I Saw a Ship A-Sailing

Mysterious Girl - Who Is the Child on the Cliff?

In this more contemporary, brightly-color version, a new character is introduced. Perhaps, she is “thee” in the line “With pretty things for thee!” She is well-dressed and coifed, wearing a billowing blue dress, pink stockings, white shoes, and a ribbon in her hair and stands on a hill overlooking the sea. The ship has the appearance of a toy sailboat, and the duck captain is wearing a full navy uniform without the packet. We see the faces of five white mice, as far as we know without chains, peering from five portholes in the ship. This illustration with its use of four bright and flat colors against a stark white background is elegant in its simplicty. The only real detail is in the design of the girl's dress which, along with her positioning in the picture, gives the character absent from the rhyme dominance in the illustration.