The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and published by Frederick Warne & Co. in October 1911. Timmy Tiptoes is a squirrel believed to be a nut-thief by his fellows, and imprisoned by them in a hollow tree with the expectation that he will confess under confinement. Timmy is tended by Chippy Hackee, a friendly, mischievous chipmunk who has run away from his wife and is camping-out in the tree. Chippy urges the prisoner to eat the nuts stored in the tree, and Timmy does so but grows so fat he cannot escape the tree. He regains his freedom when a storm topples part of the tree. The tale contrasts the harmonious marriage of its title character with the less than harmonious marriage of the chipmunk.
The book sold well at release, but is now considered one of Potter's weakest productions. Potter never observed the tale's indigenous North American mammals in nature, and, as a result, her depictions are thought stiff and unnatural. Other elements in the story have come under fire: the rhymes, for example, reveal nothing about the characters nor do they provide an amusing game for the child reader in the manner of the rhymes in The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. The storm in the finale is viewed as a weak plot device introduced solely to hurry the tale to its conclusion, and the marriage of the chipmunks has been described as "abrasive and shocking" and an impediment to the flow of the tale.
The tale's disappointing qualities have been ascribed to Potter's growing lack of interest in writing for children, to pressure from her publisher for yet another book, and to Potter's desire to exploit the lucrative American market. Potter's artistically successful books were written for specific children; Timmy Tiptoes however was composed for Potter's amorphous, ill-defined American fanbase. By 1911, the demands of her aging parents and the business operations at her working farm, Hill Top, occupied much of Potter's time and attention to the exclusion of nearly everything else, and are accounted as some of the reasons for the author's declining artistry and her lack of interest in producing children's books.
Characters from the tale have been reproduced as porcelain figurines, enamelled boxes, music boxes, and various ornaments by Beswick Pottery, Crummles, Schmid, and ANRI.
Background
Helen Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866, to barrister Rupert William Potter and his wife Helen (Leech) Potter in London. She was educated by governesses and tutors, and passed a quiet childhood reading, painting, drawing, tending a nursery menagerie of small animals, and visiting museums and art exhibitions. Her interests in the natural world and country life were nurtured with holidays in Scotland, the Lake District, and Camfield Place, the Hertfordshire home of her paternal grandparents.MacDonald 1986, pp. 1–4
Potter's adolescence was as quiet as her childhood. She matured into a spinsterish young woman whose parents groomed her to be a permanent resident and housekeeper in their home.MacDonald 1986, pp. 6–7 She continued to paint and draw, and experienced her first professional artistic success in 1890 when she sold six designs of humanized animals to a greeting card publisher.Taylor 1996, pp. 51–2 She hoped to lead a useful life independent of her parents, and tentatively considered a career in mycology, but the all-male scientific community regarded her as nothing more than an amateur and she abandoned fungi.Taylor 1996, pp. 60, 67MacDonald 1986, p. 13
In 1900, Potter revised a tale about a humanized rabbit she had written for a child friend in 1893, fashioned a dummy book of it in imitation of Helen Bannerman's 1899 bestseller The Story of Little Black Sambo, and privately published her tale for family and friends in December 1901 after several publishers' rejections. Frederick Warne & Co. had earlier rejected the tale, but, eager to compete in the lucrative small format children's book market, reconsidered and accepted the "bunny book" (as the firm called it) on the recommendation of their prominent children's book artist L. Leslie Brooke.Lear 2007, pp. 144-7 Potter agreed to colour the pen and ink illustrations of her privately printed edition, chose the then-new Hentschel three-colour process for reproducing her watercolours,Hobbs 1989, p. 15 and in October 1902 The Tale of Peter Rabbit was released.MacDonald 1986, Chronology
Potter continued to publish with Warnes, and, in August 1905, used sales profits and a small legacy from an aunt to buy Hill Top, a working farm of 34 acres (13.85 ha) at Sawrey in the Lake District.Lear 2007, p. 237 In the years immediately following its purchase, she produced tales and illustrations inspired by the farm, its woodland surroundings, and nearby villages.MacDonald 1986, p. 75
Potter produced two books per annum for Warne, but by 1910 she was juggling the demands of aging parents with the business of operating Hill Top, and her literary and artistic productivity began to decline. The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse was the only book Potter published in 1910. She wrote a friend on New Year's Day 1911: "I did not succeed in finishing more than one book last year ... I find it very difficult lately to get the drawings done. I do not seem to be able to go into the country for a long enough time to do a sufficient amount of sketching and when I was at Bowness last summer I spent most of my time upon the road going backwards & forwards to the farm – which was amusing, but not satisfactory for work."Lear 2007, p. 236
She intended to follow Mrs. Tittlemouse with a tale about a pig in a large format book similar to the original Ginger and Pickles, but was forced to abandon the project after several unproductive attempts at composition. Instead, she occupied the winter of 1910–11 with supervising the production of Peter Rabbit's Painting Book, and composing Timmy Tiptoes, a tale about indigenous North American mammals.
Production Potter completed the text of Timmy Tiptoes but decided it was too long. She was also uncertain exactly how to put the bird calls into print. She revised the text, and wrote publisher Harold Warne: "I have compressed the words in the earlier pages, but it seems unavoidable to have a good deal of nuts. The songs of the little birds will be easier to judge as to spelling when one sees it in type." The illustrations presented another problem. For her earlier productions, Potter was able to observe the species concerned in the wild, and kept specimens at home as pets and models. For Timmy Tiptoes however, she was unable to do so. Instead, she relied on specimens in the London Zoological Gardens as models, and checked photographs in reference books including one from the firm of taxidermist Rowland Ward. "The book obtained from Rowland Ward will be very useful," she wrote.Taylor 1987, p. 144
At the end of July 1911, she sent the text and most of the illustrations to Warne from Lindeth Howe, (now a 4 star hotel) her parents' summering place in Windermere. An embarrassed Harold Warne wrote her suggesting a few minor alterations, but she was unperturbed. "There is no need to apologize for criticism," she wrote, "But there is no doubt the animals strongly resemble rabbits, the head which you question was copied from a photograph in the book."Taylor 1987, p. 144–5 The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes was released in October 1911 to popular and commercial success.
In Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature (2007), biographer Linda Lear describes Timmy Tiptoes as "the least satisfactory" of Potter's books, and ascribes its literary and artistic shortcomings to the author's desire to satisfy her publisher's demand for yet another book, to court her American fans with a tale about North American animals, and to make quick money in the American market. Potter's output decreased strikingly after Timmy Tiptoes and the length of time between books increased.Kutzer 2003, p. 131 Two books that followed Timmy Tiptoes, The Tale of Mr. Tod (1912) and The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913), have been described as the culmination of Potter's well-structured, imaginative art rather than a continuation of that art.
Potter had become tired of writing for children and increasingly unfamiliar with them. The Moore children (for whom she had written several tales early in her career) were grown, and Potter had not replaced them with other children, although she continued to write letters to child fans who had written her. She was out of touch with the interests of American children. Her marriage to William Heelis on October 15, 1913, effectively ended her literary and artistic career.Kutzer 2003, pp. 130–1 Although she published sporadically in the years following her marriage, her works depended principally upon decades-old concepts filed away in her publisher's offices and ageing illustrations tucked away in her portfolio. Only The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (1918) brought forth a completely new set of illustrations from the artist. She devoted herself to marriage and farming, and avoided publicity and fans.MacDonald 1986, pp. 19-20
Plot The tale is set in a forest and begins with "once upon a time". Timmy Tiptoes is "a little fat comfortable grey squirrel" living in a nest thatched with leaves in the top of a tall tree with his little wife, Goody. Over the course of several days, the two collect nuts in their little sacks for the coming winter and spring, and store the nuts in hollow tree stumps near their home. Timmy wears a red jacket he removes while working, and his wife wears a pink dress and apron. When the stumps are full, the couple make use of a tree-hole that once belonged to a woodpecker. The nuts rattle "down – down – down inside", and Goody wonders how they will ever retrieve them. Timmy reminds her he will be much thinner by springtime and will be able to pass through the little hole.
In an aside, the narrator tells the reader that the couple had great quantities of nuts because they never lost them, noting that most squirrels lose half their nuts because they cannot remember where they buried them. Silvertail is the most forgetful of squirrels in the wood, and, while trying to find his nuts, digs up another squirrel's hoard. A commotion erupts among the nutting squirrels, and, as ill luck would have it, a flock of birds fly by singing "Who's bin digging-up my nuts?" and "Little bit-a-bread and-no-cheese!" One bird finds a perch in the bush where Timmy is working and continues to sing about digging up nuts. The other squirrels take notice, suspect Timmy of robbing others of their hoards, rush upon him, scratch and cuff him, chase him up a tree, and stuff him with great difficulty through the woodpecker's hole. Silvertail suggests they leave him there until he confesses.
Timmy lays "stunned and still" on the peck of nuts he has stored in the hollow tree while Goody searches fruitlessly for him. Eventually, Timmy stirs and discovers himself in a mossy little bed surrounded by ample provisions. Chippy Hackee, a small striped chipmunk, tends him with kindness, mentioning that it has been raining nuts through the top of tree and he has also "found a few buried". The chipmunk coaxes Timmy to eat the nuts and Timmy grows "fatter and fatter!"
Goody is very concerned about her husband's disappearance, but has gone back to work collecting nuts and hiding them under a tree root. Mrs. Hackee, Chippy's wife, emerges from beneath the root to demand an explanation regarding the shower of nuts into her home. Eventually, the two ladies complain about their runaway husbands, but the chipmunk knows where her husband is camping-out because a little bird has told her. Together, they hurry to the woodpecker's hole and hear their husbands deep within the tree singing: "My little old man and I fell out, How shall we bring this matter about? Bring it about as well as you can, And get you gone, you little old man!"