Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1875 — Our Young Folks. [ARTICLE]

Our Young Folks.

THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTYEIGHTH SHEEP.

BY SARAH J. PRICCHARD.

It was 101 years ago m this very rrionth of June that this thing happened. One morning nine gentlemen of the old town of Windham, lies near the northeast corner of the little State of Connecticut, met at the meeting-house door. There was no service that day; the doors w-ere shut, and the bell up in the steeple gave no sound. These nine gentlemen were come together to go a begging. On his stout, gray pony sat Ebenezer Devotion, grim, gray, tall, and impatient to be gone. As soon as he heard the eastern portion of the town assigned to him he gave the signal to his horse, and in five minutes was out of sight over the high hill. In ten minutes he was near the famous Frog Itond. As he was passing it by a voice from the marsh along its bank cried out:” “ Where now so fast this fine morning, Mr. Devotion?” “ The same to you, Goodwife Elderkin. I know your voice, though I can’t see your face.” Presently a hand parted the thicket and a woman’s face appeared. “I’m getting flag-root. It gives a twang to root-beer that nothing else will, and the flag hereabout is the twangiest I know of. Stop at the house as you go along and get some beer, won’t you? Mary Ann’s to home.” “ Thank you,” said Mr. Devotion, with a stiff’bow. “It’s a little early for beer this morning. I’ll stop as I come this way again. How are your sheep and lambs this year?” “First rate. Never better.” “ Have you any to part with ?”- “Who wants to buy?” and Goodwife Elderkin came out from the thicket to the roadside, eager for gain. “We don’t sell sheep in Windham this year,” said Mr. Devotion. “ Why, what’s the matter with the man?” thought Mrs. Elderkin, for Ebenezer Devotion liked to drive a good bargain as well as any one of his neighbors. Before she had time to give expression to her surprise he said, with a sharp inclination of his head toward the sun: “We’ve neighbors over yonder, good and true, who couldn’t sell sheep if we were shut in by ships of war, and hungry, too.” “ What! any news from Boston town ?’ ’ “ It’s twenty-four hours to-day since the port was shut up.” Goodwife Elderkin laughed. Ebenezer Devotion looked grim enough to smother every bit of laughter in New England. “ ’Pears as if King and Parliament really believed that tea was cast away by the men of Boston, now don’t it? ’stead of every man, woman and child in the country havin’ a hand in it,” said Mrs. Elderkin. •

“ About the sheep!” replied Mr. Devotion, jerking up his horse’s head from the sweet, pure grass greening all the roadside. “ Let your pony feed while he can,” she replied. “ What about tlm sheep ?” “ How many will you give *’ . “ How many are you going to give yourself?” * “Twice as many as you will.” “ Do you mean it?” “ I do.” * • “Then I’ll give every sheep I own.” “ And how many is that?” “A couple of dozen or so.” “ Better keep some of them for another time.” Mrs. Elderkin laughed 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 Good wife 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 baek 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 a 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 thre 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 inany sheep and cattle, likewise hay and wood, all of which the inhabitants of Boston needed tor daily use, but by the Boston Port bill, which went into operation on the Ist day of June, no person/ was per-’ mitted 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 w r as in answer to this cry that our nine gentlemen of Windham went sheep-gath-ering. 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. lam afraid some of the poor sheep would not have been so willing to go had they know n their destiny; but the men of the town were very willing to send them and in haste to have them gone. Two men and two boys went with 'the gift. Goodwife Elderkin was e'arly on the 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 tile distance, a sight that made her heart beat fast. On the stone wall,, under a great tree, sat “Alary Robbins, & little girl. She was dressed in a pink calico frock and she was holding.iri her arms a' snow-white lamb, around whose neck she had tied .a

strip of the calico of which her own dress was fashioned. “ Now, if I ever saw the beat of that!” cried Goodwife 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 gotthat lamb for?” Mary blushed under her little sun-bon-net, 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?” “What for?” “ Why, for some poor little tfirl 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. * “ Give it to me, then.” She gave it, saying: 1 ‘ 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 sunbonnet 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 lyould ask her about the lamb. The flock of sheep marched until noontide, when a halt was ordered. After that they went on over hill and river, with rest at night and at noon, until the town of Roxbuiy -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 knew you suffer and feel for you. As a testimony of our commiseration of your misfortunes w r e 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 w’ould accept and apply to the relief of those honest, industrious poor who are most oppressed by the late oppressive acts.” Then, after a promise of future help in case of need, the letter is signed tor Samuel Grey, Ebenezer Devotion and seven other names, ending with that of Hezekiah Manning. A British officer seeing the lamb in Johnny’s arms offered to buy it, bribing him with a bit of gold; but Johnny said there wasn’t any gold in the land that he would exchange it for, and so the lamb reached Boston in safety before the sheep gol there. As Johnny walked along the stiesis he was busy looking out for some soof5 oof little girl to give it to, according to [ary’s request. “ I must wait,” he thought, “ until I find some one who is almost starved.”

Presently he heard from over his head a cry of distress, which in an instant changed to one of admiration. He stepped into the street and looked upward. The lamb in his arms gave a plaintive bleat, and the child looking down said: “Oh, see! see! A lamb! A live lamb in Boston town!" “Do you want it?” shouted Johnny, loud enough to be heard all along the street. ====== Then there was heard the sound of swift feet on the stairway, and soon, a minute after, two bare, eager arms‘outstretched for Mary Robbins’ lamb. Johnny told the story very briefly. “Tell her,” cried the child, “we’ll keep it till we’re starving to death.” Johnny was almost too far away to hear her, for he had nearly lost sight of the messenger, and was running to overtake him. When the Boston Gazette of July 4,1774, 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 258 sheep, a generous contribution of our sympathizing brethren of the town of Windham, in the colony of Connecticut, to be distributed for the 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.— Christian Union.

—Out in Virginia City, Nev., they give the boys giant-powder caps to play with when other toys fail of novelty. The giant-powder cap is a percussion affair used in blasting, and when it goes off makes a great deal of noise, not unfrequently attended with a displacement of surrounding objects. One of the Virginia City boys took a giant-powder cap to school the other day, inspired possibly with the idea that in a place where the young idea was taught how to shoot the cap would not be out of place. During school hours he pulled out his knife ana endeavored to find out what the cap was made of, and was eminently successful in the effort. At the first dig of the knife there was a tremendous explosion, and the boy jumped up with two fingers and a thumb gone. It spattered blood everywhere, and the schoolma’am went off into hysterics, while their braver boys picked finger-nails and small particles of boy from the pages of their open books. Now boys are forbidden to bring giant-powder caps into the Virginia school-rooms. —ln San Francisco, with a population of 275,000, there are about fifty-five places where the Gospel is preached. The Baptists have five churches; the Congregationalists have five; the Episcopalians and Lutherans each seven; the Methodists ten (two of them German); the Presbyterians twelve; there are three churches for the colored people, three for the Chinese, the Disciples have one, the Plymouth Brethren one, and there is a Mariners’ church. One-third of the churches, are quite small, with congregations averaging less than 100. The congregations of the remaining two-thirds will not average over 800. This estimate gives only a little over regular church-goers, less than 6 per cent, of the population.