A Country Parson

Recently sitting on my back porch I saw a large cow near my the fence that borders our parsonage. I walked up to the cow to pet it. Being from the city I am not exactly sure what you are supposed to do around cows. As I approached the large group of cows they all at the exact same time turned and stared at me, with the most empty looking eyes. I slowly continued to edge nearer to the fence, as I came within about fifteen feet all the cows near the fence jumped up and hurriedly skirted away except for the lone pony that was next to the fence. So I walked up to the pony and began petty him or her I feel that it is somewhat indecent to check. As I pet the pony I heard a kind of snorting noise. I had intentionally not been looking at the cows because I did not want to startle them. Hearing this noise I slowly began to turn to my right when I noticed a large black animal standing very close. This cow was bigger than the rest and had his head resting on the hind part of the pony. I though this kind of odd for several reasons. For one the cows always jumped up and ran away whenever I came near. And second I had never seen any of the cows have horns. The cow again made a very loud snort almost as if this dumb animal was trying to speak like Balaam’s donkey. I thought this is the most curious thing, and then a feeling of dread slowly began to grow. Could this cow with horns be a bull? Uh oh. I hurried back inside thinking that at any moment this bull would dash through the fence and trample me like in Pamplona.