When the _Boston Gazette_ of July 4th, 1774, reached the village of Windham, its inhabitants were surprised at the following announcement, more particularly as not one of them knew where the _last sheep_ came from:
"Last week, were driven to the neighboring town of Roxbury two hundred and fifty-eight sheep, a generous contribution of our sympathizing brethren of the town of Windham, in the colony of Connecticut; to be distributed for the employment or relief of those who may be sufferers by means of the act of Parliament, called the Boston Port Bill."
Johnny Manning, when he returned to Windham, privately explained the matter to Mary Robbins, by telling her that when the sheep were numbered at Roxbury he counted in her lamb.
HOW ONE BOY HELPED THE BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF BOSTON IN 1776.
It was Commander-in-chief Washington's birthday, and it was Jeremy Jagger's birthday.
General Washington was forty-four years old that birthday, a hundred years ago. Jeremy Jagger was fourteen, and early in the morning of the 22d of February, 1776, the General and the lad were looking upon the same bit of country, but from different positions. General George Washington was reviewing his precious little army for the thousandth time; the lad Jeremy was looking from a hill upon the camp at Cambridge, and from thence across the River Charles over into Boston, which city had, for many months, been held by the British soldiers.
At last Jeremy exclaimed: "I say, it's too chestnut-bur bad; it is."
"Did you step on one?" questioned a tall, hard-handed, earnest-faced man, who at the instant had come up to the stone-wall on which Jeremy stood, surveying the camp and its surroundings.
"No, I didn't," retorted the lad; "but I wish Boston was _paved_ all over with chestnut-burs, and that every pesky British officer in it had to walk barefoot from end to end fourteen times a day, I do; and the fourteenth time I'd order two or three Colony generals to take a turn with 'em. General Gates for one."
"Come along, Jeremy," called his companion, who had strode across the wall and gone on, regardless of the boy's words.
When Jeremy had ended his expressed wishes, he gathered up his hatchet, dinner-basket, and coil of stout cord, and plunged through the snow after his leader.