Patters and Tatters
Patters had a gallant band,
An army made of clay.
But Tatters took the garden hose
And washed them all away.
First published in The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes (1918).
There’s something wonderfully familiar about this little scene. One child builds a grand army, proud and serious about it — and the other swoops in with a garden hose and wipes it all out in ten seconds flat. No speeches, no battle cries, just the steady hiss of water and a look that says, “Well, that’s that.”
It’s pure childhood justice — half mischief, half experiment. The kind of thing that ends in both laughter and outrage. Blanche Fisher Wright’s picture gets it just right too: the sturdy stance, the oversized hose, the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly what happens next. It’s the rise and fall of empires… played out in the backyard.
