Betty Botter Bought Some Butter

Other Variations - Humorous and Cheerful Consumers.

In these two illustrations, Betty is depicted as a young girl. In The Calico Mother Goose Book, she is big but still appears to be too young to be in the kitchen by herself. She is a plump toddler, with a ribbon in her hair, sitting on the table with a blank look on her face tasting the batter. There are three bowls on the floor, one turned upside down, and, of course, the usual mess of batter on the floor. In James Marshall's Mother Goose, Betty appears to be a mischievous child somewhere between nine and eleven years old. She is shown sitting in a tall chair, her feet dangling well above the floor, stirring the batter with her tongue sticking out in anticipation. The rhyme is presented in a frame behind her. There is no spilled batter, but one of Betty's pigtails is hanging in the bowl. None of the illustrations studied give any indication of what kind of batter Betty is making or why it is often so messy, but it is very clear that butter is an important ingredient.