How so much was accomplished in the lifetime of one woman may be understood by reading “One Day with Clara Barton,” as described by herself in a personal letter to a friend:
“How shall I manage to be a woman of business, and act like a lady of leisure? How strangely odd it seemed to me when I read your pretty description of how your time was passed, that you could dress for breakfast, help do some little things about the house, get ready for tea and walk after it. When did I see such days, or even one such day. If it would not take too long I could tell you something of how I pass a day. Let me try; and as one day is a fair sample of another, suppose I take yesterday as I remember it better than any other. Well, let me brush up my hair and try to think. First, I rose when I could see to dress, I suppose a little past four, went into my bath room, and bathed thoroughly in preparation for a scorching day and partly made my toilet; then read my chapter in the scriptures by myself, and offered my own prayer and thanksgiving (no family service to unite in like you, and I have too much of the dust of old Plymouth Rock sticking to me to omit it); then finished a hurried toilet, and sat down to a French lesson at half past six; went to my breakfast at seven, commenced my French recitation, lasted until eight; after this put my chamber and myself in order and started for the office; called on my dress-maker on my way and tried on a dress; called at the post office and found one business letter; and reached the office at nine; distance little over a mile, and then commenced the tug of war. I wrote until three o’clock P. M., took an omnibus home, took my writing, or a portion of it, along with me (don’t tell; it’s against the rule), reached home at three-thirty, took a hurried bath, went to dinner and at four-thirty was seated at my table writing for my life. Did not leave my room again, or scarce arose from my table until twelve o’clock, when I retired and slept as fast and hard as I could until daylight in preparation for a repetition of the same. Perhaps you wish, or are curious, to know how much I accomplished in all that time. Ten thousand words of bold round record which must live and be legible when the mound which once covered me shall have become a hollow and the moss-covered headstone, with ‘born’ and ‘died’ no longer to be traced upon its time-worn front shall have buried itself beneath the kindred turf.”
Working twenty hours out of the twenty-four would give almost any woman the reputation of being a genius. Thinking the woman who had done things held the secret of woman’s success, a touring party of ambitious young ladies called on Clara Barton, in her later years, at Glen Echo. The following conversation took place:
Vassar Girl—Miss Barton, these other ladies and myself called to pay our respects. We have heard much of you since we were little girls. A few weeks ago, in the class of ——, we graduated from Vassar College. We, as you have done, wish to do some good in the world. We cannot decide what we should do; we want your advice.
Clara Barton—My dear young lady, do the first thing that comes to your hand. Do it well. Then do the next thing. Do that well. Then do the next thing, just so keep on doing——.
Clara Barton then pinned a Red Cross badge on each of these young ladies, the happiest visitors when leaving, says Miss Barton’s secretary, that he had ever seen in that “house of rough hemlock boards.”
XCVI
Finally Clara Barton was forced out of her position in May, 1904.
New York Examiner.
Clara Barton—antagonism she encountered. But in all of them she bore herself with a poise that lost for her no friends.