Little Boy Blue

A Ne'er Do Well - Is This the Way You Mind Your Sheep?

This illustration is one of the group that portrays Little Boy Blue as older, perhaps in early adolescence. Certainly at this age, we have less sympathy for this sheep and cow herder than we do when he is shown as a very young child in a baby's flushed sleep in the soft hay. He is still a boy and not a man, as he is wearing knee breeches, but a big boy. The other children in this illustration are looking on Little Boy Blue in neglect of his charges with shock, as if they, too, understand that he has fallen down on the job. Even the wording of this version of the familiar rhyme in its “What! Is this the way you mind your sheep,” expresses a certain amount of indignation at the boy's laziness. Soft blue-green tones give a warmth to this image.