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 c