THE LIFE OF JACK SPRAT, HIS WIFE & HIS CAT

Jack Sprat could eat no fat,/ His wife could eat no lean,/ And so between them both,/ They licked the platter clean has always had a ring of finality but the blurb claims—and Mr. Galdone evidently believes— that children inquire "And then what happened?" What happens here ("from an 1820 chapbook") is not so much what happened thereafter as a rhyming chronicle of the Sprats' courtship, wedding; homecoming (wife Joan Wheeled in a barrow) and housekeeping—some of which is worth a titter (hops without malt makes "sober liquor," says little Jack Sprat), none of which is as adroit and satisfying as the famous verse. Presumably why it alone endured.