Ebenezer Devotion drew from his wallet a slip of paper and headed his list of names with "Six sheep, from Goodwife Elderkin."
"Thank you in the name of God Almighty and the country," he said, solemnly, as he jerked his pony's head from the grass and rode on.
Mrs. Elderkin watched him as he wound along the pond-side and was lost to sight; then she, chuckling forth the words, "I knew well enough my sheep were safe," went back to the marsh after flag-root.
When every neighbor feels it a duty to carry intelligence from the last speaker he has met to the next hearer he may meet, news flies fast, so Goodwife Elderkin was prepared for the accost of Mr. Devotion. She did not linger long in the swamp, but, washing her hands free from mud in the water of the pond, walked swiftly home. By the time she reached her house, the gray pony and his rider were two miles away on the road to Canterbury. The cry of hunger and possible starvation in the town of Boston was spreading from village to village and from house to house.
Do you know how Boston is situated? It would be an island but for the narrow neck of land on the south side. On the east, west and north are the waters of Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. Just north from it, and divided only by the same river, is another almost island, with its neck stretched toward the north; and this latter place is Charlestown and contains Bunker's Hill. Not far from the two towns, in the bay, are many islands. Noddle's Island, Hog, Snake, Deer, Apple, Bird and Spectacle Islands are of the number. On these islands were many sheep and cattle, likewise hay and wood, all of which the inhabitants of Boston needed for daily use, but by the Boston port bill, which went into operation on the first day of June, no person was permitted to land anything at either Boston or Charlestown; and so the neck of Charlestown reached out to the north for food and help, and the neck of Boston pleaded with the south for sustenance, and it was in answer to this cry that our nine men of Windham went sheep-gathering.
The work went on for four days, and at the end of that time 257 sheep had been freely given. The owners drove them, on the evening of the 27th day of the month, to the appointed place, and, very early in the morning of the 28th, many of the inhabitants were come together to see the flock start on its long march. Two men and two boys went with the gift. Good wife Elderkin was early on the highway. She wanted to make certain just how many sheep bore the mark of Ebenezer Devotion's ownership; but the driven sheep went past too quickly for her, and she never had the satisfaction of finding out how many he gave. Following the flock up the hill, she saw in the distance a sight that made her heart beat fast. On the stone wall, under a great tree, sat Mary Robbins, a little girl. She was dressed in a pink calico frock, and she was holding in her arms a snow-white lamb, around whose neck she had tied a strip of the calico of which her own gown was fashioned.