If there had been trained nurses in that day no doubt she would have done so, but there were none.
Instead, she became a school teacher.
When she was only sixteen, she began to teach in a little district school near her home in Oxford, Massachusetts.
Afterward she taught the first public free school in New Jersey.
She worked so hard in her teaching that her strength gave out, and she decided to do some other kind of work.
You see, she could not bear to be idle.
As you know, Washington is the capital of the United States.
Most of the business of our national government is attended to in this city.
Soon after Clara Barton went there she was asked to take charge of the Pension Office of the government.