Mary and the lamb were real

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 5

Mary and the lamb were real

(By

SYLVIA MAE REEVES.

in the "Christian Science Monitor.")

Mary had a little lamb; Its fleece was white as snow; And everywhere that Mary

went. The lamb vas sure to go. It. followed her to school one day. Which was against the rule; It made the children laugh arid play To see a lamb at school. And so the teacher turned it out; But still it lingered near. And waited patiently about Till Mary did appear. These lines are familiar to you, probably, but would it surprise you to learn that there was a real lamb and a real' Mary? That is why the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” came to be written.

Mary Sawyer was born in 1806, in Sterling, Massachusetts, in a little house that still stands. As soon as she could toddle, she went with her father to feed and care for the animals on his farm. On a cold March morning when Mary was eight, they went to the sheep pens and found that twin lambs had been born. One was so weak that Mary begged to take it to the house and care for it. That was the beginning of the friendship. Mary kept the lamb warm and gave it milk, and the lamb grew strong and utterly devoted to her. She had only to whistle and it would come running. In fact, just as the poem says, “everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.” Mary had to go to school. Every morning after she said an affectionate good-bye to the lamb, it was sent to join the other sheep in the pasture. But one day that changed. THE LAMB FOLLOWED As Mary and her brother, Nathaniel, walked towards school, they heard a far-away bleating that soon sounded clearer and clearer. The lamb was following them! Why not take the lamb to school. They lifted it over the high stone wall and were on their way. Mary tried to hide the lamb behind her desk, but when she went to the front of the room to recite she heard the click of little hooves following her . . . “And so the

teacher turned it out, But still it lingered near. And waited patiently about, Till Mary did appear.” It so happened that a young man, John Roulstone jun., was in Sterling studying with his uncle, the Rev. Lemuel Capin, to prepare for college. He had ridden over to the little red schoolhouse on horseback that day to help with the morning prayer, and he was so intrigued by the lamb’s devotion to Mary that when he went home he wrote the first three stanzas of the poem. The next day he brought it to the school to give to Mary and to show the teacher. Miss Polly Kimball.

These first stanzas have become an American classic. MARY GROWN UP The grown-up Mary taught school for a while and in 1835 was married to Columbus Tyler. Through the years she kept two pairs of long stockings her mother had knitted for her out of yam made from the first fleece shorn from her pet. When in 1882 (Mary was 76 by then), the Old South Church in Boston was threatened with demolition because of lack of money for repairs, she wanted to help. She unraveled the stockings, and the yam was placed on cards, which she autographed. The cards were sold to aid the church, which had been the meeting place for the patriots when they voted to hold the Boston Tea

Party. Today, it stands as a museum.

In 1927, Henry Ford moved the little red schoolhouse to Sudbury, Massachusetts, near Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. And in 1928, he and his wife published “The Story of Mary’s Little Lamb, as told by Mary and her Neighbours and Friends.” The story was authenticated by about 200 signed documents.

There are many Sawyer relatives. One still lives in the house in Sterling where Mary was bom. But Natalie Sawyer Moreland lives in Tucson, Arizona. She has Mary’s own little chair, kept through the years and never refinished and the bell—brass with cherry-wood handle—that Mary heard many times when Miss Polly Kimball rang it to call the children to school.

Mrs Moreland and her husband, a master sergeant in the Air Force, have travelled to many places. She has found that most people do not know the true story of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” — that it was, indeed, written about a real little girl and her lively little lamb.