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MOTHER GOOSE IN PROSE


[Illustration: "There was a little man and he had a little gun"]

[Illustration]


MOTHER GOOSE IN PROSE

by

L. FRANK BAUM

Illustrated by Maxfield Parrish







New York
MCMI




Contents


    Introduction                             9
    Sing a Song o' Sixpence                 19
    The Story of Little Boy Blue            31
    The Cat and the Fiddle                  45
    The Black Sheep                         55
    Old King Cole                           65
    Mistress Mary                           75
    The Wond'rous Wise Man                  89
    What Jack Horner Did                    99
    The Man in the Moon                    109
    The Jolly Miller                       119
    The Little Man and His Little Gun      131
    Hickory, Dickory, Dock                 141
    Little Bo-Peep                         151
    The Story of Tommy Tucker              163
    Pussy-cat Mew                          175
    How the Beggars Came to Town           183
    Tom, the Piper's Son                   199
    Humpty Dumpty                          207
    The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe          221
    Little Miss Muffet                     233
    Three Wise Men of Gotham               245
    Little Bun Rabbit                      257




Illustrations


    "There was a little man and he had a little gun"    _Frontispiece_
    Little Boy Blue                                                36
    The Black Sheep                                                58
    Old King Cole                                                  68
    The Wond'rous Wise Man                                         92
    Jack Horner                                                   102
    The Man in the Moon                                           112
    Little Bo-Peep                                                156
    Tommy Tucker                                                  166
    Tom, the Piper's Son                                          200
    Humpty Dumpty                                                 212
    Three Wise Men of Gotham                                      248




Introduction.


NONE of us, whether children or adults, needs an introduction to Mother
Goose. Those things which are earliest impressed upon our minds cling
to them the most tenaciously. The snatches sung in the nursery are
never forgotten, nor are they ever recalled without bringing back with
them myriads of slumbering feelings and half-forgotten images.

We hear the sweet, low voice of the mother, singing soft lullabies
to her darling, and see the kindly, wrinkled face of the grandmother
as she croons the old ditties to quiet our restless spirits. One
generation is linked to another by the everlasting spirit of song; the
ballads of the nursery follow us from childhood to old age, and they
are readily brought from memory's recesses at any time to amuse our
children or our grandchildren.

The collection of jingles we know and love as the "Melodies of Mother
Goose" are evidently drawn from a variety of sources. While they are,
taken altogether, a happy union of rhyme, wit, pathos, satire and
sentiment, the research after the author of each individual verse
would indeed be hopeless. It would be folly to suppose them all the
composition of uneducated old nurses, for many of them contain much
reflection, wit and melody. It is said that Shelley wrote "Pussy-Cat
Mew," and Dean Swift "Little Bo-Peep," and these assertions are as
difficult to disprove as to prove. Some of the older verses, however,
are doubtless offshoots from ancient Folk Lore songs, and have
descended to us through many centuries.

The connection of Mother Goose with the rhymes which bear her name is
difficult to determine, and, in fact, three countries claim her for
their own: France, England and America.

About the year 1650 there appeared in circulation in London a small
book, named "Rhymes of the Nursery; or Lulla-Byes for Children," which
contained many of the identical pieces that have been handed down to
us; but the name of Mother Goose was evidently not then known. In this
edition were the rhymes of "Little Jack Horner," "Old King Cole,"
"Mistress Mary," "Sing a Song o' Sixpence," and "Little Boy Blue."

In 1697 Charles Perrault published in France a book of children's tales
entitled "Contes de ma Mere Oye," and this is really the first time we
find authentic record of the use of the name of Mother Goose, although
Perrault's tales differ materially from those we now know under this
title. They comprised "The Sleeping Beauty," "The Fairy," "Little Red
Riding-Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in Boots," "Riquet with the Tuft,"
"Cinderella," and "Little Thumb;" eight stories in all. On the cover
of the book was depicted an old lady holding in her hand a distaff and
surrounded by a group of children listening eagerly. Mr. Andrew Lang
has edited a beautiful English edition of this work (Oxford, 1888).

America bases her claim to Mother Goose upon the following statement,
made by the late John Fleet Eliot, a descendant of Thomas Fleet, the
printer:

At the beginning of the eighteenth century there lived in Boston a
lady named Eliza Goose (written also Vergoose and Vertigoose) who
belonged to a wealthy family. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Goose
(or Vertigoose), was married by Rev. Cotton Mather in 1715 to an
enterprising and industrious printer named Thomas Fleet, and in
due time gave birth to a son. Like most mothers-in-law in our day,
the importance of Mrs. Goose increased with the appearance of her
grandchild, and poor Mr. Fleet, half distracted with her endless
nursery ditties, finding all other means fail, tried what ridicule
could effect, and actually printed a book under the title "Songs of the
Nursery; or, Mother Goose's Melodies for Children." On the title page
was the picture of a goose with a very long neck and a mouth wide open,
and below this, "Printed by T. Fleet, at his Printing House in Pudding
Lane, 1719. Price, two coppers."

Mr. Wm. A. Wheeler, the editor of Hurd & Houghton's elaborate edition
of Mother Goose, (1870), reiterated this assertion, and a writer in
the Boston Transcript of June 17, 1864, says: "Fleet's book was partly
a reprint of an English collection of songs, (Barclay's), and the new
title was doubtless a compliment by the printer to his mother-in-law
Goose for her contributions. She was the mother of sixteen children and
a typical 'Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.'"

We may take it to be true that Fleet's wife was of the Vergoose family,
and that the name was often contracted to Goose. But the rest of the
story is unsupported by any evidence whatever. In fact, all that Mr.
Eliot knew of it was the statement of the late Edward A. Crowninshield,
of Boston, that he had seen Fleet's edition in the library of the
American Antiquarian Society. Repeated researches at Worcester having
failed to bring to light this supposed copy, and no record of it