Her domestic affairs attended to, she hurried to Boston to deliver an important address and attend a reception. From there she went to Wellesley and delivered an address:
My cold entirely left me, and I have had no trouble with it. So much for right living, and good cool blood. This is the last day of the convention. I am to speak to-night. I did say a little yesterday, and they all laughed at me; I wish you could have been here. There is to be a reception given me next Friday evening. Steve and Lizzie and Myrtie are invited. I go to the Wellesley College to take tea and speak to the five hundred girls there on Saturday evening. Some things I must miss. I get back as soon as I can, so as to go on home. I am so glad of Sunday; it was a glorious day; so good to see so many together again. I hope the children are well, that you don’t wrestle too much with imaginary dirt, and are getting a little real strength.
Besides her tours abroad she had some interesting journeys in her own country, including a happy camping trip in the Yellowstone Park and the Cascade Mountains, in the autumn of 1891.
The following winter she spent in the Red Cross Headquarters in what had been the home of General Grant in Washington. It was a strenuous winter and an expensive one. She drew upon her personal resources for fuel for the large building, as well as for rent and the care of the home. She wrote to Mrs. Bullock:
17 East F Street, Washington
January 7, 1892
I have wanted to talk with you about coming to see us, but when I think how cold it is here, and how far from nice and cozy it is, I feel reluctant to invite you from a small, snug, pretty home, to this so large and, as it seems to me, less inviting one. If you did not know it, I should not dare to say you might try it, for we are having an exceptionally cold, hard winter. The ground is covered with snow, and the winds have blown an old northeaster these last days, and you will know this is not an easy house to heat. My expenses have been so heavy, and receipts so “nothing,” that I cannot afford to take on more help. I am obliged to have a woman for the work and the house, a man for the fires and walk,—shoveling snow and all the cold rough work,—and an amanuensis as my clerk and typewriter. They are drawing steadily every month; then my rent is high and no one to help share that, and, besides this, all the world expects me to give it something if it can get through the door and get a letter to me. I have had to economize on myself.
In 1893 she was led into an experiment which caused her much anxiety and proved to have been a mistake. A man and his wife, who had been associated with her in her work along the Ohio River, expressed a desire to dedicate, as a thank offering to humanity, a tract of land more than one square mile in area, or specifically seven hundred and eighty-two acres, as a home for the American Red Cross. This offer deeply touched Miss Barton, who accepted it in the following appreciative letter addressed to the donors:
American National Red Cross
Washington, D.C., March 18, 1893
Dear Sir: Referring to your letter of February 10th, made public February 23d, permit me to reply as follows:
In accepting the gift of land, in the State of Indiana, that you so generously dedicate to the American National Red Cross as “the almoner of humanity,” and by which you have so touchingly complimented me personally, allow me to say that the friendship expressed on this and many other occasions by yourself and wife, and the personal aid you have both given of time and labor in great calamities, make me free to accept this gift without reservation, assuring you of my best endeavors to attain the humane results for which this benefaction is intended.