When Alice was ten years old, the family moved from the farm to the village of Windsor, where Dr. Freeman entered upon his life as a doctor, and where Alice's real education began. From the time she was four she had, for varying periods, sat on a bench in the district school, but for the most part she had taught herself. At Windsor Academy she had the advantage of a school of more than average efficiency.
"Words do not tell what this old school and place meant to me as a girl," she said years afterward. "Here we gathered abundant Greek, Latin, French, and mathematics; here we were taught truthfulness, to be upright and honorable; here we had our first loves, our first ambitions, our first dreams, and some of our first disappointments. We owe a large debt to Windsor Academy for the solid groundwork of education that it laid."
More important than the excellent curriculum and wholesome associations, however, was the influence of a friendship with one of the teachers, a young Harvard graduate who was supporting himself while preparing for the ministry. He recognized the rare nature and latent powers of the girl of fourteen, and taught her the delights of friendship with Nature and with books, and the joy of a mind trained to see and appreciate. He gave her an understanding of herself, and aroused the ambition, which grew into a fixed resolve, to go to college. But more than all, he taught her the value of personal influence.
"It is people that count," she used to say. "The truth and beauty that are locked up in books and in nature, to which only a few have the key, begin really to live when they are made over into human character. Disembodied ideas may mean little or nothing; it is when they are 'made flesh' that they can speak to our hearts and minds."
As Alice drove about with her father when he went to see his patients and saw how this true "doctor of the old school" was a physician to the mind as well as the body of those who turned to him for help, she came to a further realization of the truth: It is people that count.
"It must be very depressing to have to associate with bodies and their ills all the time," she ventured one day when her father seemed more than usually preoccupied. She never forgot the light that shone in his eyes as he turned and looked at her.
"We can't begin to minister to the body until we understand that spirit is all," he said. "What we are pleased to call body is but one expression—and a most marvelous expression—of the hidden life
It seemed to Alice that this might be a favorable time to broach the subject of college. He looked at her in utter amazement; few girls thought of wanting more than a secondary education in those days, and there were still fewer opportunities for them.
"Why, daughter," he exclaimed, "a little more Latin and mathematics won't make you a better home-maker! Why should you set your heart on this thing?"
"I must go, Father," she answered steadily. "It is not a sudden notion; I have realized for a long time that I cannot live my life—the life that I feel I have it within me to live—without this training. I want to be a teacher—the best kind of a teacher—just as you wanted to be a doctor."
"But, my dear child," he protested, much troubled, "it will be as much as we can manage to see one of you through college, and that one should be Fred, who will have a family to look out for one of these days."
"If you let me have this chance, Father," said Alice, earnestly, "I'll promise that you will never regret it. I'll help to give Fred his chance, and see that the girls have the thing they want as well."
In the end Alice had her way. It seemed as if the strength of her single-hearted longing had power to compel a reluctant fate. In June, 1872, when but a little over seventeen, she went to Ann Arbor to take the entrance examinations for the University of Michigan, a careful study of catalogues having convinced her that the standard of work was higher there than in any college then open to women.
A disappointment met her at the outset. Her training at Windsor, good as it was, did not prepare her for the university requirements. "Conditions" loomed mountain high, and the examiners recommended that she spend another year in preparation. Her intelligence and character had won the interest of President Angell, however, and he asked that she be granted a six-weeks' trial. His confidence in her was justified; for she not only proved her ability to keep up with her class, but steadily persevered in her double task until all conditions were removed.
The college years were "a glory instead of a grind," in spite of the ever-pressing necessity for strict economy in the use of time and money. Her sense of values—"the ability to see large things large and small things small," which has been called the best measure of education,—showed a wonderful harmony of powers. While the mind was being stored with knowledge and the intellect trained to clear, orderly thinking, there was never a "too-muchness" in this direction that meant a "not-enoughness" in the realm of human relationships. Always she realized that it is people that count, and her supreme test of education as of life was its "consecrated serviceableness." President Angell in writing of her said:
One of her most striking characteristics in college was her warm and demonstrative sympathy with her circle of friends. Her soul seemed bubbling over with joy, which she wished to share with the other girls. While she was therefore in the most friendly relations with all those girls then in college, she was the radiant center of a considerable group whose tastes were congenial with her own. Without assuming or striving for leadership, she could not but be to a certain degree a leader among these, some of whom have attained positions only less conspicuous for usefulness than her own. Wherever she went, her genial, outgoing spirit seemed to carry with her an atmosphere of cheerfulness and joy.
In the middle of her junior year, news came from her father of a more than usual financial stress, owing to a flood along the Susquehanna, which had swept away his hope of present gain from a promising stretch of woodland. It seemed clear to Alice that the time had come when she must make her way alone. Through the recommendation of President Angell she secured a position as teacher of Latin and Greek in the High School at Ottawa, Illinois, where she taught for five months, receiving enough money to carry her through the remainder of her college course. The omitted junior work was made up partly during the summer vacation and partly in connection with the studies of the senior year. An extract from a letter home will tell how the busy days went:
This is the first day of vacation. I have been so busy this year that it seems good to get a change, even though I do keep right on here at work. For some time I have been giving a young man lessons in Greek every Saturday. I have had two junior speeches already, and there are still more. Several girls from Flint tried to have me go home with them for the vacation, but I made up my mind to stay and do what I could for myself and the other people here. A young Mr. M. is going to recite to me every day in Virgil; so with teaching and all the rest I sha'n't have time to be homesick, though it will seem rather lonely when the other girls are gone and I don't hear the college bell for two weeks.
Miss Freeman's early teaching showed the vitalizing spirit that marked all of her relations with people.
"She had a way of making you feel 'all dipped in sunshine,'" one of her girls said.
"Everything she taught seemed a part of herself," another explained. "It wasn't just something in a book that she had to teach and you had to learn. She made every page of our history seem a part of present life and interests. We saw and felt the things we talked about."
The fame of this young teacher's influence traveled all the way from Michigan, where she was principal of the Saginaw High School, to Massachusetts. Mr. Henry Durant, the founder of Wellesley, asked her to come to the new college as teacher of mathematics. She declined the call, however, and, a year later, a second and more urgent invitation. Her family had removed to Saginaw, where Dr. Freeman was slowly building up a practice, and it would mean leaving a home that needed her. The one brother was now in the university; Ella was soon to be married; and Stella, the youngest, who was most like Alice in temperament and tastes, was looking forward hopefully to college.
But at the time when Dr. Freeman was becoming established and the financial outlook began to brighten, the darkest days that the family had ever known were upon them. Stella, the chief joy and hope of them all, fell seriously ill. The "little mother" loved this "starlike girl" as her own child, and looked up to her as one who would reach heights her feet could never climb. When she died it seemed to Alice that she had lost the one chance for a perfectly understanding and inspiring comradeship that life offered. At this time a third call came to Wellesley,—as head of the department of history,—and hoping that a new place with new problems would give her a fresh hold on joy, she accepted.
Into her college work the young woman of twenty-four put all the power and richness of her radiant personality. She found peace and happiness in untiring effort, and her girls found in her the most inspiring teacher they had ever known. She went to the heart of the history she taught, and she went to the hearts of her pupils.
"She seemed to care for each of us—to find each as interesting and worth while as if there were no other person in the world," one of her students said.
Mr. Durant had longed to find just such a person to build on the foundation he had laid. It was in her first year that he pointed her out to one of the trustees.
"Do you see that little dark-eyed girl? She will be the next president of Wellesley," he said.
"Surely she is much too young and inexperienced for such a responsibility," protested the other, looking at him in amazement.
"As for the first, it is a fault we easily outgrow," said Mr. Durant, dryly, "and as for her inexperience—well, I invite you to visit one of her classes."
The next year, on the death of Mr. Durant, she was made acting president of the college, and the year following she inherited the title and honors, as well as the responsibilities and opportunities, of the office. The Princess had come into her kingdom.
The election caused a great stir among the students, particularly the irrepressible seniors. It was wonderful and most inspiring that their splendid Miss Freeman, who was the youngest member of the faculty, should have won this honor. "Why, she was only a girl like themselves! The time of strict observances and tiresome regulations of every sort was at an end. Miss Freeman seemed to sense the prevailing mood, and, without waiting for a formal assembly, asked the seniors to meet her in her rooms. In they poured, overflowing chairs, tables, and ranging themselves about on the floor in animated, expectant groups. The new head of the college looked at them quietly for a minute before she began to speak.
"I have sent for you seniors," she said at last seriously, "to ask your advice. You may have heard that I have been called to the position of acting president of your college. I am, of course, too young; and the duties are, as you know, too heavy for the strongest to carry alone. If I must manage alone, there is only one course—to decline. It has, however, occurred to me that my seniors might be willing to help by looking after the order of the college and leaving me free for administration. Shall I accept? Shall we work things out together?"
The hearty response made it clear that the princess was to rule not only by "divine right," but also by the glad "consent of the governed." Perhaps it was her youth and charm and the romance of her brilliant success that won for her the affectionate title of "The Princess"; perhaps it was her undisputed sway in her kingdom of girls. It was said that her radiant, "outgoing spirit" was felt in the atmosphere of the place and in all the graduates. Her spirit became the Wellesley spirit.
"What did she do besides turning all of you into an adoring band of Freeman-followers?" a Wellesley woman was asked.
The reply came without a moment's hesitation: "She had the life-giving power of a true creator, one who can entertain a vision of the ideal, and then work patiently bit by bit to 'carve it in the marble real.' She built the Wellesley we all know and love, making it practical, constructive, fine, generous, human, spiritual."
For six years the Princess of Wellesley ruled her kingdom wisely. She raised the standard of work, enlisted the interest and support of those in a position to help, added to the buildings and equipment, and won the enthusiastic cooperation of students, faculty, and public. Then, one day, she voluntarily stepped down from her throne, leaving others to go on with the work she had begun. She married Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard, and, (quite in the manner of the fairy-tale) "lived happily ever after."
"What a disappointment!" some of her friends said. "That a woman of such unusual powers and gifts should deliberately leave a place of large usefulness and influence to shut herself up in the concerns of a single home!"
"There is nothing better than the making of a true home," said Alice Freeman Palmer. "I shall not be shut away from the concerns of others, but more truly a part of them. 'For love is fellow-service,' I believe."
The home near Harvard Yard was soon felt to be the most free and perfect expression of her generous nature. Its happiness made all life seem happier. Shy undergraduates and absorbed students who had withdrawn overmuch within themselves and their pet problems found there a thaw after their "winter of discontent." Wellesley girls—even in those days before automobiles—did not feel fifteen miles too great a distance to go for a cup of tea and a half-hour by the fire.
Many were surprised that Mrs. Palmer never seemed worn by the unstinted giving of herself to the demands of others on her time and sympathy. The reason was that their interests were her interests. Her spirit was indeed "outgoing"; there was no wall hedging in a certain number of things and people as hers, with the rest of the world outside. As we have seen, people counted with her supremely; and the ideas which moved her were those which she found embodied in the joys and sorrows of human hearts.
Mrs. Palmer wrote of her days at this time:
I don't know what will happen if life keeps on growing so much better and brighter each year. How does your cup manage to hold so much? Mine is running over, and I keep getting larger cups; but I can't contain all my blessings and gladness. We are both so well and busy that the days are never half long enough.
Life held, indeed, a full measure of opportunities for service. Wellesley claimed her as a member of its executive committee, and other colleges sought her counsel. When Chicago University was founded, she was induced to serve as its Dean of Women until the opportunities for girls there were wisely established. She worked energetically raising funds for Radcliffe and her own Wellesley. Throughout the country her wisdom as an educational expert was recognized, and her advice sought in matters of organization and administration. For several years, as a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, she worked early and late to improve the efficiency and influence of the normal schools. She was a public servant who brought into all her contact with groups and masses of people the simple directness and intimate charm that marked her touch with individuals.
"How is it that you are able to do so much more than other people?" asked a tired, nervous woman, who stopped Mrs. Palmer for a word at the close of one of her lectures.
"Because," she answered, with the sudden gleam of a smile, "I haven't any nerves nor any conscience, and my husband says I haven't any backbone."
It was true that she never worried. She had early learned to live one day at a time, without "looking before and after." And nobody knew better than Mrs. Palmer the renewing power of joy. She could romp with some of her very small friends in the half-hour before an important meeting; go for a long walk or ride along country lanes when a vexing problem confronted her; or spend a quiet evening by the fire reading aloud from one of her favorite poets at the end of a busy day.
For fifteen years Mrs. Palmer lived this life of joyful, untiring service. Then, at the time of her greatest power and usefulness, she died. The news came as a personal loss to thousands. Just as Wellesley had mourned her removal to Cambridge, so a larger world mourned her earthly passing. But her friends soon found that it was impossible to grieve or to feel for a moment that she was dead. The echoes of her life were living echoes in the world of those who knew her.
There are many memorials speaking in different places of her work. In the chapel at Wellesley, where it seems to gather at every hour a golden glory of light, is the lovely transparent marble by Daniel Chester French, eternally bearing witness to the meaning of her influence with her girls. In the tower at Chicago the chimes "make music, joyfully to recall," her labors there. But more lasting than marble or bronze is the living memorial in the hearts and minds "made better by her presence." For it is, indeed, people that count, and in the richer lives of many the enkindling spirit of Alice Freeman Palmer still lives.
ACHRISTMAS baby! Now isn't that the best kind of a Christmas gift for us all?" cried Captain Stephen Barton, who took the interesting flannel bundle from the nurse's arms and held it out proudly to the assembled family.
No longed-for heir to a waiting kingdom could have received a more royal welcome than did that little girl who appeared at the Barton home in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Christmas Day, 1821. Ten years had passed since a child had come to the comfortable farm-house, and the four big brothers and sisters were very sure that they could not have had a more precious gift than this Christmas baby. No one doubted that she deserved a distinguished name, but it was due to Sister Dorothy, who was a young lady of romantic seventeen and something of a reader, that she was called Clarissa Harlowe, after a well-known heroine of fiction. The name which this heroine of real life actually bore and made famous, however, was Clara Barton; for the Christmas baby proved to be a gift not only to a little group of loving friends, but also to a great nation and to humanity.
The sisters and brothers were teachers rather than playmates for Clara, and her education began so early that she had no recollection of the way they led her toddling steps through the beginnings of book-learning. On her first day at school she announced to the amazed teacher who tried to put a primer into her hands that she could spell the "artichoke words." The teacher had other surprises besides the discovery that this mite of three was acquainted with three-syllabled lore.
Brother Stephen, who was a wizard with figures, had made the sums with which he covered her slate seem a fascinating sort of play at a period when most infants are content with counting the fingers of one hand. All other interests, however, paled before the stories that her father told her of great men and their splendid deeds.
Captain Barton was amused one day at the discovery that his precocious daughter, who always eagerly encored his tales of conquerors and leaders, thought of their greatness in images of quite literal and realistic bigness. A president must, for instance, be as large as a house, and a vice-president as spacious as a barn door at the very least. But these somewhat crude conceptions did not put a check on the epic recitals of the retired officer, who, in the intervals of active service in plowed fields or in pastures where his thoroughbreds grazed with their mettlesome colts, liked to live over the days when he served under "Mad Anthony" Wayne in the Revolutionary War, and had a share in the thrilling adventures of the Western frontier.
Clara was only five years old when Brother David taught her to ride. "Learning to ride is just learning a horse," said this daring youth, who was the "Buffalo Bill" of the surrounding country.
"How can I learn a horse, David?" quavered the child, as the high-spirited animals came whinnying to the pasture bars at her brother's call.
"Catch hold of his mane, Clara, and just feel the horse a part of yourself—the big half for the time being," said David, as he put her on the back of a colt that was broken only to bit and halter, and, easily springing on his favorite, held the reins of both in one hand, while he steadied the small sister with the other by seizing hold of one excited foot.
They went over the fields at a gallop that first day, and soon little Clara and her mount understood each other so well that her riding feats became almost as far-famed as those of her brother. The time came when her skill and confidence on horseback—her power to feel the animal she rode a part of herself and keep her place in any sort of saddle through night-long gallops—meant the saving of many lives.
David taught her many other practical things that helped to make her steady and self-reliant in the face of emergencies. She learned, for instance, to drive a nail straight, and to tie a knot that would hold. Eye and hand were trained to work together with quick decision that made for readiness and efficiency in dealing with a situation, whether it meant the packing of a box, or first-aid measures after an accident on the skating-pond.
She was always an outdoor child, with dogs, horses, and ducks for playfellows. The fuzzy ducklings were the best sort of dolls. Sometimes when wild ducks visited the pond and all her waddling favorites began to flap their wings excitedly, it seemed that her young heart felt, too, the call of large, free spaces.
"The only real fun is to do things," she used to say.
She rode after the cows, helped in the milking and churning, and followed her father about, dropping potatoes in their holes or helping weed the garden. Once, when the house was being painted, she begged to be allowed to assist in the work, even learning to grind the pigments and mix the colors. The family was at first amused and then amazed at the persistency of her application as day after day she donned her apron and fell to work.
They were not less astonished when she wanted to learn the work of the weavers in her brothers' satinet mills. At first, her mother refused this extraordinary request; but Stephen, who understood the intensity of her craving to do things, took her part; and at the end of her first week at the flying shuttle Clara had the satisfaction of finding that her cloth was passed as first-quality goods. Her career as a weaver was of short duration, however, owing to a fire which destroyed the mills.
The young girl was as enthusiastic in play as at work. Whether it was a canter over the fields on Billy while her dog, Button, dashed along at her side, his curly white tail bobbing ecstatically, or a coast down the rolling hills in winter, she entered into the sport of the moment with her whole heart.
When there was no outlet for her superabundant energy, she was genuinely unhappy. Then it was that a self-consciousness and morbid sensitiveness became so evident that it was a source of real concern to her friends.
"People say that I must have been born brave," said Clara Barton. "Why, I seem to remember nothing but terrors in my early days. I was a shrinking little bundle of fears—fears of thunder, fears of strange faces, fears of my strange self." It was only when thought and feeling were merged in the zest of some interesting activity that she lost her painful shyness and found herself.
When she was eleven years old she had her first experience as a nurse. A fall which gave David a serious blow on the head, together with the bungling ministrations of doctors, who, when in doubt, had recourse only to the heroic treatment of bleeding and leeches, brought the vigorous young brother to a protracted invalidism. For two years Clara was his constant and devoted attendant. She schooled herself to remain calm, cheerful, and resourceful in the presence of suffering and exacting demands. When others gave way to fatigue or "nerves," her wonderful instinct for action kept her, child though she was, at her post. Her sympathy expressed itself in untiring service.
In the years that followed her brother's recovery Clara became a real problem to herself and her friends. The old blighting sensitiveness made her school-days restless and unhappy in spite of her alert mind and many interests.
At length her mother, at her wit's end because of this baffling, morbid strain in her remarkable daughter, was advised by a man of sane judgment and considerable understanding of child nature, to throw responsibility upon her and give her a school to teach.
It happened, therefore, that when Clara Barton was fifteen she "put down her skirts, put up her hair," and entered upon her successful career as a teacher. She liked the children and believed in them, entering enthusiastically into their concerns, and opening the way to new interests. When asked how she managed the discipline of the troublesome ones, she said, "The children give no trouble; I never have to discipline at all," quite unconscious of the fact that her vital influence gave her a control that made assertion of authority unnecessary.
"When the boys found that I was as strong as they were and could teach them something on the playground, they thought that perhaps we might discover together a few other worth-while things in school hours," she said.
For eighteen years Clara Barton was a teacher. Always learning herself while teaching others, she decided in 1852 to enter Clinton Liberal Institute in New York as a pupil for graduation, for there was then no college whose doors were open to women. When she had all that the Institute could give her, she looked about for new fields for effort.
In Bordentown, New Jersey, she found there was a peculiar need for some one who would bring to her task pioneer zeal as well as the passion for teaching. At that time there were no public schools in the town or, indeed, in the State.
"The people who pose as respectable are too proud and too prejudiced to send their boys and girls to a free pauper school, and in the meantime all the children run wild," Miss Barton was told.
"We have tried again and again," said a discouraged young pedagogue. "It is impossible to do anything in this place."
"Give me three months, and I will teach free," said Clara Barton.
This was just the sort of challenge she loved. There was something to be done. She began with six unpromising gamins in a dilapidated, empty building. In a month her quarters proved too narrow. Each youngster became an enthusiastic and effectual advertisement. As always, her success lay in an understanding of her pupils as individuals, and a quickening interest that brought out the latent possibilities of each. The school of six grew in a year to one of six hundred, and the thoroughly converted citizens built an eight-room school-house where Miss Barton remained as principal and teacher until a breakdown of her voice made a complete rest necessary.
The weak throat soon made it evident that her teaching days were over; but she found at the same time in Washington, where she had gone for recuperation, a new work.
"Living is doing," she said. "Even while we say there is nothing we can do, we stumble over the opportunities for service that we are passing by in our tear-blinded self-pity."
The over-sensitive girl had learned her lesson well. Life offered moment by moment too many chances for action for a single worker to turn aside to bemoan his own particular condition.
The retired teacher became a confidential secretary in the office of the Commissioner of Patents. Great confusion existed in the Patent Office at that time because some clerks had betrayed the secrets of certain inventions. Miss Barton was the first woman to be employed in a Government department; and while ably handling the critical situation that called for all her energy and resourcefulness, she had to cope not only with the scarcely veiled enmity of those fellow-workers who were guilty or jealous, but also with the open antagonism of the rank and file of the clerks, who were indignant because a woman had been placed in a position of responsibility and influence. She endured covert slander and deliberate disrespect, letting her character and the quality of her work speak for themselves. They spoke so eloquently that when a change in political control caused her removal, she was before long recalled to straighten out the tangle that had ensued.
At the outbreak of the Civil War Miss Barton was, therefore, at the very storm-center.
The early days of the conflict found her binding up the wounds of the Massachusetts boys who had been attacked by a mob while passing through Baltimore, and who for a time were quartered in the Capitol. Some of these recruits were boys from Miss Barton's own town who had been her pupils, and all were dear to her because they were offering their lives for the Union. We find her with other volunteer nurses caring for the injured, feeding groups who gathered about her in the Senate Chamber, and, from the desk of the President of the Senate, reading them the home news from the Worcester papers.
Meeting the needs as they presented themselves in that time of general panic and distress, she sent to the Worcester "Spy" appeals for money and supplies. Other papers took up the work, and soon Miss Barton had to secure space in a large warehouse to hold the provisions that poured in.
Not for many days, however, did she remain a steward of supplies. When she met the transports which brought the wounded into the city, her whole nature revolted at the sight of the untold suffering and countless deaths which were resulting from delay in caring for the injured. Her flaming ardor, her rare executive ability, and her tireless persistency won for her the confidence of those in command, and, though it was against all traditions, to say nothing of iron-clad army regulations, she obtained permission to go with her stores of food, bandages, and medicines to the firing-line, where relief might be given on the battle-field at the time of direst need. The girl who had been a "bundle of fears" had grown into the woman who braved every danger and any suffering to carry help to her fellow-countrymen.
People who spoke of her rare initiative and practical judgment had little comprehension of the absolute simplicity and directness of her methods. She managed the sulky, rebellious drivers of her army-wagons, who had little respect for orders that placed a woman in control, in the same way that she had managed children in school. Without relaxing her firmness, she spoke to them courteously, and called them to share the warm dinner she had prepared and spread out in appetizing fashion. When, after clearing away the dishes, she was sitting alone by the fire, the men returned in an awkward, self-conscious group.
"We didn't come to get warm," said their spokesman, as she kindly moved to make room for them at the flames, "we come to tell you we are ashamed. The truth is we didn't want to come. We know there is fighting ahead, and we've seen enough of that for men who don't carry muskets, only whips; and then we've never seen a train under charge of a woman before, and we couldn't understand it. We've been mean and contrary all day, and you've treated us as if we'd been the general and his staff, and given us the best meal we've had in two years. We want to ask your forgiveness, and we sha'n't trouble you again."
She found that a comfortable bed had been arranged for her in her ambulance, a lantern was hanging from the roof, and when next morning she emerged from her shelter, a steaming breakfast awaited her and a devoted corps of assistants stood ready for orders.
"I had cooked my last meal for my drivers," said Clara Barton. "These men remained with me six months through frost and snow and march and camp and battle; they nursed the sick, dressed the wounded, soothed the dying, and buried the dead; and, if possible, they grew kinder and gentler every day."
An incident that occurred at Antietam is typical of her quiet efficiency. According to her directions, the wounded were being fed with bread and crackers moistened in wine, when one of her assistants came to report that the entire supply was exhausted, while many helpless ones lay on the field unfed. Miss Barton's quick eye had noted that the boxes from which the wine was taken had fine Indian meal as packing. Six large kettles were at once unearthed from the farm-house in which they had taken quarters, and soon her men were carrying buckets of hot gruel for miles over the fields where lay hundreds of wounded and dying. Suddenly, in the midst of her labors, Miss Barton came upon the surgeon in charge sitting alone, gazing at a small piece of tallow candle which flickered uncertainly in the middle of the table.
"Tired, Doctor?" she asked sympathetically.
"Tired indeed!" he replied bitterly; "tired of such heartless neglect and carelessness. What am I to do for my thousand wounded men with night here and that inch of candle all the light I have or can get?"
Miss Barton took him by the arm and led him to the door, where he could see near the barn scores of lanterns gleaming like stars.
"What is that!" he asked amazedly.
"The barn is lighted," she replied, "and the house will be directly."
"Where did you get them!" he gasped.
"Brought them with me."
"How many have you?"
"All you want—four boxes."
The surgeon looked at her for a moment as if he were waking from a dream; and then, as if it were the only answer he could make, fell to work. And so it was invariably that she won her complete command of people as she did of situations, by always proving herself equal to the emergency of the moment.
Though, as she said in explaining the tardiness of a letter, "my hands complain a little of unaccustomed hardships," she never complained of any ill, nor allowed any danger or difficulty to interrupt her work.
"What are my puny ailments beside the agony of our poor shattered boys lying helpless on the field?" she said. And so, while doctors and officers wondered at her unlimited capacity for prompt and effective action, the men who had felt her sympathetic touch and effectual aid loved and revered her as "The Angel of the Battlefield."
One incident well illustrates the characteristic confidence with which she moved about amid scenes of terror and panic. At Fredericksburg, when "every street was a firing-line and every house a hospital," she was passing along when she had to step aside to allow a regiment of infantry to sweep by. At that moment General Patrick caught sight of her, and, thinking she was a bewildered resident of the city who had been left behind in the general exodus, leaned from his saddle and said reassuringly:
"You are alone and in great danger, madam. Do you want protection?"
Miss Barton thanked him with a smile, and said, looking about at the ranks, "I believe I am the best-protected woman in the United States."
The soldiers near overheard and cried out, "That's so! that's so!" And the cheer that they gave was echoed by line after line until a mighty shout went up as for a victory.
The courtly old general looked about comprehendingly, and, bowing low, said as he galloped away, "I believe you are right, madam."
Clara Barton was present on sixteen battle-fields; she was eight months at the siege of Charleston, and served for a considerable period in the hospitals of Richmond.
When the war was ended and the survivors of the great armies were marching homeward, her heart was touched by the distress in many homes where sons and fathers and brothers were among those listed as "missing." In all, there were 80,000 men of whom no definite report could be given to their friends. She was assisting President Lincoln in answering the hundreds of heartbroken letters, imploring news, which poured in from all over the land when his tragic death left her alone with the task. Then, as no funds were available to finance a thorough investigation of every sort of record of States, hospitals, prisons, and battle-fields, she maintained out of her own means a bureau to prosecute the search.
Four years were spent in this great labor, during which time Miss Barton made many public addresses, the proceeds of which were devoted to the cause. One evening in the winter of 1868, while in the midst of a lecture, her voice suddenly left her. This was the beginning of a complete nervous collapse. The hardships and prolonged strain had, in spite of her robust constitution and iron will, told at last on the endurance of that loyal worker.
When able to travel, she went to Geneva, Switzerland, in the hope of winning back her health and strength. Soon after her arrival she was visited by the president and members of the "International Committee for the Relief of the Wounded in War," who came to learn why the United States had refused to sign the Treaty of Geneva, providing for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers. Of all the civilized nations, our great republic alone most unaccountably held aloof.
Miss Barton at once set herself to learn all she could about the ideals and methods of the International Red Cross, and during the Franco-Prussian War she had abundant opportunity to see and experience its practical working on the battle-field.
At the outbreak of the war in 1870 she was urged to go as a leader, taking the same part that she had borne in the Civil War.
"I had not strength to trust for that," said Clara Barton, "and declined with thanks, promising to follow in my own time and way; and I did follow within a week. As I journeyed on," she continued, "I saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field accomplishing in four months under their systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it—no mistakes, no needless suffering, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever that little flag made its way—a whole continent marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross. As I saw all this and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself 'if I live to return to my country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.'"
Months of service in caring for the wounded and the helpless victims of siege and famine were followed by a period of nervous exhaustion from which she but slowly crept back to her former hold on health. At last she was able to return to America to devote herself to bringing her country into line with the Red Cross movement. She found that traditionary prejudice against "entangling alliances with other powers," together with a singular failure to comprehend the vital importance of the matter, militated against the great cause.
"Why should we make provision for the wounded?" it was said. "We shall never have another war; we have learned our lesson."
It came to Miss Barton then that the work of the Red Cross should be extended to disasters, such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and epidemics—"great public calamities which require, like war, prompt and well-organized help."
Years of devoted missionary work with preoccupied officials and a heedless, short-sighted public at length bore fruit. After the Geneva Treaty received the signature of President Arthur on March 1, 1882, it was promptly ratified by the Senate, and the American National Red Cross came into being, with Clara Barton as its first president. Through her influence, too, the International Congress of Berne adopted the "American Amendment," which dealt with the extension of the Red Cross to relief measures in great calamities occurring in times of peace.
The story of her life from this time on is one with the story of the work of the Red Cross during the stress of such disasters as the Mississippi River floods, the Texas famine in 1885, the Charleston earthquake in 1886, the Johnstown flood in 1899, the Russian famine in 1892, and the Spanish-American War. The prompt, efficient methods followed in the relief of the flood sufferers along the Mississippi in 1884 may serve to illustrate the sane, constructive character of her work.
Supply centers were established, and a steamer chartered to ply back and forth carrying help and hope to the distracted human creatures who stood "wringing their hands on a frozen, fireless shore—with every coal-pit filled with water." For three weeks she patrolled the river, distributing food, clothing, and fuel, caring for the sick, and, in order to establish at once normal conditions of life, providing the people with many thousands of dollars' worth of building material, seeds, and farm implements, thus making it possible for them to help themselves and in work find a cure for their benumbing distress.
"Our Lady of the Red Cross" lived past her ninetieth birthday, but her real life is measured by deeds, not days. It was truly a long one, rich in the joy of service. She abundantly proved the truth of the words: "We gain in so far as we give. If we would find our life, we must be willing to lose it."
Instead of peace, I was to participate in war; instead of the sweetness of home, I was to become a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I have felt that a great promotion came to me when I was counted worthy to be a worker in the organized crusade for "God and Home and Native Land."... If I were asked the mission of the ideal woman, I would say it is to make the whole world homelike. The true woman will make every place she enters homelike—and she will enter every place in this wide world.
Frances E. Willard.
THERE is no place like a young college town in a young country for untroubled optimism. Hope blossoms there as nowhere else; the ideal ever beckons at the next turn in the road. When Josiah Willard brought his little family to Oberlin, it seemed to them all that a new golden age of opportunity was theirs. Even Frances, who was little more than a baby, drank in the spirit of the place with the air she breathed.
It was not hard to believe in a golden age when one happened to see little Frances, or "Frank," Willard dancing like a sunbeam about the campus. She liked to play about the big buildings, where father went every day with his big books, and watch for him to come out. Sometimes one of the students would stop to speak to her; sometimes a group would gather about while, with fair hair flying and small arms waving, in a voice incredibly clear and bird-like, she "said a piece" that mother had taught her.
"Is that a little professorling?" asked a new-comer one day, attracted by the child's cherub face and darting, fairylike ways.
"Guess again!" returned a dignified senior. "Her father is one of the students. Haven't you noticed that fine-looking Willard? The mother, too, knows how to appreciate a college, I understand—used to be a teacher back in New York where they came from."
"You don't mean to say that this happy little goldfinch is the child of two such solemn owls!" exclaimed the other.
"Nothing of the sort. They are very wide-awake, alive sort of people, I assure you,—the kind who'd make a success of anything. The father wants to be a preacher, they say—wait, there he comes now!"
It was plain to be seen that Mr. Willard was an alert, capable man and a good father. The little girl ran to him with a joyful cry, and a sturdy lad who had been trying to climb a tree bounded forward at the same time.
"I trust that my small fry haven't been making trouble," said the man, giving his free hand to Frances and graciously allowing Oliver to carry two of his armful of books.
"Only making friends," the senior responded genially, "and one can see that they can't very well help that."
The Oberlin years were a happy, friendly time for all the family. While both father and mother were working hard to make the most of their long-delayed opportunity for a liberal education, they delighted above all in the companionship of neighbors with tastes like their own. After five years, however, it became clear that the future was not to be after their planning. Mr. Willard's health failed, and a wise doctor said that he must leave his book-world, and take up a free, active life in the open. So the little family joined the army of westward-moving pioneers.
Can you picture the three prairie-schooners that carried them and all their goods to the new home? The father drove the first, Oliver geehawed proudly from the high perch of the next, and mother sat in the third, with Frances and little sister Mary on a cushioned throne made out of father's topsyturvy desk. For nearly thirty days the little caravan made its way—now through forests, now across great sweeping prairies, now over bumping corduroy roads that crossed stretches of swampy ground. They cooked their bacon and potatoes, gypsy-fashion, on the ground, and slept under the white hoods of their long wagons, when they were not kept awake by the howling of wolves.
When Sunday came, they rested wherever the day found them—sometimes on the rolling prairie, where their only shelter from rain and sun was the homely schooner, but where at night they could look up at the great tent of the starry heavens; sometimes in the cathedral of the forest, where they found Jack-in-the-pulpit preaching to the other wild-flowers and birds and breezes singing an anthem of praise.