"Now if I ever saw the beat of that!" cried Good wife Elderkin, walking almost at a run up the hill, and so coming to the place where the child sat, before the sheep got there.
"Mary Robbins!" she cried, breathless from her haste. "What have you got that lamb for?"
Mary blushed under her little sun-bonnet, hugged the lamb, and said not a word. At the moment up came the flock, panting and warm. Down sprang Mary Robbins from the wall, the lamb in her arms. Johnny Manning, aged fifteen years, was one of the two lads in care of the sheep. To him Mary ran, saying:
"Johnny, Johnny, won't you take my lamb, too?"
"Why, for some poor little girl in the town where there isn't anything to eat," urged Mary, her sun-bonnet falling unheeded into the dust, as she held up her offering to the cause of liberty.
"Why, it can't walk to Boston," said the boy, running back to recover a stray sheep.
"You can carry it in your arms," she urged.
"Be good to it, Johnny, and give him some milk to drink to-night. It don't eat much grass, yet."
And so Johnny Manning marched away, over and down and out of sight, with Mary's lamb in his arms. As for Mary herself, little woman that she was, having made her sacrifice, she would have dropped on the grass, after picking up her sun-bonnet, and had a good cry over her loss, had it not been for Goodwife Elderkin standing there in the road, waiting for her.
With a sharp look at the child, the woman left the highway to go to her own house, and Mary went home, hoping that no one would ask her about the lamb.
The flock of sheep marched until the noontide, when a halt was ordered. After that they went onward over hill and river, with rest at night and at noon, until the town of Roxbury was reached. At this place the sheep were left to be taken to Boston, when opportunity could be had.
With Mary's lamb in his arms, Johnny Manning accompanied the messenger who went up Boston Neck to carry a letter to the "Selectmen of the Town." That letter has been preserved and is carefully kept among the treasured documents of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is too long to be given here, but, after begging Boston to suffer and be strong, remembering what had been done for the country by its founders, it closes in these words: "We know you suffer, and feel for you. As a testimony of our commiseration of your misfortunes, we have procured a small flock of sheep, which at this season are not so good as we could wish, but are the best we had. This small present, gentlemen, we beg you would accept and apply to the relief of those honest, industrious poor, who are most oppressed by the late oppressive acts."