Mistress Mary: Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With dingle bells and cockle shells And cowslips, all in a row.

Mary was the beloved daughter of a sailor and his wife who lived on a hill close to the sea. The rhyme calls her "Mistress Mary, quite contrary" because sad to say she was a contrary child often doing the exact opposite of what her mother and father advised for no reason but that she did not wish to follow their advice. But her parents loved her and knew that she would some day grow out of this peevish behavior. One day her father and brothers were to leave on a long sea journey and she ask...