In one aspect the Glen Echo home was fashioned almost like a cathedral, but in its practical arrangement much more like a ship. It had more windows than either a ship or a cathedral. They were almost as thick as they could be placed and leave any room for walls, but they were very plain windows, except that one on the stairs had a little inexpensive ornamentation and the glass in the two front doors had a red cross in each.
The front door faced north and led into a long wide hall, cool in summer, cold in winter, with an elongated oval well, railed round on the two upper floors, so that from the main deck one looked up to the upper deck and the boat deck of the ship-like building. This central three-deck cabin was ceiled with unpainted wood, not unattractive but unadorned. Doors opened on either side at regular intervals, and between the doors were deep closets where blankets, Horlick’s Malted Milk, canned goods and emergency supplies of various kinds were duly stored and catalogued. If a fire or a flood broke out in any part of the country, Clara Barton was ready to start and had something with which to begin relief.
It was this attempt to combine in one a home, a storehouse, a place of refuge for the needy, and a kind of organization headquarters which struck the visitor so strangely and almost repellently. She might have built a little bungalow for herself and her offices and housed her supplies in a separate building erected for storage purposes and with emergency sleeping-rooms attached, but she wished it otherwise and she had her way.
If the reader had been privileged to visit Clara Barton there during her lifetime and had made his way down the rather long cabin to her own quarters in the south end of this ship-like cathedral, he would have found Clara Barton at home. It would have made little difference how early or how late the call was made. She was up with the sun and often before, weeding her garden, feeding her chickens, caring for her pets, and looking after her house. She rarely went to bed before midnight. Fourteen to eighteen hours a day of work she did steadily until her death.
Let us suppose that she has an important address to deliver to-morrow night. This is the way she prepares for it. She rises at five this morning and does her own room work. Her bedding is aired, her bed is made, and the carpet sweeper is rolling over her floor before six o’clock gives its warning to other members of the household. She eats a simple breakfast with her household and guests and wastes no time, but still is in no haste about it. She gives no intimation that she is in a hurry, and enjoys the breakfast-table conversation, evincing a keen sense of humor and a hearty interest in all human happenings. She announces that she has attended to her most important correspondence for the morning, and excuses herself to see to the ways of her household. It is the day her curtains are to be washed, and she has to superintend affairs in the laundry and make some changes in her garden. She puts in very nearly the whole day in physical labor. She knows well how to direct the work of others, but she does not scorn to take the flatiron or the garden trowel in her own hands and show how she wants things done. Moreover, she gets things done the way she wants them. That is a habit of hers.
She lingers after the luncheon and evening meal and engages in cheerful conversation. Instrumental music has no charm for her, but good singing she enjoys if there is a distinct melody and if the words mean something. She likes to hear men sing better than she likes to hear women, and she likes the songs she knows, and is willing to hear them again and again. If among the guests is one who sings, she is a good listener. But the greater part of the evening is spent in conversation. Clara Barton was a good conversationalist. She could listen without restlessness and talk without monopolizing the privilege of talking. She was quick to see a point. She had a voice which was low, and while not sweet or musical was pleasant, and its cadences were those of the gentlewoman. Her sentences were always perfectly formed. Her grammar never needed apology; her speech was precise, but free from pedantry. Her talk was habitually cheerful. She was respectful of the opinions of others and never failed to have an opinion of her own.
After her guests have gone to bed, her light still burns. She sits in her south room, where she said it seemed as if “it was always moonlight,” and in her work she enjoyed the companionship of the woods, the stars, and the many voices of the night. Even the racket of the dancing and the whirl of the merry-go-round with the joyously frightened squeals of the girls descending the roller-coaster was far less objectionable than it would have been if it had been her habit to retire early.
But she is not yet working on her address. She is taking care of the belated mail which the day has brought and which her duties in the garden and laundry have kept her from attending to, but she has been thinking about the address more or less during the day, although when midnight comes she has not written a word of it. Beside her bed, however, she places a candle, a pencil, and a pad.
Clara Barton’s bed was a cot. It was not a very soft cot either. She was never a poor woman. From her father she inherited a modest patrimony, and she always had more than enough money of her own to supply her needs. She could have had a wide and soft bed if she had wanted it. She had just what she wanted, and she never cared to have people tell her that she ought to have things differently in so far as they related to her own comfort.
Do not think she was an ascetic or slept in a hard bed because she scorned bodily comfort. Comfort she had and exactly as much of it as she wanted. Luxury she did not want. She thanked no one for wasting any pity upon her. Her bed was as wide as she wished it, and as soft as she cared to have it, and in it she slept soundly and was refreshed.