Let me thank you, dear Mr. Lewis, for the tender care given his remains, and for the grave you have given him on your own farm. Some time when the spring days come, if you see a thrifty oak sapling and have time, will you kindly transplant it beside the grave? His body will nourish it, and let it be his monument. The children will love and protect it as Baba’s tree. His saddle and bridle you ask; you keep them and his little belongings as no one else could hold them so tenderly as you.
I will take back the check for his winter feed as useless now; but wish to enclose in this ten dollars for the last tender care and burial, with the assurance that you will always hold a high place in my esteem and affection for the kind and manly part you have taken in this little episode of life’s woes.
Let me repeat from your letter this sentiment, the hope that we may be friends while life shall last.
Yours gratefully,
Clara Barton.
LXIX
Resolved, in behalf of the State of Texas especially does the legislature thank Clara Barton, President of the Red Cross Society.
Approved February 1, 1901.
A tribute of honor, of which sovereigns might be proud, clothed in language the eloquence of which our English tongue does not surpass. Clara Barton.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. St. John.