One of the best ways to show how much you love your country’s flag is to enlist in the services of your country under the Red Cross flag.
Of course you are wondering how we came to have a second flag, and how our American Red Cross came to be.
Before you can learn about that, you must find out how the Red Cross first came to be. You must think about two people. One is Florence Nightingale; the other, Henri Dunant.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
You have heard about the little English girl, named Florence Nightingale, who loved to play she was a nurse.
You remember that when she grew up she went in a ship all the way to the Crimean peninsula to nurse the soldiers during the dreadful war between England and Russia in 1854.
You remember, too, that when she wanted to go, the men in charge of the army told her that it was a foolish idea.
They said that no one had ever heard of such a thing—that women would not be able to do any good in such a dreadful place.
But Florence Nightingale was not the kind of person to be discouraged by such talk.