Once the cow wouldn't walk into the pen, Jane started prodding him with a stick.
Answer:
Explanation:
The rhetorical question in this poem is asking about the development of a child. It's apparent that kids ask millions of questions, which is the most effective way children know the world and a part of the world becomes their lives, by asking questions, things become clearer to them and their development improves. That is the tool employed by Whitman to show the speaker's development throughout the poem.
Children are known to be very inquisitive, they want to learn about the world they are in, they want to make sense of their environment and every existence, so the only way for them to achieve this is by asking existential questions.
