statement made the women very happy; it’s a great thing to please a king.

And so everything was going as smoothly as you please--until something happened to Miss Muffett.

It was this way. Little Miss Muffett sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. She was talking and smiling and having a lovely time when along came a spider and sat down beside her. Oh, dear, how she jumped and screamed. For if there was anything in the world that Little Miss Muffett was afraid of, it was a spider. And yet spiders were always pursuing her. Every time that girl sat down on a tuffet to enjoy her repast of curds and whey, along would come a spider and sit down beside her, just as that spider did to-day. It may be that spiders are particularly fond of curds and whey, or perhaps Miss Muffett herself had a fatal fascination for spiders. Anyway, wherever she went she was pursued by spiders, an unhappy fortune, surely, for a little girl as timid as Miss Muffett.

To-day, however, the courtly Mr. Horner, always the man to assist a lady in distress, rose up heroically and chased the spider off. At least, he thought he chased the spider off, and everybody else, including Miss Muffett, thought so too, when suddenly the spider appeared again beside Miss Muffett and this time frightened Miss Muffett away.

One look at the hideous creature sitting there so calmly beside her, and overboard went the bowl of curds and whey, up flew Miss Muffett shrieking, and away she was gone, down Pinafore Pike in a cloud of dust.

Mr. Horner, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker and all the other men let out great roars, the women screamed, the children cried. What a scene, where all had been sweet peace before. And then, away leaped Mr. Horner down the road after Miss Muffett, away leaped Mr. Spratt after him, and in another moment every man, woman and child in Pudding Lane was tearing madly down Pinafore Pike behind the flying skirts and scampering feet of Little Miss Muffett.

And the spider? Well, the spider with one look at the empty havoc around him, legged it off to Mrs. Spider and the children, sighing as he went. It was too bad, he was thinking to himself. He adored Little Miss Muffett with all the fervor of his spiderish heart, yet every time he went near her, she squealed and pulled up her skirt and ran away from him.

Perhaps she didn’t like him, he thought. Oh, dear, it’s a hard world for spiders. Nobody really likes them, even when they are as faithful and devoted as this old fellow was. Well, Mrs. Spider liked him anyway, he reflected, and the spider children liked him too. Home was the place for spiders, so home he would go and there in the bosom of his family console himself as best he could.

For ten good minutes the people of Pudding Lane kept their furious pace down Pinafore Pike. They panted and heaved and got red in the face, especially Mrs. Dumpty; their knees wobbled and waggled, especially the candlestick-maker’s; their tongues hung out, particularly Simple Simon’s; their arms flapped, Mr. Claus’s most of all. But still they kept on.

Old King Cole lost his best ruby crown and never looked back after it. Polly Flinders stubbed her pretty toes and bore the pain unflinchingly. Mrs. Claus’s back hair went streaming in the wind, and she didn’t even know it.

What they were running for, I don’t know, and they didn’t know themselves, I’m afraid. Why they didn’t stop, I can’t say. But they didn’t, until they turned the corner toward Banbury Cross and there they did stop, suddenly and stock-still.

And it was no wonder they stopped, for the most astonishing sight confronted them. Indeed, it was so astonishing they couldn’t believe they were seeing aright. It didn’t seem possible that they _could_ be seeing hundreds of cats and hundreds of dogs like that.

For that’s just what they saw: hundreds of cats and hundreds of dogs, all there together, with hundreds of bones and hundreds of chunks of meat. And in the midst of that mass of fur and sharp eyes and wagging tails and crunching jaws stood Taffy the Welshman, smiling happily at the scene.

The people of Pudding Lane blinked; they rubbed their eyes. Surely something was the matter with their eyesight. But Taffy himself looked natural enough, and his voice when he spoke, sounded natural too. Taffy was speaking; he addressed himself, very properly, to Old King Cole.

“Welcome, sir,” said he graciously. “Welcome to Your Majesty, welcome to the Queen of Hearts, and heartiest greetings to all your people here.”

But Old King Cole couldn’t answer, for staring at the cats and dogs.

“I knew you would come some day,” went on Taffy smoothly, “and now--here you are. We welcome you, sir, cats, dogs and Taffy himself.”

No answer from Old King Cole, glaring angrily now at the cats and dogs.

“You must understand, sir,” began Taffy.

“But that’s just it,” burst out Old King Cole, “I don’t understand at all. I tell you, Welshman, this is a serious thing. You break the law, you defy punishment, you steal meat from my people day in and day out, and now I find you here, consorting with hundreds of dogs and hundreds of cats on the public highway. Can it be, sir, that you have robbed us of beef and mutton only to feed these beasts?”

“That is the truth, Your Majesty,” answered Taffy softly. “I spend my life stealing meat for these poor creatures. Is it so wrong of me?”

“Wrong? Of course it’s wrong,” thundered Old King Cole. “Don’t you know wrong from right, Welshman? Didn’t your mother teach you that it was wrong to steal?”

“Ah,” replied Taffy, “but you don’t know about these cats and dogs, King Cole. These are special cats and dogs, sir.”

“Special cats and dogs?”

“Yes, sir, stray cats from London and Banbury Cross, the loneliest cats in the world; dogs without owners, the most miserable dogs there ever were. Oh, you should have seen them when they first came to me. They would have broken your heart. Seedy, dingy, scrawny, all of them, sad-eyed and starving.”

“Starving?” repeated Old King Cole incredulously.

“Starving,” whispered everybody else, frightened.

“Starving,” said Taffy again. “That’s why it takes so much meat now, King Cole. They eat all the time, sir. You can see how they’re eating now. I don’t suppose they ever will get really filled up. They’ve been at it for days, yes, and for nights too.”

“They eat all night too?” asked King Cole.

“All night long and all day long and never stop except for the briefest of naps,” Taffy told him. “You see, there’s no joke about this, King Cole. These are really hungry animals.”

It was easy to see that Taffy was right, for as the people of Pudding Lane looked at the animals, not one cat raised an eye at them, or not one dog, but lickety-lick, crunchety-crunch, they kept on eating, eating, eating.

It was an odd sight, all those gray and black and brown furry bodies, all those tails in the air, all those clamping jaws, and not one sound but lickety-lick, crunchety-crunch. It was a sad sight too, for the people of Pudding Lane had never known that animals could be as hungry as that.

And so they nearly turned themselves inside out in their generosity, those kind-hearted citizens of Pudding Lane. Mr. Spratt declared rashly that he didn’t care if he never saw a piece of lean meat again; Mr. Claus magnificently offered to abstain from beef the rest of his life; and Old King Cole ordered the Queen of Hearts to see that eggs appeared thereafter on the royal breakfast table, instead of the usual chops.

Taffy, however, wouldn’t listen to these sacrifices. He was about to move on anyway, he said.

“I’m going to Hamelin next and after that, who knows, I may even go to France and steal some meat from the French awhile. The cats and dogs have to be fed, but of course I can’t deprive you good people of your proteins forever.”

The good people didn’t know what proteins were, but they vowed again that these poor creatures could have Pudding Lane’s meat as long as Pudding Lane had any meat, such a pitch had their ecstasy reached.

But no, Taffy insisted that they had suffered enough, and that he must go. And before they knew it, he was gone, followed by his winding procession of cats and dogs.

The funny part about it was that the people of Pudding Lane were actually sorry to see him go. They had forgotten he was a thief, you see; they had forgotten their recent anger and annoyance against him. They had forgotten everything except that Taffy the Welshman was a man who was kind to animals, a man who lived and plied his trade for cats and dogs alone. And this fact was so important that they had forgotten the picnic too; they had even forgotten the spider.

And so those very people who had called Taffy the worst names only that same morning now watched his departing figure down the road and called out, “Good-by, Taffy, good-by. Good luck, good luck.”

Fancy wishing a thief good luck! It doesn’t seem respectable, but that’s what they did.

And as for Taffy, he did have good luck. He went on his way ever after that, stealing meat, feeding the cats and dogs and having a lovely time. For Taffy enjoyed the stealing part quite as much as the feeding part, if the truth must be known. It’s deplorable. People oughtn’t to enjoy stealing, but Taffy did enjoy it, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Perhaps some day he’ll reform and be an honest man. Yet if he did, the cats and dogs might have a hard time of it, so we’d better let him alone, I guess. If we must have thieves in the world, Taffy’s the very sort to have.