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The Little Mother Goose — Background and Themes

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In Category - Adventure Picaresque Fiction

Authors: Smith, Jessie Willcox, 1863-1935 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Children's poetry; Nursery rhymes Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 19,080

Reading time 83 min

Text sections 6

For The Little Mother Goose — Background and Themes, the stored edition analysis reports 19,080 words, 1 hr 23 min estimated reading time, and 6 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 19.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Children's poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #20511

This edition of Mother Goose rhymes, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, pairs nursery classics with moral tags and game instructions. The collection's structure—alternating verse, morals, and play directions—reveals how the rhymes were used to teach behavior, counting, and social roles.

Editorial Edition Score 4.6/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg20511

Read the Text

Jockey was a piper's son 40

John, come sell thy fiddle 14

Joseph Smith bought a rake 27

Ladies and gentlemen, come to supper 152

Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home 87

Lady-bug, lady-bug 48

Lazy Tom, with jacket blue 53

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep 16

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn 8

Little Cock Robin peeped out of his cabin 32

Little drops of water 31

Little girl, little girl, where have you been? 33

Little Jack Horner 100

Little King Boggen he built a fine hall 173

Little lad, little lad 32

Little maid, little maid 50

Little maid, pretty maid 34

Little Miss Donnet 41

Little Miss Muffet 32

Little Nancy Etticote 30

Little Poll Parrot 41

Little Polly Flinders 119

Little Robin Red-breast sat upon a rail 29

Little Tommy Grace 43

Little Tommy Tittlemouse 77

Little Tommy Tucker 99

Love your own, kiss your own 40

Lucy Locket lost her pocket 24

Make three-fourths of a cross 71

Margaret wrote a letter 11

Margery Mutton-pie and Johnny Bopeep 82

Mary had a little lamb 68

Mary had a pretty bird 86

Mary, Mary, quite contrary 73

Merry are the bells 130

Miss Jane had a bag 93

Monday's bairn is fair of face 139

Multiplication is vexation 60

My little old man and I fell out 77

My maid Mary, she minds the dairy 5

My mother, and your mother 71

My pussy-cat has got the gout 129

Nancy Dawson has grown so fine 128

Nose, nose, jolly red nose 108

Now go to sleep, my little son 104

Of all the gay birds that e'er I did see 114

Oh, dear, What can the matter be? Johnny's so long 62

Old Father Grey Beard 40

Old Grimes is dead 128

Old King Cole was a merry old soul 175

Old Mother Hubbard 162

One, he loves; two, he loves 46

One misty, moisty morning 37

One, two, buckle my shoe 51

One, two, three, four, Mary at the cottage door 114

One, two, three, four, five, catching fishes all alive 114

1, 2, 3, 4, 5! I caught a hare alive 67

On Saturday night it shall be my whole care 25

Over the water and under the water 15

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake 2

Pease-porridge hot 4-158

Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater 57

Peter Piper picked a peck 129

Peter White will ne'er go right 165

Phoebe rode a nanny-goat 13

Pickeleem, pickeleem pummis-stone 35

Pit, pat, well-a-day 31

Play, play every day 29

Polly, put the kettle on 13

Polly, Dolly, Kate and Molly 12

Pussy-Cat, pussy-cat, where have you been? 109

Pussy sits beside the fire 37

Rain, rain, go away 65

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross to see a fine lady 89

Ride a cock-horse to Shrewsbury Cross 44

Riddle-me, riddle-me, riddle-me-ree 91

Ring-a-round-a roses 40

Robert Barnes, fellow fine 94

Robin and Richard were two pretty men 101

Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben 138

Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green 74

Rosemary green, and lavender blue 44

Rowley Powley, pudding and pie 175

See a pin and pick it up 83

See-saw Jack in the hedge 29

See-saw, Margery Daw, Jacky shall have a new master 101

See-saw, Margery Daw, Jenny shall have a new master 9

See-saw, sacaradown, sacaradown 25

Shoe the horse and shoe the mare 27

Sing a song of sixpence 70

Sing, sing! What shall I sing? 10

Smiling girls, rosy boys 129

Sneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger 157

Some little mice sat in a barn to spin 20

Speak when you're spoken to 137

St. Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain 114

Swan, swam over the sea 107

Taffy was a Welshman 145

Ten little Injuns standing in a line 124

The calf, the goose, the bee 69

The cock's on the housetop blowing his horn 33

The cuckoo's a fine bird 74

The dove says, "Coo, coo, what shall I do?" 6

The girl in the lane, that couldn't speak plain 34

The greedy man is he who sits 45

The King of France went up the hill 7

The lion and the unicorn 174

The man in the moon came tumbling down 121

The man in the moon looked out of the moon 93

The man in the wilderness asked me 92

The North wind doth blow 152

The old woman must stand at the tub 54

The Queen of Hearts 146

The rose is red, the violet is blue 20

The winds they did blow 78

There dwelt an old woman at Exeter 85

There was a crooked man 71

There was a little boy and a little girl 31

There was a little girl who had a little curl 45

There was a little girl who wore a little hood 23

There was a little green house 79

There was a little man and he had a little gun 116

There was a little one-eyed gunner 80

There was a man in our town and he was wondrous wise 63

There was an old crow 29

There was an old woman, and what do you think 28

There was an old woman, as I've heard tell 153

There was an old woman and nothing she had 117

There was an old woman called Nothing-at-all 73

There was an old woman had three cows 44

There was an old woman, her name it was Peg 38

There was an old woman in Surrey 43

There was an old woman lived under a hill, and if she's not gone 19

Continue Reading →

Jessie Willcox Smith’s 1918 edition of The Little Mother Goose presents nursery rhymes not as static verses but as interactive tools. The collection intersperses familiar rhymes with explicit morals—such as “Better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt” after “Jack Spratt”—and includes game instructions, like the arch-and-capture game following “How many miles is it to Babylon?” This structure suggests the rhymes were meant to be performed, not merely recited.

Smith’s illustrations, noted as “in full color and black and white,” frame the verses visually, but the text itself carries the weight of instruction. The inclusion of counting rhymes, riddles, and seasonal proverbs (e.g., “A sunshine shower / Won’t last half an hour”) points to a deliberate arrangement that moves from simple lullabies to more complex wordplay, guiding a young reader through stages of language and moral learning.

Moral Tags as Structural Anchors

Several rhymes in this collection are followed by capitalized “MORAL” tags, a feature that sets it apart from simpler nursery rhyme books. After “Jack Spratt,” the moral reads: “Better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt.” The pig-rhyme ends with a blunt instruction: “Take hold of his tail, / And eat off his head, / And then you will be sure / The pig-hog is dead.” These tags transform playful verses into lessons about thrift, consequence, and even butchery. The moral after “Ding, dong, bell” (“He that injures one threatens a hundred”) extends the cat-in-the-well rhyme into a warning about collective harm. This pattern suggests the editor or compiler intended the book to serve as a vehicle for ethical training, not just entertainment.

Movement Between Verse and Play

The collection includes at least one explicit game instruction, set off in brackets after “Cock a doodle doo.” It describes a line of children passing under an arch made by two others, with the last child caught when arms lower. The dialogue—“How many miles is it to Babylon?”—is answered in the rhyme, and the game enacts the journey. This blending of text and physical play recurs in counting rhymes like “Hickery, dickery, 6 and 7,” which uses nonsense syllables (“Alabone, crackabone”) to mimic rhythmic movement. The book thus becomes a script for group activity, where words prompt action. Other rhymes, such as “Ring around a rosie” (not in excerpts but implied by the list), likely served similar purposes, reinforcing the idea that these verses were tools for social bonding and coordination.

Recurring Images of Animals and Domestic Life

Animals dominate the rhymes: cats, cows, pigs, frogs, birds, and mice appear repeatedly. The cat is a particularly versatile figure—fiddling in “Heigh, diddle, diddle,” trapped in a well in “Ding, dong, bell,” and hiding in a cupboard in “Great A, little a.” These varied roles give the cat a symbolic range from trickster to victim. Domestic settings are equally persistent: kitchens, barns, beds, and streets form the backdrop. The rhyme “When I was a bachelor” describes a man seeking a wife to solve a rat problem, only to face a comical disaster with a wheelbarrow. Such scenes ground the fantastical elements—like a cow jumping over the moon—in everyday troubles. The repetition of these images creates a consistent world where animals and humans interact in predictable, often humorous, patterns.

Counting, Riddles, and the Shape of Language

Counting rhymes are scattered throughout, from “One for the money, / Two for the show” to “Hickery, dickery, 6 and 7.” These verses teach numbers through rhythm and repetition, often embedding arithmetic in nonsense. Riddles, such as “A hill full, a hole full” (likely a riddle about a sieve or a thimble), challenge the listener to connect words to objects. The alphabet rhyme “A was an archer” (listed but not excerpted) extends this pattern to letters. The collection also includes proverbs like “A red sky at night” and “As the day lengthens, / So the cold strengthens,” which blend observation with prediction. These varied forms—counting, riddling, proverbial—train a child’s ear for pattern and inference, making the book a primer for linguistic dexterity as much as for moral instruction.

Readers approaching The Little Mother Goose will find a work that rewards attention to its arrangement. The placement of morals, game directions, and varied rhyme types suggests a deliberate pedagogical design. Rather than reading straight through, consider how each rhyme might have been used—as a bedtime lullaby, a counting lesson, or a group game. Smith’s illustrations, though not analyzed here, likely amplify these functions. This edition offers a window into how nursery rhymes once served as tools for teaching behavior, language, and community.