Like many other country girls, Clara Barton was fond of horseback riding. When twelve years of age, on one occasion, she ran away from home to go for a ride. She came down stairs quietly and slipped out for a ride on her favorite black horse.
What a wild triumph, that this “girlish hand”
Such a steed in the might of his strength may command!
Falling from the horse, she injured her knee. Determined to keep the injury a secret she joined her brothers in the field as though nothing had happened. But she limped, and her brothers noticed it. She merely told her brothers she had injured her knee, but would say no more. They sent for a doctor. By plying many questions as to how it happened, the doctor drew from her a confession. In later life—in the Civil War, in the Franco-Prussian War, in the Spanish American War, her skill as a horseback rider was of great service to her. On several occasions she had to “ride for her life.” In speaking of this accomplishment, she used to say “When I was a little girl I could ride like a Mexican.”
IV
Clara Barton—the pitying sweetness which fills her eyes and the sympathetic lines which have been drawn about her mouth bear witness to a long intimacy with suffering and death.
Central (Mo.) Christian Advocate. (1912)
Physiognomy is the language of the face. Jeremy Collier.
Physiognomy is reading the handwriting of nature upon the human countenance. Chatfield.
Palmistry is a science as old as the history of the human race. The mind deceives; the hand tells the truth; the thumb in particular, the tell-tale of character.