Ann Knight, age l0, of St. Albans, W. Va., for her question:

Who exactly was Mother Goose?

The people of Boston claim that the real Mother Goose is buried there is an old graveyard. Her true name, they say, was Elizabeth Vergoose, and she used to sing her nursery rhymes to her children and later to her grandchildren. Her daughter's husband was a printer and some say that he printed a book of Mother Goose's little songs. This was in l7l9.

However, the children of France had a Mother Goose in l697. A writer named Charles Perrault published a story book for them and he called it The Tales of Mother Goose. Most people suspect that this Mother Goose was an imaginary character and, sad to say, we have no real proof that the American Mother Goose was not an imaginary character also.