Into the crowd he pushed, and saw the wee man this day again with a mouse and a bum-clock, and he put them down in the street and whistled. The mouse and the bum-clock stood up on their hind legs and got hold of each other and began to dance there and jig, and as they did there was not a man or woman in the street who didn't begin to jig also, and Jack and the black cow, and the wheels and the reels, and the pots and pans, all of them were jigging and dancing all over the town, and the houses themselves were jumping and hopping about, and such a place Jack or anyone else never saw before.
When the man lifted the mouse and the bum-clock into his pocket they all stopped dancing and settled down, and everybody laughed right hearty. The man turned to Jack. "Jack," says he, "I am glad to see you; how would you like to have these animals?"
"I should like well to have them," says Jack, says he, "only I cannot."
"Why cannot you?" says the man.
"Oh!" says Jack, says he, "I have no money, and my poor mother is very downhearted. She sent me to the fair to sell this cow and bring some money to lift her heart."
"Oh!" says the man, says he, "if you want to lift your mother's heart I will sell you the mouse, and when you set the bee to play the harp and the mouse to dance to it, your mother will laugh if she never laughed in her life before."
"But I have no money," says Jack, says he, "to buy your mouse."
"I don't mind," says the man, says he, "I will take your cow for it."
Poor Jack was so taken with the mouse, and had his mind so set on it, that he thought it was a grand bargain entirely, and he gave the man his cow and took the mouse and started off for home; and when he got home his mother welcomed him.
"Jack," says she, "I see you have sold the cow."