I saw a delicate flower had grown up two feet high Between the horses’ path and the wheel-track, Which Dakin’s and Maynard’s wagons had Passed over many a time. An inch more to right or left had sealed its fate, Or an inch higher. And yet it lived and flourished As much as if it had a thousand acres Of untrodden space around it, and never Knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow trouble nor invite an Evil fate by apprehending it.[56] For though the distant market-wagon Every other day inevitably rolled This way, it just as inevitably rolled In those ruts. And the same Charioteer who steered the flower Upward guided the horse and cart aside from it. There were other flowers which you would say Incurred less danger, grew more out of the way, Which no cart rattled near, no walker daily passed, But at length one rambling deviously— For no rut restrained—plucked them, And then it appeared that they stood Directly in his way, though he had come From farther than the market-wagon. And then it appeared that this brave flower which grew between the wheel and horse did actually stand farther out of the way than that which stood in the wide prairie where the man of science plucked it. To-day I climbed a handsome rounded hill Covered with hickory trees, wishing to see The country from its top, for low hills Show unexpected prospects. I looked Many miles over a woody lowland Toward Marlborough, Framingham, and Sudbury; And as I sat amid the hickory trees And the young sumachs, enjoying the prospect, a neat herd of cows approached, of unusually fair proportions and smooth, clean skins, evidently petted by their owner, who must have carefully selected them. One more confiding heifer, the fairest of the herd, did by degrees approach as if to take some morsel from our hands, while our hearts leaped to our mouths with expectation and delight. She by degrees drew near with her fair limbs progressive, making pretense of browsing; nearer and nearer, till there was wafted toward us the bovine fragrance,—cream of all the dairies that ever were or will be,—and then she raised her gentle muzzle toward us, and snuffed an honest recognition within hand’s reach. I saw ’t was possible for his herd to inspire with love the herdsman. She was as delicately featured as a hind. Her hide was mingled white and fawn-color, and on her muzzle’s tip there was a white spot not bigger than a daisy, and on her side toward me the map of Asia plain to see.