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 curtly 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.”
 
“I know; but p'raps there is free-will cows, and if they just WOULD do it you couldn't help being scrunched, for you mustn't let go of the rope nor run, Mr. Came says.
 
“No, of course that would never do.”
 
“Where you used to live did all the cows go down into the boggy places when you drove em to pasture, or did some walk in the road?”
 
“There weren't any cows or any pastures where I used to live; that's what makes me so foolish; why does your cow need a rope?”
 
“She don't like to go to pasture, Mr. Came says. Sometimes she'd druther stay to home, and so when she gets part way she turns round and comes backwards.”
 
“Dear me!” thought Mrs. Baxter, “what becomes of this boy-mite if the cow has a spell of going backwards?—Do you like to drive her?” she asked.
 
“N-no, not erzackly; but you see, it'll be my cow if I drive her twenty-nine more times thout her gettin' her foot over the rope and thout my bein' afraid,” and a beaming smile gave a transient brightness to his harassed little face. “Will she feed in the ditch much longer?” he asked. “Shall I say Hurrap'? That's what Mr. Came says—HURRAP!' like that, and it means to hurry up.”
 
It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded and the cow fed on peacefully. The little fellow looked up at the minister's wife confidingly, and then glanced back at the farm to see if Cassius Came were watching the progress of events.
 
“What shall we do next?” he asked.
 
Mrs. Baxter delighted in that warm............