He wiped the sweat from his forehead and approached Ezra, glad of an excuse for a moment’s rest from his toil.
“Riding from Boston way?” he inquired eagerly.
“I left Cambridge a few days ago,” replied Ezra.
As he spoke the lad drew out one of the sheets from his saddle pocket and unfolded it. It was covered with an announcement in heavy, bold-faced type.
“This,” said the boy, “is issued by the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, and riders have been sent out in every direction to deliver them to the towns and people round-about.”
The farmer took the circular and began an earnest study of its appeal. The other man, seeing that something unusual was going forward, halted his team and also approached. Leaning over the shoulder of the first, he, too, read the earnest lines.
“You have heard long since what has been done,” said Ezra, soberly, when the two had finished and stood silently gazing at him. “We have struck the first real blow against the oppressors of the colonies. But what was done at Lexington and Concord is only a beginning.”
“A beginning!” said the first man, in surprise.
“Do you really mean to say that Dr. Warren and those others actually intend to go further in the matter?” exclaimed the second.
“They must,” said Ezra. The two before him had weak, wavering faces and thin, light-colored hair; from the close resemblance they bore each other, he judged they must be brothers. “To get any result from the first blow, a second must be struck,” he went on. “There would have been no use in making a beginning if an ending were not also made.”