d again. "I'll say half a dozen then, if a dozen
is all you want to give yourself."

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