Thank you, everybody. Pilgrim is the name of the butternut variety I bought. I went looking, and found a site with photos of a butternut that looks like mine (scroll to the bottom.) Well, yay, that is definitely encouraging!
So hopefully the coloring is just an idiosyncrasy of that variety and it really will be what we want and not an offspring of the gourds next door. Our Vermont maple syrup and butter wait in happy anticipation. I should mention, the wateriness in yesterday’s picture is because I steamed those two halves in the microwave, trying a little too hard to soften the ends.
The critters have stopped raiding them (they made off with the first two) since I guarded the edges with those thorny stalks mentioned earlier; we now have two new and one fairly large one in among the leaves. The plant is nearly twice the size it was two weeks ago and I expect there will be more squash to come.
Monday, I will ask Burpee. And hope.