One clear, cold, starlight Sunday morning, I heard a low whistle under my open chamber window. I realized that the boys were out for a skate and wanted to communicate with me. On going to the window, they informed me that they had an extra pair of skates and if I could come out they would put them on me and “learn” me how to skate. It was Sunday morning; no one would be up till late, and the ice was so smooth and “glare.” The stars were bright; the temptation was too great. I was in my dress in a moment and out. The skates were fastened on firmly, one of the boy’s wool neck “comforters” tied about my waist, to be held by the boy in front. The other two were to stand on either side, and at a signal the cavalcade started. Swifter and swifter we went, until at length we reached a spot where the ice had been cracked and was full of sharp edges. These threw me, and the speed with which we were progressing, and the distance before we could quite come to a stop, gave terrific opportunity for cuts and wounded knees. The opportunity was not lost. There was more blood flowing than any of us had ever seen. Something must be done. Now all of the wool neck comforters came into requisition; my wounds were bound up, and I was helped into the house, with one knee of ordinary respectable cuts and bruises; the other frightful. Then the enormity of the transaction and its attendant difficulties began to present themselves, and how to surround (for there was no possibility of overcoming) them was the question.
The most feasible way seemed to be to say nothing about it, and we decided to all keep silent; but how to conceal the limp? I must have no limp, but walk well. I managed breakfast without notice. Dinner not quite so well, and I had to acknowledge that I had slipped down and hurt my knee a little. This gave my limp more latitude, but the next day it was so decided, that I was held up and searched. It happened that the best knee was inspected; the stiff wool comforter soaked off, and a suitable dressing given it. This was a great relief, as it afforded pretext for my limp, no one observing that I limped with the wrong knee.
But the other knee was not a wound to heal by first intention, especially under its peculiar dressing, and finally had to be revealed. The result was a surgical dressing and my foot held up in a chair for three weeks, during which time I read the Arabian Nights from end to end. As the first dressing was finished, I heard the surgeon say to my father: “That was a hard case, Captain, but she stood it like a soldier.” But when I saw how genuinely they all pitied, and how tenderly they nursed me, even walking lightly about the house not to jar my swollen and fevered limbs, in spite of my disobedience and detestable deception (and persevered in at that), my Sabbath-breaking and unbecoming conduct, and all the trouble I had caused, conscience revived, and my mental suffering far exceeded my physical. The Arabian Nights were none too powerful a soporific to hold me in reasonable bounds. I despised myself, and failed to sleep or eat.
My mother, perceiving my remorseful condition, came to the rescue, telling me soothingly, that she did not think it the worst thing that could have been done, that other little girls had probably done as badly, and strengthened her conclusions by telling me how she once persisted in riding a high-mettled, unbroken horse in opposition to her father’s commands, and was thrown. My supposition is that she had been a worthy mother of her equestrian son.
The lesson was not lost on any of the group. It is very certain that none of us, boys or girls, indulged in further smart tricks. Twenty-five years later, when on a visit to the old home, long left, I saw my father, then a gray-haired grandsire, out on the same little pond, fitting the skates carefully to the feet of his little twin granddaughters, holding them up to make their first start in safety, I remembered my wounded knees, and blessed the great Father that progress and change were among the possibilities of His people.
I never learned to skate. When it became fashionable I had neither time nor opportunity.
Another disappointment of her childhood remained with her. She wanted to learn to dance, and was not permitted to do so. It was not because her parents were wholly opposed to dancing, but chiefly because the dancing-school was organized while a revival of religion was in progress in the village, and her parents felt that her attendance at dancing-school at such a time would be unseemly. Of this she wrote:
I recall another disappointment which, though not vital, was still indicative of the times. During the following winter a dancing-school was opened in the hall of the one hotel on Oxford Plain, some three miles from us. It was taught by a personal friend of my father, a polished gentleman, resident of a neighboring town, and teacher of English schools. By some chance I got a glimpse of the dancing-school at the opening, and was seized with a most intense desire to go and learn to dance. With my peculiar characteristics it was necessary for me to want a thing very much before mentioning it; but this overcame me, especially as the cordial teacher took tea with us one evening before going to his school, and spoke very interestingly of his classes. I even went so far as to beg permission to go. The dance was in my very feet. The violin haunted me. “Ladies change” and “All hands round” sounded in my ears and woke me from my sleep at night.
The matter was taken up in family council. I was thought to be very young to be allowed to go to a dancing-school in a hotel. Dancing at that time was at a very low ebb in good New England society, and, besides, there was an active revival taking place in both of the orthodox churches (or, rather, one a church and the other a society without a church), and it might not be a wise, nor even a courteous, thing to allow. Not that our family, with its well-known liberal proclivities, could have the slightest objection on that score; still, like Saint Paul, if meat were harmful to their brethren, they would not eat it, and thus it was decided that I could not go. The decision was perfectly conscientious, kindness itself, and probably wise; but I have wondered, if they could have known (as they never did) how severe the disappointment was, the tears it cost me in my little bed in the dark, the music and the master’s voice still sounding in my ears, if this knowledge would have weighed in the decision.
I have listened to a great deal of music since then, interspersed with very positive orders, and which generally called for “All hands round,” but the dulcet notes of the violin and the “Ladies change” were missing. Neither did I ever learn to dance.
As she looked back over her childhood, she was unable to recall many social events which could have been characterized as thrilling. By invitation she once wrote out for a gathering of women her recollection of a party which she attended on election day just after she was ten years old. It is worth reading, and may well remind us that happy childhood memories do not always gather about events which seem to be intrinsically great:
A CHILD’S PARTY
It is the “reminiscence of a happy moment” which my beloved friends of the Legion of Loyal Women ask of me—some moment or event so happy as to be worth the telling. That may not be an easy thing in a life like mine, but there are few things the “Legion” could ask of me that I would not at least try to do. But, dear sisters, I fear I must ask of you patiently to travel far back with me to the little childhood days which knew no care. Patiently, I say, for that was long ago.
I lived in the country, a mile or more from the village. Olivia Bruce, my favorite friend, lived in the village.
Olivia had “made a party,” and invited twelve little girls, schoolmates and playmates, herself making the thirteenth (we had never learned that there could be bad luck in numbers).
It was May, and the party was to be held on “Old Election Day.” Care and thought were given to the occasion.
Each guest was to learn a little poem to recite for the first time, as a surprise to the others.
There was some effort at costume. We were all to wear aprons alike, from the village store—white, with a pretty vine, and cozy, little, brown birds in the corners. Embroidered? Oh, no! just stamped; but what embroidery has since ever borne comparison with that?
Our ages must conform—no one under ten, or over twelve. How glad I was that I had been ten the Christmas before!
At length arrangements were completed, and nothing to be wished for but a pleasant day.
The morning came, heavy and dark. The thunder rolled, the clouds gathered and broke, and the lightning as if in cruel mockery darted in and out among them, lighting up their ragged edges, or enveloping the whole mass in quivering flame. The rain came down in torrents, and I fear there were torrents of tears as well. Who could give comfort in a disappointment and grief like that? Who, but old Morgan, the gardener, with his poetic prophecy—
“Rain before seven, be clear before ’leven.”
I watched the clouds, I watched the clock, but most of all I watched the hopeful face of old Morgan. How long and how dark the morning was! At length, as the clock pointed half-past ten, the clouds broke again, but this time with the bright, clear sun behind them, and the high arching rainbow resting on the tree-tops of the western woods.
It was long to wait, even for dinner, and the proper time to go. Finally, all traces of tears were washed away, the toilet made even to the apron and hat, the mother’s kiss given upon the cheek of her restless child with the gentle admonition “Be a good girl!” and, as I sprang from the doorstep striving hard to keep at least one foot on the ground, who shall say that the happiness and joy of that little bit of humanity was not as complete as ever falls to the lot of humanity to be?
The party was a success. The thirteen little girls were there; each wore her pretty apron and the knot of ribbon in her hair; each recited her little poem unknown to the others.
We danced—played ring plays.
“The needle’s eye that can supply
The thread that runs so truly.”“For no man knows
Where oats, peas, beans, or barley grows.”We “chased the squirrel,” “hunted the slipper,” trimmed our hats with wild flowers and stood in awe before the great waterwheel of the busy mill.
At five o’clock a pretty tea was served for us, and dark-eyed Olivia presided with the grace and gravity of a matron; and, as the sun was sinking behind the western hills, we bade good-bye, and each sped away to the home awaiting her, I to be met by a mother’s approving kiss, for I had been “a good girl,” and gladly sought the little bed, and the long night of unbroken sleep that only a child may know.
Long, long years ago the watchful mother went to that other world; one after another the guests of the little party followed her—some in girlhood, some in young womanhood, some in weary widowhood. One by one, I believe, she has met and welcomed them—welcomed each of the twelve, and waits
Clara Barton
Another formative influence which must not be overlooked was that of phrenology. This now discredited science had great influence in the early part of the nineteenth century. Certain men, among whom the Fowler brothers were most conspicuous, professed to be able to read character and to portray mental aptitude by a tactual examination of the head. The perceptive faculties, according to this theory, were located in the front part of the brain, the moral faculties in the top of it, and the faculties that governed the animal nature in the back. They professed to be able by feeling over the “bumps” or “organs of the brain,” to discover what vocation a person was good for and what undesirable tendencies he ought to guard against. The mother of Clara Barton was greatly troubled by the abnormal sensitiveness of this little child. She asked L. W. Fowler, who was then staying at the Barton home, what this little girl ought to do in life. Mr. Fowler answered: “The sensitive nature will always remain. She will never assert herself for herself; she will suffer wrong first. But for others she will be perfectly fearless. Throw responsibility upon her.”
He advised that she should become a school-teacher. School-teaching scarcely seemed a suitable vocation for a child of so shrinking a nature. Clara was fifteen at the time, and still diffident. She was lying in bed with the mumps, and overheard her mother’s question and the answer. Her mother was impressed by it, and so was Clara. Years afterward she looked back upon that experience as the turning-point in her life. Long after she had ceased to have very much faith in phrenology, she blessed the day that sent a phrenologist into her home. When asked in later years what book had influenced her most, she wrote the following reply:
THE BOOK WHICH HAS MOST INFLUENCED ME
Superlatives are difficult to deal with, the comparative is always so near.
That which interests most, may influence little. Most books interest in a greater or less degree, and possibly have a temporary influence. The yellow-covered literature which the boy from twelve to sixteen reads, surely interests him, and only too often creates an involuntary influence, the results of which mark his entire life. He adopts methods and follows courses which he otherwise would not have done, and reaps misfortune for a harvest.
And so with the girl of like age who pores and weeps over some tender, unwholesome, love-lorn picture of impossible personages, until they become real to her, and, while she can never personate them, they stand in the way of so much which she really does need, it may well be said that the results influence her entire life.
Not alone the character of what is read, but the period in life of the reader, may and will have much to do with the potency of results. The little girl who is so fortunate as to clasp her child fingers around a copy of “Little Women,” or “Little Men” (Bless the memory of my friend and co-worker Louisa M. Alcott!), is in small danger from the effects of the literature she may afterwards meet. Her tastes are formed for wholesome food.
And the boy! Ah, well; it will require a great deal of prodding to curb and root the wild grass out of his nature! But what a splendid growth he makes, once it is done!
All of these conditions of character, circumstances, and time may be said to have found place in the solution of the little problem now before me; viz: “What book most influenced me?” If it had read “interested” rather than “influenced,” I should have made a wide range—“The Fables of Æsop,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Arabian Nights,” “The Ballads of Scott,” “The Benign Old Vicar,” “The Citizens of the World,” and mainly the mass of choice old English classics—for who can select?—The glorious “Idylls of the King.” In fancy I should have sat at the round table with Arthur’s knights, searched for the Holy Grail with Sir Galahad, roamed Africa with Livingstone and Stanley, breakfasted with the Autocrat, and dropped the gathering tear for the loved Quaker poet, so dear to us all.
How grateful I am for all this; and to these writers immortal! How they have sweetened life! But they really changed no course, formed no character, opened no doors, “influenced” nothing.
In a little children’s booklet I have explained my own nature—timid, sensitive, bashful to awkwardness—and that at this period of a dozen years or so I chanced to make the acquaintance of L. W. Fowler, of the “Fowler Brothers,” the earliest, and then only, exponents of Phrenology in the country.
I had at that time read much of the literatures above cited which then existed. Mr. Fowler placed in my hands their well-written book and brochures on Phrenology, “The Science of the Mind.” This carried me to another class of writers, Spurzheim, and Combe—“The Constitution of Man.” These became my exemplars and “Know thyself” became my text and my study. A long life has passed, and so have they, but their influence has remained. In every walk of life it has gone with me. It has enabled me to better comprehend the seeming mysteries about me; the course of those with whom I had to deal, or come in contact; not by the studying of their thoughts, or intentions, for I abhor the practice of reading one’s friends; but to enable me to excuse, without offense, many acts which I could in no other way have accounted for. It has enabled me to see, not only that, but why it was their nature, and could not be changed. They “could no other, so help them God.” It has enriched my field of charitable judgment; enlarged my powers of forgiveness, made those things plain that would have been obscure to me, easy, that would have been hard, and sometimes made possible to endure, without complaint, that which might otherwise have proved unendurable. “Know thyself” has taught me in any great crisis to put myself under my own feet; bury enmity, cast ambition to the winds, ignore complaint, despise retaliation, and stand erect in the consciousness of those higher qualities that made for the good of human kind, even though we may not clearly see the way.
“I know not where His Islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”