One freezing cold morning in March of 1816, a little girl from Massachusetts named Mary Sawyer headed out to tend the family farm with her father.

One freezing cold morning in March of 1816, a little girl from Massachusetts named Mary Sawyer headed out to tend the family farm with her father. On her way, she found a lamb that had been abandoned by its mother and was near death. Her father grudgingly allowed her to take it in out of the cold and do her best to nurse it back to health. Miraculously, the lamb began to recover after just one night of Mary swaddling it in old clothes and nursing it from a bottle. Once the lamb regained enough strength to walk, it started following Mary everywhere, even to school. One morning, Mary reported to class and tucked her new friend under her desk, covered with a blanket. But, while she was reciting at the front of the class, the lamb started making noise with its hooves, then revealed itself — to the delight of all the kids. One visiting boy named John Roulstone was so taken by the incident that the very next day, he rode to the schoolhouse on horseback and handed Mary ...