“That's the business!” cried Moses.
“I could 'a' done it as easy as nothin' if my arm had been a leetle mite smaller,” said Bill Peters.
“You're a trump, sonny!” exclaimed Uncle Cash, as he helped Moses untie Buttercup's head and took the gag out.
“You're a trump, Lisha, and, by ginger, the cow's your'n; only don't you let your blessed pa drink none of her cream!”
The welcome air rushed into Buttercup's lungs and cooled her parched, torn throat. She was pretty nearly spent, poor thing, and bent her head (rather gently for her) over the Little Prophet's shoulder as he threw his arms joyfully about her neck, and whispered, “You're my truly cow now, ain't you, Buttercup?”
“Mrs. Baxter, dear,” said Rebecca, as they walked home to the parsonage together under the young harvest moon; “there are all sorts of cowards, aren't there, and don't you think Elisha is one of the best kind.”
“I don't quite know what to think about cowards, Rebecca Rowena,” said the minister's wife hesitatingly. “The Little Prophet is the third coward I have known in my short life who turned out to be a hero when the real testing time came. Meanwhile the heroes themselves—or the ones that were taken for heroes—were always busy doing something, or being somewhere, else.”
Eighth Chronicle. ABNER SIMPSON'S NEW LEAF
Rebecca had now cut the bonds that bound her to the Riverboro district school, and had been for a week a full-fledged pupil at the Wareham Seminary, towards which goal she had been speeding ever since the memorable day when she rode into Riverboro on the top of Uncle Jerry Cobb's stagecoach, and told him that education was intended to be “the making of her.”