Rebecca was not fond of Mr. Came, and neither was Mrs. Baxter, nor Elisha, for that matter; in fact Mr. Came was rather a difficult person to grow fond of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled skin, and his gruff way of speaking; for there were no children in the brown house to smooth the creases from his forehead or the roughness from his voice. II The new minister's wife was sitting under the shade of her great maple early one morning, when she first saw the Little Prophet. A tiny figure came down the grass-grown road leading a cow by a rope. If it had been a small boy and a small cow, a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or a grown man and a big cow, she might not have noticed them; but it was the combination of an infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted her attention. She could not guess the child's years, she only knew that he was small for his age, whatever it was. The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled horn, a white star on her forehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had, of course, two eyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking accidentally in the centre of the eyebrow. The boy had a thin sensitive face and curly brown hair, short trousers patched on both knees, and a ragged straw hat on the back of his head. He pattered along behind the cow, sometimes holding the rope with both hands, and getting over the ground in a jerky way, as the animal left him no time to think of a smooth path for bare feet. The Came pasture was a good half-mile distant, and the cow seemed in no hurry to reach it; accordingly she forsook the road now and then, and rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter to her way of thinking. She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as she passed the minister's great maple, and gave Mrs. Baxter time to call out to the little fellow, “Is that your cow?” Elisha blushed and smiled, and tried to speak modestly, but there was a quiver of pride in his voice as he answered suggestively: “It's--nearly my cow.” “How is that?” asked Mrs. Baxter. “Why, Mr. Came says when I drive her twenty-nine more times to pasture 'thout her gettin' her foot over the rope or 'thout my bein' afraid, she's goin' to be my truly cow. Are you 'fraid of cows?” “Ye-e-es,” Mrs. Baxter confessed, “I am, just a little. You see, I am nothing but a woman, and boys can't understand how we feel about cows.” “I can! They're awful big things, aren't they?” “Perfectly enormous! I've always thought a cow coming towards you one of the biggest things in the world.” “Yes; me, too. Don't let's think about it. Do they hook people so very often?” “No indeed, in fact one scarcely ever hears of such a case.” “If they stepped on your bare foot they'd scrunch it, wouldn't they?” “Yes, but you are the driver; you mustn't let them do that; you are a free-will boy, and they are nothing but cows.”