The Children's Pieman
The children's pieman only baked pies for kids - he made that clear by what he called his shop - "Simple Simon", knowing children would know the rhyme. All his pies were baked with the idea of being appealing to the young mothers who would buy them. Among them, there were "Nursery Cherry Pies", "Big Bad Wolf Apple Pies", "Jack Horner's Christmas Pies"... You could even buy the last named out of the Christmas period. The pieman dressed himself up as a clown each day, in the belief that was required if you wanted to be a Children's Pie-man.
To begin with, trade was brisk, but the mothers soon became tired of having to humour the clown, having to listen to his childish jokes, and being absolutely forced to take a bright yellow balloon home after their purchases. Pies were being baked... but few people came in to buy them...
One day, a little girl came with her mother into the shop - they had not come in before as they had only recently moved to the area. The mother asked the little girl to choose the pie she would most like for her lunchtime pudding that Saturday. She chose a "Miss Muffet Plum Pie" that came in a blue "Miss Muffet Carrier Bag" and after her mother had bought it, proudly went out of the shop showing off her large Miss Muffet bag. That Miss Muffet bag was re-usable, so was able to be brought to pre-school the following Monday and each weekday after that. It was of such stunning design that mothers asked where it came from... "Oh, you know, 'Simple Simon'", said the mother, but most other mothers didn't know the name of the shop, the reason being that the girls' posh pre-school was in another village. They ALL wanted a bag like that for their little daughters...
The pieman was all for closing his shop, but soon changed his mind when the posh ladies came in, mainly asking to see the bags for the pies he sold. He extended his range of bags after that, for each little girl wouldn't be wanting lots and lots of Miss Muffet bags, would she?
The shop money went up and up and the shop stayed open for many years, so many in fact that when the shopkeeper was ninety years old he was still in the pieshop selling hot pies, warm pies, and cold pies, pulling silly faces at the mothers and their children, and seeing them go out with their beautiful bags.
Copyright - Julia Ward
8/24/2019
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