The Tailor of Gloucester

"The Tailor of Gloucester" by Beatrix Potter is a Christmas children's book written and illustrated in 1902. An elderly, impoverished tailor must complete an embroidered coat for the Mayor's Christmas wedding, but lacks the final bit of thread needed. When his cat Simpkin hides the crucial twist in revenge, and illness confines the tailor to bed, the project seems doomed. Then mysterious helpers arrive in his workshop on Christmas Eve, working through the night to save the commission—and repay an earlier kindness.