“In time of peace prepare for war; and in time of war prepare for peace.”
CLARA BARTON, “THE ANGEL OF THE BATTLEFIELD”
MISS CLARA BARTON, a quiet little old lady, used to tell stories of her childhood among the hills of central Massachusetts. She remembered how she was taken to the village school for the first time, and how the teacher, a tall, kind-looking man, put her in the spelling class with the smallest children, to study such words as dog and cat.
“I don’t spell there,” said little Clara; “I spell in Artichoke.” And the small three-year-old showed her contempt for words of three letters by turning the leaves of her spelling book till she came to a page of wide three-syllable columns beginning with “Artichoke.” The teacher had to hide his smile from the small girl who could spell such long words.
Clara was very fond of her handsome big brother. “My brother David was very fond of horses,” she said, telling about him in later life. “He was the ‘Buffalo Bill’ of that part of the country. It was his delight to take me, a little girl five years old, to the field, seize a couple of beautiful young horses, and, gathering the reins of both bridles in one hand, throw me on the back of one colt, then spring upon the other himself; catching me by one foot, and bidding me ‘cling fast to the mane,’ we would go galloping away over field and fen, in and out among the other colts, in wild glee like ourselves.
“They were merry rides we took. This was my riding school. I never had any other, but it served me well. To this day my seat on a saddle or on the bare back of a horse is as secure and tireless as in a rocking-chair—and far more fun!
“Sometimes, in later years, when I found myself suddenly on a strange horse in a trooper’s saddle, flying for life or liberty, I blessed my baby lessons and wild gallops among the beautiful colts.”
By the words, “riding for life on a strange horse in a trooper’s saddle,” Miss Barton referred to her life as an army nurse, when she, with the mounted soldiers, sometimes found herself in great danger when the enemy’s cavalry was close behind.
At the age of eleven, Clara had her first chance to learn to be a nurse and fit herself for her life work. Her brother