MARY E. SAWYER, afterward Mrs. Columbus Tyler, was born in Sterling, a quiet place near Worcester, Mass. It was here that she grew up and went to school. The little newborn lamb, found almost dead, she nursed devotedly, sitting up all night to keep it warm. In the morning it could stand and swallow a little. Then it began to improve rapidly. It grew fast, and its fleece was of the finest and whitest. She would comb it every day, and tie the wool with bright ribbons. The lamb was almost her only playmate; and, not having many dolls, Mary used to dress up the lamb in pantalets and a shawl.
It was her brother Nate who suggested taking the lamb to school one day. They had hard work to get her over a high stone wall they had to climb, but finally succeeded. When the schoolhouse was reached, the teacher had not arrived, and but few scholars were there. Mary wondered what she should do with the lamb. They had high, boarded-up seats then, and Mary put the lamb under her seat, having put on her shawl—not the pantalets, however—and the lamb lay down and kept very quiet. By and by Mary had to go out of the seat to recite, and left the lamb all right, but in a moment there was a clatter, clatter, on the floor, and she knew it was the pattering of the hoofs of her pet. She was greatly mortified.
The teacher was Miss Polly Kimball, who was the mother of Mr. Loring, the circulating literary man of Boston. She laughed outright, and the children all giggled; but Mary felt too much ashamed to even smile. She led the lamb out-of-doors, and put her in a shed until she went home at noon. Visiting the school that forenoon was a young man named John Roulstone, a nephew of Rev. Lemuel, who was then settled in Sterling, and the son of Mary's dancing-master. He was fitting for college. He was greatly pleased at the school incident; and the next day he came across the fields on horseback, came to the schoolhouse, and handed Mary a slip of paper containing three stanzas he had composed. Two stanzas have since been added by a Mrs. Townsend.
From the fleece sheared from this ewe, Mary's mother knit two pairs of stockings, which Mary kept until she was about eighty years old. When the ladies of Boston were raising money for the preservation of the Old South Church, some ten or more years ago, she contributed one pair of these stockings for the benefit of the fund. The yarn was raveled out, and small pieces attached to cards having her autograph; and these were sold for quite a sum, realizing about $100. Then Mary consented to raveling out the other pair of stockings, and went herself to the fair and sold the wool. All she kept was two little pieces pasted on cards. Mary taught school in Fitchburg after leaving Sterling. She was afterward married, and for thirty-five years held the position of matron of the McLean Insane Asylum at Somerville, Mass., where for forty years her husband was steward of the institution. After leaving this place, they built and occupied one of the finest residences in the city, and for many years were most highly esteemed as generous, noble, useful, public-spirited people. They left no children.
