h he could see several pies baking.

Mother Hubbard was dressed, just as he expected, in a very ornamental
flowered gown, with high-heeled shoes and buckles, and wore a tall
pointed hat over her nightcap. She was so like the pictures Davy had
seen of her that he thought he would have recognized her anywhere.

[Illustration: MOTHER HUBBARD SINGS A SONG.]

She sang in a high key with a very quavering voice, and this was the
song:--

_I had an educated pug,
His name was Tommy Jones;
He lived upon the parlor rug
Exclusively on bones._

_And if, in a secluded room,
I hid one on a shelf,
It disappeared; so I presume
He used to help himself._

[Illustration]

_He had an entertaining trick
Of feigning he was dead;
Then, with a reassuring kick,
Would stand upon his head._

_I could not take the proper change,
And go to buy him shoes,
But what he'd sit upon the range
And read the latest news._

_And when I ventured out, one day
To order him a coat,
I found him, in his artless way,
Careering on a goat._

[Illustration]

_I could not go to look at hats
But that, with childish glee,
He'd ask in all the neighbors' cats
To join him at his tea._

_And when I went to pay a bill
(I think it was for tripe),
He made himself extremely ill
By smoking with a pipe._

There was something about the prim language of this song that sounded
very familiar to Davy, and when Mother Hubbard chanced to turn her face
towards him he was surprised to see that she looked very like old Miss
Peggs, his school-teacher. While she was singing the song little
handfuls of gravel were constantly thrown at her through one of the
kitchen windows, and by the time the song was finished her lap was quite
full of it.

"I'd just like to know who is throwing that gravel," said Davy,
indignantly.

"It's Gobobbles," said the Cow, calmly. "You'll find him around at the
front of the house. By the way, have you any chewing-gum about you?"

"No," said Davy, greatly surprised at the question.

"So I supposed," said the Cow. "It's precisely what I should expect of a
person who would fall out of a window."

"But I couldn't help _that_," said Davy.

"Of course you couldn't," said the Cow, yawning indolently. "It's
precisely what I should expect of a person who hadn't any chewing-gum."
And with this the Cow wa