Mary got it warm by wrapping it in an old garment and holding it in her arms near the fireplace. All day long she nursed it. By night it could swallow a little. Mary was pleased. But even then she was not sure it would live. So she sat up all night with it. In the morning it could stand, and from that time on it improved rapidly, learned to drink milk, and soon was running about and following Mary wherever she went. Mary continued her care for the lamb, which grew to be a beautiful animal, its fleece being the finest and whitest. She washed it regularly, combed the wool on its forehead, and trimmed it with bright-colored ribbons. They roamed the fields together, and were constant companions and fast friends. She would dress it up as a girl would her doll, and had a little blanket to cover it with as it lay at her feet. As Mary was leaving for school one day, she had not seen her pet as yet that morning, and, calling it, she heard it respond down in the field. Soon it was by her side, when her brother Nate suggested that they take it to school with them. Mary thought it a good idea, and to school it went. There she put it under her seat, and covered it with its blanket. All went well, and the lamb remained as quiet as could be, until Mary had to go forward to recite. She had hardly taken her place in her class, however, till clatter, clatter, clatter, here came the lamb after her, much to her chagrin and the merriment of all others, not excepting the teacher, who laughed outright. Mary was permitted to take her lamb out and shut it in a shed until noon, when she took it home. It chanced that on this particular day a young man, John Roulston, then a private student preparing for college under his uncle, the Rev. Lemuel Capen, visited the school, and saw the incident just alluded to. The next day he rode across the fields on horseback to the schoolhouse, and handed Mary a slip of paper on which he had written the first three stanzas of the poem that has made the name of Mary and her lamb immortal. In 1828 three more stanzas were added, which bring out the moral to the story. Mary's lamb, a ewe, became the mother of three lambs, a single one and twins, which she reared with all the devotion of a true mother. But like some other famous animals and famous individuals, Mary's lamb had a tragic end. The family were all out in the barn one Thanksgiving morning. The lamb had followed Mary. Not realizing the danger, it ran along in the feed box directly in front of the cows fastened in their stanchions. One of the creatures gave its head a toss, then, lowering its horns, gored the lamb. With one agonizing bleat, and blood streaming from its side, it came toward Mary, who took it in her arms, and placed its head in her lap, and saw it bleed to death. During its agonizing moments it would turn its head and look into Mary's face in a most appealing manner, as if to ask if something could not be done for it. It was a sorrowful moment for Mary, and she nearly fainted as she saw her pet and bosom companion pass away, and a void was made in her childish heart which could not be filled. She had met her first great sorrow. From its fleece Mary's mother knit her two pairs of beautiful white stockings, which she kept for many years in memory of her pet. Finally, to raise money for the preservation of Old South Church, Boston, these stockings, with her consent, were unraveled, the yarn cut into short pieces, which were fastened to cards with Mary's autograph written on them, and sold, the proceeds amounting to hundreds of dollars, Mary (now Mrs. Tyler, her married name) preserving only two cards herself as the last mementoes of her pet lamb. She died in 1889, and is buried in Mount Auburn cemetery, in Boston. |