Mr. Came had pointed out the necessity of getting her into the pasture at least a few minutes before she had to be taken out again at night, and though Rebecca didn't like Mr. Came, she saw the common sense of this remark. Sometimes Mrs. Baxter and Rebecca caught a glimpse of the two at sundown, as they returned from the pasture to the twilight milking, Buttercup chewing her peaceful cud, her soft white bag of milk hanging full, her surprised eye rolling in its accustomed “fine frenzy.” The frenzied roll did not mean anything, they used to assure Elisha; but if it didn't, it was an awful pity she had to do it, Rebecca thought; and Mrs. Baxter agreed. To have an expression of eye that meant murder, and yet to be a perfectly virtuous and well-meaning animal, this was a calamity indeed.
Mrs. Baxter was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ball of red fire into Wilkins's woods, when the Little Prophet passed.
“It's the twenty-ninth night,” he called joyously.
“I am so glad,” she answered, for she had often feared some accident might prevent his claiming the promised reward. “Then tomorrow Buttercup will be your own cow?”
“I guess so. That's what Mr. Came said. He's off to Acreville now, but he'll be home tonight, and father's going to send my new hat by him. When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her name and call her Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it. When she b'longs to me, mebbe I won't be so fraid of gettin' hooked and scrunched, because she'll know she's mine, and she'll go better. I haven't let her get snarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't show I'm afraid, do I?”
“I should never suspect it for an instant,” said Mrs. Baxter encouragingly. “I've often envied you your bold, brave look!”
Elisha appeared distinctly pleased. “I haven't cried, either, when she's dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Petes's little brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, not even bears. He says he would walk right up close and cuff em if they dared to yip; but I ain't like that! He ain't scared of elephants or tigers or lions either; he says they're all the same as frogs or chickens to him!”
Rebecca told her Aunt Miranda that evening that it was the Prophet's twenty-ninth night, and that the big red cow was to be his on the morrow.
“Well, I hope it'll turn out that way,” she said. “But I ain't a mite sure that Cassius Came will give up that cow when it comes to the point. It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out of a bargain with folks a good deal bigger than Lisha, for he's terrible close, Cassius is. To be sure he's stiff in his joints and he's glad enough to have a boy to take the cow to the pasture in summer time, but he always has hired help when it comes harvestin'. So Lisha'll be no use from this on; and I dare say the cow is Abner Simpson's anyway. If you want a walk tonight, I wish you'd go up there and ask Mis' Came if she'll lend me an' your Aunt Jane half her yeast-cake. Tell her we'll pay it back when we get ours a Saturday. Don't you want to take Thirza Meserve with you? She's alone as usual while Huldy's entertainin' beaux on the side porch. Don't stay too long at the parsonage!”
III