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THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 59
" Bat of course it's
you ;
and here's a new dress,
r
persisted Rhoda.
" Well, if it be I, as I think I cannot be, I've got a
little
dog at home, and he'll know me," muttered the
Egg-Woman.
"Well, here's the dress, and the money,
and the
basket ;
but you'd better not put the dress into the
basket, because it's all eggy," said Ehoda, rather mournfully,
as
she put the things into the old woman's hands,
and watched her trudge away, still muttering :
" I know it isn't I, but he'll know me."
" I should be pleased to have you and Rhoda come
in and rest yourselves in my house," said Mr. Jack,
when she had gone.
" It's a pretty nice house, as houses
go, I think ;
in fact, I built it myself. A man is apt to
be proud of his own work. I've got a good barn, too,
and a granary, with some of the prettiest corn you ever
saw in your life, stored for winter. The mice troubled
me somewhat, and I got a cat to keep them down ; but,
poor thing, my dog worries the life out of her every
chance he gets, and hillo, what's that ? "
By this time the party had come within sight of a
fine white house, with a great barn and other buildings
behind it. It was toward the yard of this barn that Mr.
Jack now pointed indignantly. Rhoda looked, and saw
a forlorn.-looking young woman, with a pail and stool in
one hand, walking toward a cow with one horn curiously
crumpled and the other straight, who stood waiting for