The new minister's wife was sitting under the shade of her great maple¹ 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 crumpled³ 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 amazement⁴ in it by virtue⁵ of a few white hairs lurking⁶ accidentally in the centre of the eyebrow⁷.

 

The boy had a thin sensitive face and curtly⁸ brown hair, short trousers patched on both knees, and a ragged⁹ 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 forsook¹⁰ the road now and then, and rambled¹¹ 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?”

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