THE SPOTTED COW

Peek's pop-peasant pictures abound in playful animal carvings and overspill their frames, which helps sustain the we-never-asked-you-to-believe-it tone first set -- between the front end papers and the title page -- in the disarming announcement that this is ""a Story with a Happy Ending."" In the happier beginning, a lady lives in a tiny house near the castle with her cow whom she's very fond of and a wild canary she can take or leave alone but keeps because the cow is attached to it. But then the prince says the lady must relocate to make room for a rose garden and the pampered princess -- tagging along on the eviction visit -- takes home the canary. Though both animals are miserable apart and the canary doesn't even sing without the cow, each woman refuses to give up her pet, until the princess suggests that the lady and cow move into the castle. Thus the ending, though ""happy"" as predicted, is disappointingly flat, but then we've been prepared for a non-serious solution. Workably droll -- if spotty.