also a captain of the militia-being a soldier by training and nature, having served for three years in the Indian wars by the time he was of age; and, in short, was a man universally respected and esteemed for his bravery and goodness of heart. The family into which my Aunt Clara was born was already a grown-up one, she being the youngest, by a dozen years, of five children. With her two sisters and eldest brother all teachers themselves, it is not surprising that she began her school life at the age of three, riding to and from the rude little building on the shoulder of her big brother Stephen, who was a teacher there, and studying quietly in classes by the side of boys and girls many years her senior. She has told me she never remembers possessing a doll, her loving care having been lavished on the pets of the household-a sick cat or dog appealing more strongly to her sympathies than anything else. The only inanimate playthings she had were wooden soldiers fashioned by her brothers, and with these her father would amuse and interest her, as together they fought over the battles of his younger days, until she felt all the fire and enthusiasm of a soldier following the lead of Mad Anthony Wayne, and learned lessons in military tactics and war as though in preparation for the life before her.

Lest I give the idea that her time was devoted entirely to books, I must speak of her outdoor life, for she was one of those fleet-footed, agile girls, strong of limb, clearheaded, and perfectly at home in a saddle. Her younger brother, David, instead of being studiously inclined, as were the others, was passionately fond of horses; so that when she was but a wee child he would put her on the back

-THE NEW YORK RED CROSS HOSPITAL

of a young horse, while he, on another, would hold her hand, and together they would canter around the fields, in and out among the other horses, broken and unbroken. Those who know her now will understand what a sensitive, shrinking girl she must have been, never thrusting herself forward, and avoiding, rather than seeking, strangers; although in her own home. she was gay and light-hearted, full of fun and jokes, with the keen sense of humor which she has never outgrown, and the power of making the drollest speeches in a quiet, irresistible way; the knack of remembering, and telling well, a good story has always been one of her greatest charms. Remembering her shyness and modesty, one can imagine how soon it must have been tried, when, as a little nine-year-old girl, she went away from home to board in the family of the teacher under whom she was to study. The love and respect she bore this man are things of which she cannot speak now with dry eyes, and his sayings and advice she remembers and often repeats to this day.

Thus the years passed, first in study, then at home caring for a sick brother-nursing him through a dangerous illness though a mere child herself; and, when scarce entering girlhood, away with a school of her own to teach, and later at a college for young women, until she came back to assist her brothers in the counting-rooms of the mills they had built. She was always wise, always helpful-going home when needed, and, when the work in hand was done, going away to earn a little more by her teaching or bookkeeping, and with those earnings to further educate herself taking a few lessons in one thing here, a few more in another branch there-until she went to Washington as one of the first women in a department of the Government.

Her labors in those fields have been recounted so often and so minutely that I shall not undertake to describe them again in so brief a sketch as this. The story of her courage and self-sacrifice the world

can never know in its fullness-except as she consents to give it us in the autobiography upon which she is now at work.

In Miss Barton's home in Washington is a collection of Andersonville relics-rude cups and plates, and still ruder tools, all made by those poor prisoners; and these, while each speaking of heartache and misery, bear also, to those who know how to read between the lines, a story of that melancholy comfort that makes a woman rejoice, even though her loved ones be dead, in knowing that they were given Christian burial, and that a woman's hand, with pity and tenderness, marked their last resting place. To see Miss Barton before a group of Grand Army men shows how she must have worked and ministered through those long, hard years of war to have so won the esteem and admiration of these strong men.

Clara Barton's connection with the Red Cross began when, at the end of the sixties, worn out and broken down in health, she went to Switzerland to rest and grow strong again, only to find there more work to do, and, finding it, to so enter into it, heart and soul, as never to lay it down. At the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War there came to her, in her Swiss cottage, , several members of the International Committee of the Red Cross, en route for the scene of action. They explained their errand, begged her to join them, and finally so filled her with enthusiasm that, ill as she was, she promised to follow them within a fortnight.

She was at once presented to the sweet, unassuming daughter of Kaiser William I., the Grand Duchess of Baden, who, with her ladies of the court around her, was working as hard and unceasingly as any simple woman of our own land worked during our great conflict; and as they worked together, these two women found themselves mutually helpful-my aunt bringing forward her practical experience, and the Grand Duchess being able to teach her the methods and objects of the Red Cross, its workings and its ways; so that, all

A RED CROSS NURSE

Miss Bettina Hofker, Sister Superintendent of the New York Red Cross Hospital

and devotion while working in the slums of this city, before she undertook the larger and more responsible position of training "Sisters" for true Red Cross work. It will be a gratification to the people of New York to know that their institution is the especial pride of Miss Barton; it being begun and carried out on the genuine Red Cross ideas, brought straight from Germany.

The American National Red Cross has its headquarters at Miss Barton's home in Washington-in a house well fitted, because of its location and history, to be the center of such a work as that of the Red Cross. On the corner of Seventeenth and F Streets, across the street from the War, State, and Navy Departments, and on the opposite corner from the famous old Winder Building, stands a large, old-fashioned house, a place of great, high-studded rooms-plain, comfortable, staid, and substantial, but with a total absence of any suggestion of luxury. Here live Clara Barton and the Red Cross. The house was built in Jefferson's time, and for years was the private residence of General Jessup, of the old army; then, during the Civil War, it was the headquarters of the army of Generals Halleck and Grant; and my aunt has pointed out to me the room in which, for months, lived the famous Indian, General Eli Parker, and has told me a story of his singular life and ways. In another room General Horace Porter had his office, and out of General Grant's great room was that of Colonel Dent, while many other wellknown names are associated with the various rooms.

It is a house in which to remember half-forgotten stories and bits of history, each and all suggested by the rooms themselves or their contents. Thus, in a vase in the reception-room one sees a large bunch of wild rice, gathered and dried by my aunt at the siege of Fort Wagnergathered from a spot over which had rained shot and shell for a whole long day; close beside it stands a modern photograph of her Highness the Grand Duchess of Baden; while upstairs, in my aunt's own room, there hangs, in its quaint frame of twenty-five years ago, a larger portrait of her, showing the sweet, womanly face as my aunt first knew it in its youthful beauty. Again, one finds some curious and beautiful pillows of Russia leather in all colors, sent home at the time of the relief work of our Red Cross during the Russian famine; and in an out-of-theway corner, as far from being on exhibition as possible, lies a bit of wood from the fence of the dead-line within Andersonville Prison.

The walls of the corridors are hung with banners and immense flags of all nations. Norway and Sweden greet one upon opening the door; on either side hang the crown of Italy and the cross of St. George and St. Andrew;

in the drawing-room are two beautiful flags of silk-the dainty blue and white of Greece surmounted by the silver ball and crescent; and the flag of brave little Switzerland, of which our Red Cross is the reverse. The most magnificent of these is the enormous black eagle of Prussia; in the upper corridor hangs the flag of United Germany, the large eagle with its circle of smaller ones; then come the tri-color of France, the Russian ensign, and many others, all sent as personal gifts in appreciation and acknowledgment of her service under the one little flag to which they all bow.

As is the case with all the rest of the house, Miss Barton's office is devoid of useless luxuries; it is plain, simple, and devoted entirely to business. Here she works from early in the morning until late at night, answering personally and by dictation the enormous daily correspondence from all parts of the world, transacting business of all kinds, working quietly and steadily for hours, forgetting to eat, and, one is tempted to say, to sleep as well, for she is always the first one up in the morning, and frequently works until away into the small hours of the night. The question naturally arises, How has she preserved her strength and youth so marvelously? The only answer mind seems to lie in the fact that she is so quiet and calm and that she never wastes her strength, coupled with a thoroughly acquired knowledge of how to live and keep well; and as for sleep, she has the happy faculty of being able, at any time and in any place, to curl up, sometimes in the most cramped positions, and sleep for fifteen minutes, then, waking, to take up the conversation or work just where it was dropped and go on.

to my

The letters she receives are most curious, interesting, and touching; all of them showing love-and all receive. the same kind attention. Indeed, I have seen her, on several occasions, toss aside, until she had more time, some delicate letter in the unintelligible fashionable hand of the day-from some stranger who thinks she has more time to study over the writer's words than the latter has to write them distinctly in the first place-only to take up reverently and lovingly a poor, misspelled, badly written, muchblotted letter of love and thanks written by a Southern negro whom the Red Cross had helped at some time.

Questions are frequently asked concerning Miss Barton's religious belief; on that score I can say that she comes of a family of most liberal-minded people, and this, combined with her life,

so that it may well be said of. her, as Thomas Paine said of himself:

The world is my country, To do good is my religion.

That she is

a fluent writer

STEPHEN E. BARTON.
Second Vice-President of the Red Cross Society

every one knows; but not every one knows of the dainty bits of verse she has been in the habit of writing since her girlhood. She also adds to her other accomplishments that of reading aloud most charmingly, and sometimes gives her family and a few friends delightful treats in that way.

At home, as in the field, she is never idle; and when traveling is never distressed by inconveniences by the way. I have journeyed with her throughout the Western country, in parts unsettled and wild; I have ridden miles with her over rough Western trails while she told of roads during war-times-roads rough and unbroken, with mud to the

hubs of the wheels, over which she rode on a springless wagon, the only woman, with a band of mutinous men, when to show one sign of fear or fatigue would have meant failure to her; and when the wagon stuck and the men refused to help, delicate little woman that she was, she was out in the mud with her own shoulder to the wheel, until, for very shame, the men fell to work with a will.

I have seen her in camp, where she has taught us how really comfortable and delightful an out-of-door life can be made without any of the conveniences of modern appliances.

Again, on the Atlantic coast in her native State, I have seen her in a State's prison, in a group of the most hardened, obstreperous of women offenders, still quiet and gentle, but controlling them so that not one would disobey her, and even the most ugly had a word of praise. This was at Sherborn, Mass., to which place General Butler asked her to come as Superintendent of the Woman's Reformatory Prison for the year 1883. She, remembering his kindness and goodness to her and her family in the years gone by, gladly went to help straighten out one of the tangles of his Governorship. Her home in Dansville was another place where for a few years she was able to live in quiet, peace, and retirement among the trees and vines of that beautiful spot on the hillside, resting in preparation for the greater work of after years.

In conclusion, I can say that if Clara Barton ever had a motto or watchword, she has kept it so modestly in the background that even I never heard of it; but her idea of life, I often think, lies in what she once said to me when, with the feverish haste and impatience of youth, I was longing for great things to do. "Be always calm, my child," she said; "keep yourself quiet and in restraint, reserve your energies, doing those little things that lie in your way, each one as well as you can, saving your strength, so that when God does call you to do something good and great you will not have wasted your force and strength with useless strivings, but will be ready to do the work quickly and well. Go slowly, my child and keep ready."

Clara Barton: An Impression

Recently a member of the editorial staff of The Outlook visited Miss Barton at her Washington office. The personal impression received will supplement the preceding article.

The first impression Miss Barton makes on a stranger is that of a woman of perfect repose. The expression of her face, the quiet of her manner, and the exquisitely modulated voice are so harmonious, so restful, that the thought that this woman was born to command, to lead, to endure hardship, to witness suffering, seems past belief. Miss Barton is a little below medium height; her figure is almost girlish. As I saw her, she wore a dress of some dark material, with a feather boa about her neck. Her hair was parted in the middle, and combed down over her ears, and brought in a soft puff just above and back of the ear; two side-combs were in the hair, a little below the part on either side. The

woman reveals the spirit of motherhood in her face. It is the true mother who sees in all the world, everywhere, the objects for her ministrations. Her sentences constantly reveal this spirit. Miss Barton is a charming talker when roused. The listener sits back, in the dim light of the stately room that makes a fitting frame for the woman, and listens, if wise. The simple directness of Miss Barton is one of her greatest charms. She cannot believe that the great, busy world is interested enough in her to want to know the story of her life. She is not important; her work is all that interests the world, she says, with positiveness. Doubtless it has often occurred to thousands, as it did to this special visitor, that they would like to know why Miss Barton had consecrated her life to the Red Cross movement. When the question was asked, Miss Barton looked surprised.

"The work was put into my hands. I was asked by the Geneva Commission to take it up. They thought I could do it. They wanted me to interest the United States Government. I said I would think about it. I decided to do it. I was not led; I was not standing around looking for something to do; these people wanted some work done, they asked me, I did it. That is the whole story.

"About this Armenian Mission. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions asked us to take the work. We made two conditions. First, that all the Boards should agree that we were the ones to go into Armenia with relief; we did not want to take the work up to find that other bodies had chosen other agents. If all the great bodies were agreed that we were the ones to do the work, then one of our conditions would be met.

"The second condition was that there should be funds. We would not agree to go into a field to give relief to suffering people unless there were funds to provide that relief. We were asked how much we would require. My financial secretary responded by asking a question. 'You are in touch with the people of Armenia; you know better than any one else the number of people who need relief; it is said that 350,000 people are in danger of starvation before their crops will be ready. How much would you think necessary?' The response was, 'About $500,000 to relieve and keep relieved until danger is over.' You see the situation. Now, if only part of that sum is put at our disposal, we dare to go forward.

"If we cannot reach them, then we suffer alike, we suffer with them. Interesting? When you stand day and night in the presence of hardship and physical suffering, you do not stop to think about the interest. There is no time for that. Ease pain, soothe sorrow, lessen suffering-this is your only thought night and day. Everything, everything else is lost sight of-yourself and the world.

"I shall go if we take up the work. I have the finest executive officers in the world; trained men, every one. They go into the field with absolute power. It must be so. I am a poor sailor, but I shall go. There is nothing

else to do."

"Good-by."

REINCORPORATED, APRIL 17, 1893.

HEADQUARTERS: WASHINGTON, D. C.

Washington, D. C., December 2, 1895.