The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1909-05-16
MARY'SLIT7LEL LAMB
Was a Real One, According to
This New Yorker.
Charles c. Chadcayne, OF ossinIng,
Gives History Of Famous Animal
Poet Grabbed Immortality
from Trip to School.

| this statement and he backs 1t up
with proofs of the little creatures
origin, life, department and above all
its experience in school ON that well
| remembered day.
The information concerning the
| famous animal is CLEANED from extern
sive researches made upon the collec-
ton of curlos belonging to Mr., Chade-
| ayne. Exhibits In this collection
demonstrate to certainty that Mary's
was a spring lamb, born in 1917 in
Sterling, Mass, where Mary tsur
named Sawyer), lived with her par
ents. The lamb destined to be so
widely known, in its earliest hours,
was frail in health.
Several lambs had been born at
about the same time and Mary made a
visit to the fold with her papa,
Mary" said her father. that lamb
is dead"
mo, papa" replied the little girl,
"for when ! move Its head it will
move 1t back again"
but 1t cannot live said her father,
20, yes, maybe 1t can" replied
Mary Let me take 1t home and
nurse it and tend it,"
To this Mary's papa consented. So
Mary took her little lamb and carried
it home and warmed 1t and fed it, And
from that moment the poem that
everybody knows was assured.
The little girls pet was so grateful
to its benefactor that il could hardly
bear to have her out of its sight. But
Mary must go to school, you know,
and so there had to be separation
for several hours every day. But
Mary always said long good-by to 1t
every morning. Once in hurry this
farewell slipped her mind until she
had got considerable distance from
the house.
And that is how, it came about that
Mary took the lamb to school and how
the poetry spoken by every chick and
child In America was inspired To be
sure, the poem says that at followed
her TO school one day" Well. that
can't be helped. Facts are facts,
despite poets.
When Mary remembered that she
hadn't paid a parting visi: to the lamb
she hurried right back as quick as
she could, She had a little sound that
she made that was half way between
scream ard song, and no matter
where the lamb was when II heard
that sound II would run to Mary AS
she FASTENED homeward she made tina
little sound and sure enough here
came the lamb. II looked up so plead
ingly that Mary just couldn't take il
back to the house and so she wrapped
it up In her shawl and took it along
to school,
She put 1t, still wrapped in the
shawl, under her seat aud she never
studied SO hard in her life as she did
that morning She did not want the
teacher to look her way for fear she
would see the lamb. But when the
time came TO say lessons the schol-
ars in Mary's class had to so out and
stand along a certain crack in the
floor. And what should happen but
the moment that Mary started the
lamb started too, and went right for
ward and stood on the crack with
Mary.
John Rollestone was the poet who
framed the original verses. This man
of letters appears to have been a sort
of New England Keats. for he was al
that time. not more than II years old
He was studying under the guidance
of the village parson. and as soon as
ne heard about the lamb incident he
saw at once that here was his oppor. |
tunity.
In a kind of divine frenzy he
dashed off the stanzas which relate
of the lamb being sure 30 go whore
Mary did, and following her to school. |
and about 1T making the children laugh
and play, and about It being against !
the rules. and about the teacher turn.
ing it out, and about it waiting out |
side until Mary came out
This effort contained only three
stanzas and no more, Mary said in the |
late SOS just before her death. and
constituted the poem as 1t was strick |
en- from the white hot anvil of John
inspiration. So far as
Mary knew, Rollestone wrote no
more regarding the adventures of tbe
lamb II was not until several wears
later that Mary read in newspaper
some verses accredited to Mrs. Sara 7
Hale and entitled "Mary's Little
Lamb" Mrs. Hale had used the Rol.
lestone stanzas with one or two slight |
changes, and to them had added three
Mary survived her lamb by about
So years, passing away in Someryille.
Mass. at the age of SO, having in the |
meantime married a man named
Tyler.