<h2><SPAN name="THE_HOUSE_IN_THE_WOOD" id="THE_HOUSE_IN_THE_WOOD"></SPAN>THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD</h2>
<p>"I wonder where I'm going to stay to-night," said Little Jack Rabbit to
himself one late afternoon, after traveling all day with his knapsack on
his back and his striped candy cane in his right paw, and just then he
came in sight of a little wooden house. So he stopped and tapped on the
door, rat-a-tat-tat, very softly, you know. And when the door opened a
little monkey dressed in a red cap and a green coat said, "What do you
want?"</p>
<p>"I beg your pardon," answered the little rabbit, "but, you see, it's
getting late and I'm looking for a place to sleep."</p>
<p>"Well, come right in," said the little monkey, and after Little Jack
Rabbit had hung his knapsack and striped candy cane on the hatrack in
the hall he followed the monkey into the sitting room.</p>
<p>Well, after a little while he told the monkey all about the Old Bramble
Patch and Danny Fox and Mr. Wicked Weasel, and lots of other things,
too, which I haven't room in this story to mention. And when he had
finished the monkey said he had once belonged to a man who owned a hand
organ and went about the country playing music for pennies, and
sometimes for nothing.</p>
<p>"But that was long ago," said the little monkey, "for one day my master
beat me so cruelly that I ran away to the wood, and by and by I built
this little house, where I have lived ever since." Just then a knock
came at the door and who do you suppose was outside? Why, the Yellow Dog
Tramp, the little rabbit's friend, you remember.</p>
<p>"Come in," said the monkey, for the Yellow Dog Tramp had stopped at his
house lots of times, you know.</p>
<p>"Goodness me," said the Yellow Dog Tramp, after he had hung up his old
tattered hat in the hall. "I was nearly arrested to-day by a policeman
cat. They don't allow tramping any more. Everybody must work, so I
stopped in to see if you didn't want a handy man about the place." And
this made the little monkey laugh like everything, and pretty soon the
Yellow Dog Tramp got dreadfully sulky. He dropped his ears and hung his
tail, and then he began to whine,</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Now just because I've been a tramp<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Through sunshine and through fog,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You needn't laugh, nor joke and chaff<br/></span>
<span class="i2">'Cause now I want a job;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For Uncle Sam says to each man,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">'Now that the war is over,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each do your part with willing heart,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And we shall be in clover!'"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>"That's the way," shouted Little Jack Rabbit, and on the next page you
shall hear what happened after that.</p>
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