Having completed every task within the house, she sat down under an olive tree which grew before the door, and fixed her whole intelligence in all its force upon the black-and-white cow, the only living thing in sight, which was browsing in the space allowed by a short tether.

So great did the responsibility appear to her that she grew anxious, and by dint of earnest gazing at the cow came to believe that there was something wrong with it.

In truth the poor beast had exhausted all the grass within its reach, and it had not entered her ideas to move the picket.
'At length a neighbour passed that way.

She begged him, of his well-known kindness, to inspect the cow and tell her what the matter really was.

This neighbour was a wag, and knew the woman's species; he also knew the cow as an annoyance, for ever dragging out its peg and straying into planted fields.