General W. H. Sears, “Secretary.”
THE GENERAL HAS MONEY—I AM HIS RECONCENTRADO
When traveling on the cars, Clara Barton would take her lunches with her. At night she would sit up in the day coach, and not take a sleeper—because of the expense. She made a trip from Washington to Boston. Her secretary was with her. He wanted a sleeper. How could he enjoy the luxury and Miss Barton not know it? Miss Barton had taken her shawl—in a bundle tied together with straps—and laid her head on it for a pillow. “Now is my opportunity,” thought the secretary, but she didn’t close her eyes. Four or five hours any night was enough sleep for Miss Barton, and the secretary knew it. The secretary was becoming ill at ease. He said, “Now, if you will excuse me, Miss Barton, I will go to the smoking car and have a smoke.” He was not there long;—he quietly slipped into the Pullman and went to sleep.
© Jaro Studio
WOODROW WILSON
The President, also President of the American Red Cross Society, March 4, 1913–March 4, 1921.
I have learned, from all I have heard of Clara Barton, to admire her very much.
Woodrow Wilson (in 1918).
Early the next morning he passed unseen into the smoker of the day coach, then to where Miss Barton, bright and cheerful, was sitting. As nothing was said about “a good night’s rest,” he assumed that she thought he too had practiced self-denial. Nevertheless, he was ashamed over his “make-believe,” and also that a lady of seventy years the possessor of wealth had beaten him, her able-bodied young secretary, on a small salary, at the “game of economy.”
On arriving at Boston “Sister Harriette,” owner of one of the ancestral homes of Massachusetts, was at the station to meet her. The secretary unsuspecting—still “blooded” and a “real sport”—as they entered the station restaurant said “Now, ladies, you are going to have breakfast with me this morning.”
“Sister Harriette,” having served with the Red Cross in the Spanish-American War and knowing the secretary, fully understood when Miss Barton slyly remarked “oh, yes, the General has money, you know; he travels in a Pullman and I am his reconcentrado.”
LXIII
The greatest generals were proud to know her; eminent statesmen felt honored by her friendship.