HEROINES OF SERVICE

Mary Lyon

HEROINES OF SERVICE

MARY LYON .·. ALICE FREEMAN PALMER .·. CLARA
BARTON .·. FRANCES WILLARD .·. JULIA WARD
HOWE .·. ANNA SHAW .·. MARY ANTIN
ALICE C. FLETCHER .·. MARY SLESSOR
OF CALABAR .·. MADAME CURIE
JANE ADDAMS

BY
MARY R. PARKMAN
Author of "Heroes of Today," etc.

ILLUSTRATED WITH
PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1921

Copyright, 1916, 1917, by
The Century Co.
Published September, 1917
Reprinted April, 1918;
Reprinted August, 1918.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.

TO
MY MOTHER
AND ALL WHO, LIKE HER, ARE
TRUE MOTHERS, AND SO, TRUE
"HEROINES OF SERVICE."

[FOREWORD]

From time immemorial women have been content to be as those who serve. Non ministrari sed ministrare—not to be ministered unto but to minister—is not alone the motto of those who stand under the Wellesley banner, but of true women everywhere.

For centuries a woman's own home had not only first claim, but full claim, on her fostering care. Her interests and sympathies—her mother love—belonged only to those of her own household. In the days when much of the labor of providing food and clothing was carried on under each roof-tree, her service was necessarily circumscribed by the home walls. Whether she was the lady of a baronial castle, or a hardy peasant who looked upon her work within doors as a rest from her heavier toil in the fields, the mother of the family was not only responsible for the care of her children and the prudent management of her housekeeping, but she had also entire charge of the manufacture of clothing, from the spinning of the flax or wool to the fashioning of the woven cloth into suitable garments.

Changed days have come, however, with changed ways. The development of science and invention, which has led to industrial progress and specialization, has radically changed the woman's world of the home. The industries once carried on there are now more efficiently handled in large factories and packing-houses. The care of the house itself is undertaken by specialists in cleaning and repairing.

Many women, whose energies would have been, under former conditions, inevitably monopolized by home-keeping duties, are to-day giving their strength and special gifts to social service. They are the true mothers—not only of their own little brood—but of the community and the world.

The service of the true woman is always "womanly." She gives something of the fostering care of the mother, whether it be as nurse, like Clara Barton; as teacher, like Mary Lyon and Alice Freeman Palmer; or as social helper, like Jane Addams. So it is that the service of these "heroines" is that which only women could have given to the world.

Many women who have never held children of their own in their arms have been mothers to many in their work. It was surely the mother heart of Frances E. Willard that made our "maiden crusader" a helper and healer, as well as a standard bearer. It was the mother heart of Alice C. Fletcher, that made that student of the past a champion of the Indians in their present-day problems and a true "campfire interpreter." It was the woman's tenderness that made Mary Slessor, that torch-bearer to Darkest Africa, the "white mother" of all the black people she taught and served.

The Russian peasants have a proverb: "Labor is the house that Love lives in." The women, who, as mothers of their own families, or of other children whose needs cry out for their understanding care, are always homemakers. And the work of each of these—her labor of love—is truly "a house that love lives in."

[CONTENTS]

[ILLUSTRATIONS]

[PROPHET AND PIONEER: MARY LYON]

Anything that ought to be done can be done.

Immanuel Kant.

HEROINES OF SERVICE

PROPHET AND PIONEER

"WHAT is my little Mistress Mary trying to do?" The whir of the spinning-wheel was stilled for a moment as Mrs. Lyon glanced in surprise at the child who had climbed up on a chair to look more closely at the hourglass on the chimneypiece.

"I am just trying to see if I can find the way to make more time," replied Mary.

"That's not the way, daughter," laughed the busy mother, as she started her wheel again. "When you stop to watch time, you lose it. Let your work slip from your fingers faster than the sand slips—that's the way to make time!"

If busy hands can indeed make time, we know why the days were so full of happy work in that little farm-house among the hills of western Massachusetts. It takes courage and ceaseless toil to run a farm that must provide food and clothing for seven growing children, but Mrs. Lyon was never too busy or too tired to help a neighbor or to speak a word of cheer.

"How is it that the widow can do more for me than any one else?" asked a neighbor who had found her a friend in need. "She reminds me of what the Bible says, 'having nothing yet possessing all things.' There she is left without a husband to fend for her and the children, so that it's work, work, work for them all from morning till night, and yet they're always happy. You would think the children liked nothing better than doing chores."

"How is it that the harder a thing is the more you seem to like it, Mary?" asked her seat-mate in the district school, looking wonderingly at the girl whose eyes always brightened and snapped when the arithmetic problems were long and hard.

"Oh, it's lots more fun climbing than just going along on the level," replied Mary. "You feel so much more alive. I'll tell you what to do when a thing seems hard, like a steep, steep hill, you know. Say to yourself: 'Some people may call you Difficulty, old hill; but I know that your name is Opportunity. You're here just to prove that I can do something worth while.' Then the climbing is the best fun—really!"

It is a happy thing to be born among the hills. Wherever one looks there is something to whisper: "There is no joy like climbing. Besides, the sun stays longer on the summit, and beyond the hill-tops is a larger, brighter world." Perhaps it was the fresh breath of the hills that gave Mary Lyon her glowing cheeks, as the joy of climbing brought the dancing lights into her clear blue eyes.

The changing seasons march over the hills in a glorious pageant of color, from the tender veiling green of young April to the purple mists and red-and-gold splendor of Indian summer. Every day had the thrill of new adventure to Mary Lyon, but perhaps she loved the mellow October days best. "They have all the glowing memory of the past summer and the promise of the spring to come," she used to say.

How could one who had, through the weeks of growing things, worked together with rain and sunshine and generous earth for the harvest but feel the happy possession of all the year at the time when she saw bins overflowing with brown potatoes, yellow corn, and other gifts of fields and orchard? She could never doubt that, given the waiting earth and faithful labor, the harvest was sure. Duties and difficulties were always opportunities for higher endeavor and happier achievement.

There was no play in Mary Lyon's childhood except the play that a healthy, active child may find in varied, healthful work done with a light heart. There was joy in rising before the sun was up, to pick weeds in the dewy garden, to feed the patient creatures in the barn, and to make butter in the cool spring-house. Sometimes one could meet the sunrise on the hill-top, when it happened to be one's turn to bring wood to the dwindling pile by the kitchen door. Then there was the baking—golden-brown loaves of bread and tempting apple pies. When the morning mists had quite disappeared from the face of the hills, the blue smoke had ceased to rise from the chimney of the little farm-house. Then was the time to sit beside Mother and knit or weave, sew or mend, the garments that were homemade, beginning with the moment when the wool, sheared from their own sheep, was carded and spun into thread. For holidays, there were the exciting mornings when they made soap and candles, or the afternoons when they gathered together in the barn for a husking-bee.

Beauty walked with Toil, however, about that farm in the hills. Mary had time to lift up her eyes to the glory of the changing sky and to tend the pinks and peonies that throve nowhere so happily as in her mother's old-fashioned garden.

"May I plant this bush in the corner with your roses?" asked a neighbor one day. "It is a rare plant of rare virtue, and I know that in your garden it cannot die."

As the labor of her hands prospered, as her garden posies blossomed, so the wings of Mary Lyon's spirit grew. No matter how shut in the present seemed, no hope nor dream for the future died in her heart as the days went by.

Her plans only took deeper and deeper root as she worked and waited patiently for the time of flowers and fruit. There were few books to be had, but these yielded her of their best. There was opportunity for but few scattered terms in distant district schools, but she learned there more than the teachers taught.

"Anything is interesting when you realize that it is important," she used to say. And to Mary everything was important that was real. She learned not only from books, but from work, from people, from Nature, and from every bit of stray circumstance that came her way. It is said that when the first brick house was built in the village she made a point of learning how to make bricks, turning them up, piling them on the wheelbarrow, and putting them in the kiln. She was always hungry to know and to do, and the harder a thing was the more she seemed to like it. Climbing was ever more fun than trudging along on the level.

The years brought changes to the home farm. The older sisters married and went to homes of their own. When Mary was thirteen her mother married again and went away with the younger children, leaving her to keep house for the only brother, who had from early childhood been her best comrade. The dollar a week given her for her work was saved to pay for a term in the neighboring academy. She also taught in a district school for a while, receiving seventy-five cents a week and board.

The nineteen-year-old girl who appeared one day at the Ashfield Academy somehow drew all eyes to her. Her blue homespun dress, with running-strings at neck and waist, was queer and shapeless, even judged by village standards in the New England of 1817. Her movements were impulsive and ungainly and her gait awkward. But it was not the crudity, but the power, of the new-comer that impressed people. Squire White's gentle daughter, the slender, graceful Amanda, gave the loyalty of her best friendship to this interesting and enthusiastic schoolmate from the hill farm.

"She is more alive than any one I know, Father," said the girl, in explanation of her preference. "You never see her odd dress and sudden ways when once you have looked into her face and talked to her. Her face seems lighted from within—it isn't just her bright color and red-gold curls; it isn't even her merry laugh. I can't explain what I mean, but it seems as if her life touches mine—and it's such a big, warm, beautiful life!"

The traditions of this New England village long kept the memory of her first recitation. On Friday she had been given the first lesson of Adams's Latin Grammar to commit to memory. When she was called up early Monday afternoon, she began to recite fluently declensions and conjugations without pause, until, as the daylight waned, the whole of the Latin grammar passed in review before the speechless teacher and dazzled, admiring pupils.

"How did you ever do it? How could your head hold it all?" demanded Amanda, with a gasp, as they walked home together.

"Well, really, I'll have to own up," said Mary, with some reluctance, "I studied all day Sunday! It wasn't so very hard, though. I soon saw where the changes in the conjugations came in, and the rules of syntax are very much like English grammar."

Studying was never hard work to Mary, because she could at a moment's notice put all her attention on the thing at hand. Her busy childhood had taught her to attack a task at once, while others were frequently spending their time thinking and talking about doing it.

"No one could study like Mary Lyon, and no one could clean the school-room with such despatch," said one of her classmates.

It seemed as if she never knew what it was to be tired. She appeared to have a boundless store of strength and enthusiasm, as if, through all her growing years, she had made over into the very fiber of her being the energy of the life-giving sunshine and the patience of the enduring hills. Time must be used wisely when all one's little hoard of savings will only pay for the tuition of one precious term. Her board was paid with two coverlets, spun, dyed, and woven by her own hands.

"They should prove satisfactory covers," she said merrily, "for they have covered all my needs."

On the day when she thought she must bid farewell to Ashfield Academy the trustees voted her free tuition, a gift which, as pupil-teacher, she did her best to repay. The hospitable doors of Squire White's dignified residence were thrown open to his daughter's chosen friend, and in this second home she readily absorbed the ways of gracious living—the niceties and refinements of dress and manners for which there had been no time in the busy farm-house.

When the course at the academy was completed, the power of her eager spirit and evident gifts led Squire White to offer her the means to go with his daughter to Byfield Seminary near Boston, the school conducted by Mr. Joseph Emerson, who believed that young women, no less than their brothers, should have an opportunity for higher instruction. In those days before colleges for women or normal schools, he dreamed of doing something towards giving worthy preparation to future teachers. It was through the teaching and inspiration of this cultured Harvard scholar and large-hearted man that Mary Lyon learned to know the meaning of life, and to understand aright the longings of her own soul. Years afterward she said: "In my youth I had much vigor—was always aspiring after something. I called it longing to study, but had few to direct me. One teacher I shall always remember. He taught me that education was to fit one to do good."

On leaving Byfield Seminary, Miss Lyon began her life-work of teaching. But with all her preparation for doing and her intense desire to do, she did not at first succeed. The matter of control was not easy to one who would not stoop to rigid mechanical means and who said, "One has not governed a child until she makes the child smile under her government." Besides, her sense of humor—later one of her chief assets—seemed at first to get in the way of her gaining a steady hold on the reins.

When she was tempted to give up in discouragement, she said to herself: "I know that good teachers are needed, and that I ought to teach. 'All that ought to be done can be done.'"

To one who worked earnestly in that spirit, success was sure. Five years later, two towns were vying with each other to secure her as a teacher in their academies for young ladies. For some time she taught at Derry, New Hampshire, during the warm months, going to her beloved Ashfield for the winter term. Wherever she was she drew pupils from the surrounding towns and even from beyond the borders of the State. Teachers left their schools to gather about her. She had the power to communicate something of her own enthusiasm and vitality. Bright eyes and alert faces testified to her power to quicken thought and to create an appetite for knowledge.

"Her memory has been to me continually an inspiration to overcome difficulties," said one of her pupils.

"You were the first friend who ever pointed out to me defects of character with the expectation that they would be removed," another pupil wrote in a letter of heartfelt gratitude.

At this time all the schools for girls, like the Ashfield Academy and Mr. Emerson's seminary at Byfield, were entirely dependent upon the enterprise and ideals of individuals. There were no colleges with buildings and equipment, such as furnished dormitories, libraries, and laboratories, belonging to the work and the future. In the case of the most successful schools there was no guarantee that they would endure beyond the lifetime of those whose interest had called them into being.

Miss Lyon taught happily for several years, often buying books of reference and material for practical illustration out of her salary of five or six dollars a week. The chance for personal influence seemed the one essential. "Never mind the brick and mortar!" she cried. "Only let us have the living minds to work upon!"

As experience came with the years, however, as she saw schools where a hundred young women were crowded into one room without black-boards, globes, maps, and other necessaries of instruction—she realized that something must be done to secure higher schools for girls, that would have the requisite material equipment for the present and security for the future. "We must provide a college for young women on the same conditions as those for men, with publicly owned buildings and fixed standards of work," she said.

This idea could appeal to most people of that day only as a strange, extravagant, and dangerous notion. Harvard and Yale existed to prepare men to be ministers, doctors, and lawyers. Did women expect to thrust themselves into the professions? Why should they want the learning of men? It could do nothing but make them unfit for their proper life in the home. Who had ever heard of a college for girls! What is unheard of is to most people manifestly absurd.

To Mary Lyon, however, difficulties were opportunities for truer effort and greater service. She had, besides, a faith in a higher power—in a Divine Builder of "houses not made with hands"—which led her to say with unshaken confidence, "'All that ought to be done can be done!'"

Mary Lyon chapel and administration hall

It was as if she were able to look into the future and see the way time would sift the works of the present. Those who looked into her earnest blue eyes, bright with courage, deep with understanding, could not but feel that she had the prophet's vision. It was as if she had power to divine the difference between the difficult and the impossible, and, knowing that, her faith in the happy outcome of her work was founded on a rock.

It took this faith and hope, together with an unfailing charity for the lack of vision in others and an ever-present sense of humor, to carry Mary Lyon through the task to which she now set herself. She was determined to open people's eyes to the need of giving girls a chance for a training that would fit them for more useful living by making them better teachers, wiser home-makers, and, in their own right, happier human beings. She must not only convince the conservative men and women of her day that education could do these things, but she must make that conviction so strong that they would be willing to give of their hard-earned substance to help along the good work.

Those were not the days of large fortunes. Miss Lyon could not depend upon winning the interest of a few powerful benefactors. She must enlist the support of the many who would be willing to share their little. She must perforce have the hardihood of the pioneer, no less than the vision of the seer, to enable her to meet the problems, trials, and rebuffs of the next few years.

"I learned twenty years ago not to get out of patience," she once said to some one who marveled at the unwearied good-humor with which she met the most exasperating circumstances.

First enlisting the assistance of a few earnest men to serve as trustees and promoters of the cause, she, herself, traveled from town to town, from village to village, and from house to house, telling over and over again the story of the Mount Holyoke to be, and what it was to mean to the daughters of New England. For the site in South Hadley, Massachusetts, had been early selected, and the name of the neighboring height, overlooking the Connecticut River, chosen by the girl who was born in the hills and who believed that it was good to climb.

"I wander about without a home," she wrote to her mother, "and scarcely know one week where I shall be the next."

All of her journeying was by stage, for at that time the only railroad in New England was the one, not yet completed, connecting Boston with Worcester and Lowell. To those who feared that even her robust health and radiant spirit could not long endure the strain of such a life, she said: "Our personal comforts are delightful, but not essential. Mount Holyoke means more than meat and sleep. Had I a thousand lives, I would sacrifice them all in suffering and hardship for its sake."

During these years Miss Lyon abundantly proved that the pioneer does not live by bread alone. Only by the vision of what his struggles will mean to those who come after to profit by his labors is his zeal fed. It seemed at the time when Mount Holyoke was only a dream of what might be, and in the anxious days of breaking ground which followed, that Miss Lyon's faith that difficulties are only opportunities in disguise was tried to the utmost. Just when her enthusiasm was arousing in the frugal, thrifty New Englanders a desire to give, out of their slender savings, a great financial panic swept over the country.

Miss Lyon's friends shook their heads. "You will have to wait for better times," they said. "It is impossible to go on with the undertaking now."

"When a thing ought to be done, it cannot be impossible," replied Miss Lyon. "Now is the only word that belongs to us; with the afterwhile we have nothing to do."

In that spirit she went on, and in that spirit girls who had been her pupils gave of their little stipends earned by teaching, and the mothers of girls gave of the money earned by selling eggs and braiding palm-leaf hats.

"Don't think any gift too small," said Miss Lyon. "I want the twenties and the fifties, but the dollars and the half-dollars, with prayer, go a long way."

So Mount Holyoke was built on faith and prayer and the gifts of the many who believed that the time cried out for a means of educating girls who longed for a better training. One hard-working farmer with five sons to educate gave a hundred dollars. "I have no daughters of my own," he said, "but I want to help give the daughters of America the chance they should have along with the boys." Two delicate gentlewomen who had lost their little property in the panic, earned with their own hands the money they had pledged to the college.

Even Miss Lyon's splendid optimism had, however, some chill encounters with smallmindedness in people who were not seldom those of large opportunities. Once when she had journeyed a considerable distance to lay her plans before a family of wealth and influence in the community, she returned to her friends with a shade of thought on her cheerful brow. "Yes, it is all true, just as I was told," she said as if to herself. "They live in a costly house, it is full of costly things, they wear costly clothes—but oh, they're little bits of folks!"

Miss Lyon, herself, gave to the work not only her entire capital of physical strength and her gifts of heart and mind, but also her small savings, which had been somewhat increased by Mr. White's prudent investments. And for the future she offered her services on the same conditions as those of the missionary—the means of simple livelihood and the joy of the work.

"Mount Holyoke is designed to cultivate the missionary spirit among its pupils," declared an early circular, "that they may live for God and do something."

Always Miss Lyon emphasized the ideal of an education that should be a training for service. To this end she decided upon the expedient of coöperative housework to reduce running expenses, to develop responsibility, and to provide healthful physical exercise. Long before the day of gymnasiums and active sports, this educator recognized the need of balanced development of physical as well as mental habits.

"We need to introduce wise and healthy ideals not only into our minds, but into our muscles," she said. "Besides, there is no discipline so valuable as that which comes from fitting our labors into the work of others for a common good."

One difficulty after another was met and vanquished. When the digging for the foundation of the first building was actually under way, quicksand was discovered and another location had to be chosen. Then it appeared that the bricks were faulty, which led to another delay. After the work was resumed and all was apparently going well, the walls suddenly collapsed. "Then," said the man in charge, "I did dread to see Miss Lyon. Now, thought I, she will be discouraged."

As he hurried towards the ruins, however, whom should he meet but Miss Lyon herself, smiling radiantly! "How fortunate it is that it happened while the men were at breakfast!" she exclaimed. "I understand that no one has been injured!"

The corner-stone was laid on a bright October day that seemed to have turned all the gray chill of the dying year into a golden promise of budding life after the time of frost.

"The stones and brick and mortar speak a language which vibrates through my soul," said Miss Lyon. "I have indeed lived to see the time when a body of gentlemen have ventured to lay the corner-stone of an edifice which will cost about fifteen thousand dollars—and for an institution for women! Surely the Lord hath remembered our low estate. The work will not stop with this foundation. Our enterprise may have to struggle through embarrassments for years, but its influence will be felt."

How lovingly she watched the work go on! When the interior was under way, how carefully she considered each detail of closets, shelves, and general arrangements for comfort and convenience! When the question of equipment became urgent, how she worked to create an interest that should express itself in gifts of bedroom furnishings, curtains, crockery, and kitchen-ware, as well as books, desks, chairs, and laboratory material! All sorts and conditions of contributions and donations were welcomed. One was reminded of the way pioneer Harvard was at first supported by gifts of "a cow or a sheep, corn or salt, a piece of cloth or of silver plate." Four months before the day set for the opening, not a third of the necessary furnishing had come in.

"Everything that is done for us now," cried Miss Lyon, "seems like giving bread to the hungry and cold water to the thirsty!"

On the eighth of November, 1837, the day that Mount Holyoke opened its door, all was excitement in South Hadley. Stages and private carriages had for two days been arriving with road-weary, but eager, young women. The sound of hammers greeted their ears. It appeared that all the men, young and old, of the countryside had been pressed into service. Some were tacking down carpet or matting, others were carrying trunks, unloading furniture, and putting up beds. Miss Lyon seemed to be everywhere, greeting each new-comer with a word that showed that she already knew her as an individual, putting the shy and homesick girls to work, taking a cup of tea to one who was overtired from her journey, and directing the placing of furniture and the unpacking of supplies.

It might well have seemed to those first arrivals that they must live through a period of preparation before a reluctant beginning of regular work could be achieved, but in the midst of all the noise of house-settling and the fever of uncompleted entrance examinations the opening bell sounded on schedule time and classes began at once. What seemed, at first glance, hopeless confusion became ordered and stimulating activity through the generalship and inspiration of one woman whose watchword was: "Do the best you can now. Do not lose one golden opportunity for doing by merely getting ready to do something. Always remember that what ought to be done can be done."

This spirit of assured power—the will to do—became the spirit of those who worked with her, and was in time recognized as "the Mount Holyoke spirit."

"I can see Miss Lyon now as vividly as if it were only yesterday that I arrived, tired, hungry, and fearful, into the strange new world of the seminary," said a white-haired grandmother, her spectacles growing misty as she looked back across the sixty-odd years that separated her from the experiences that she was recalling.

"Tell me what you remember most about her," urged her vivacious granddaughter, a Mount Holyoke freshman, home for her Christmas vacation. "Was she really such a wonder as they all say?"

"Many pictures come to me of Miss Lyon that are much more vivid than those of people I saw yesterday," pondered the grandmother. "But it was, I think, in morning exercises in seminary hall that she impressed us most. Those who listened to her earnest words and looked into her face alight with feeling could not but remember. Her large blue eyes looked down upon us as if she held us all in her heart. What was the secret of her power! My dear, she was power. All that she taught, she was. And so while her words awakened, her example—the life-giving touch of her life—gave power to do and to endure."

The young girl's bright face was turned thoughtfully towards the fire, but the light that shone in her eyes was more than the reflected glow from the cheerful logs. "It is good to think that a woman can live like that in her work," she ventured softly.

The grandmother's face showed an answering glow. "There are some things that cannot grow old and die," she said. "One of them is a spirit like Mary Lyon's. When they told us that she had died, we knew that only her bodily presence had been removed. She still lived in our midst—we heard the ring of her voice in the words we read, in the words our hearts told us she would say; we even heard the ring of her laugh! And to-day you may be sure that the woman-pioneer who had the faith to plant the first college for women in America, lives by that faith, not only in her own Mount Holyoke, but in the larger lives of all the women who have profited by her labors."

["THE PRINCESS" OF WELLESLEY:
ALICE FREEMAN PALMER]

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Tennyson.

"THE PRINCESS" OF WELLESLEY

THIS is the story of a princess of our own time and our own America—a princess who, while little more than a girl herself, was chosen to rule a kingdom of girls. It is a little like the story of Tennyson's "Princess," with her woman's kingdom, and very much like the happy, old-fashioned fairy-tale.

We have come to think it is only in fairy-tales that a golden destiny finds out the true, golden heart, and, even though she masquerades as a goose-girl, discovers the "kingly child" and brings her to a waiting throne. We are tempted to believe that the chance of birth and the gifts of wealth are the things that spell opportunity and success. But this princess was born in a little farm-house, to a daily round of hard work and plain living. That it was also a life of high thinking and rich enjoyment of what each day brought, proved her indeed a "kingly child."

"Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous!" said the sage of Concord. So it was with little Alice Freeman. As she picked wild strawberries on the hills, and climbed the apple-tree to lie for a blissful minute in a nest of swaying blossoms under the blue sky, she was, as she said, "happy all over." The trappings of royalty can add nothing to one who knows how to be royally happy in gingham.

But Alice was not always following the pasture path to her friendly brook, or running across the fields with the calling wind, or dancing with her shadow in the barn-yard, where even the prosy hens stopped pecking corn for a minute to watch. She had work to do for Mother. When she was only four, she could dry the dishes without dropping one; and when she was six, she could be trusted to keep the three toddlers younger than herself out of mischief.

"My little daughter is learning to be a real little mother," said Mrs. Freeman, as she went about her work of churning and baking without an anxious thought.

Alice Freeman Palmer

It was Sister Alice who pointed out the robin's nest, and found funny turtles and baby toads to play with. She took the little brood with her to hunt eggs in the barn and to see the ducks sail around like a fleet of boats on the pond. When Ella and Fred were wakened by a fearsome noise at night, they crept up close to their little mother, who told them a story about the funny screech-owl in its hollow-tree home.

"It is the ogre of mice and bats, but not of little boys and girls," she said.

"It sounds funny now, Alice," they whispered. "It's all right when we can touch you."

When Alice was seven a change came in the home. The father and mother had some serious talks, and then it was decided that Father should go away for a time, for two years, to study to be a doctor.

"It is hard to be chained to one kind of life when all the time you are sure that you have powers and possibilities that have never had a chance to come out in the open," she heard her father say one evening. "I have always wanted to be a doctor; I can never be more than a half-hearted farmer."

"You must go to Albany now, James," said the dauntless wife. "I can manage the farm until you get through your course at the medical college; and then, when you are doing work into which you can put your whole heart, a better time must come for all of us."

"How can you possibly get along?" he asked in amazement. "How can I leave you for two years to be a farmer, and father and mother, too?"

"There is a little bank here," she said, taking down a jar from a high shelf in the cupboard and jingling its contents merrily. "I have been saving bit by bit for just this sort of thing. And Alice will help me," she added, smiling at the child who had been standing near looking from father to mother in wide-eyed wonder. "You will be the little mother while I take father's place for a time, won't you, Alice?"

"It will be cruelly hard on you all," said the father, soberly. "I cannot make it seem right."

"Think how much good you can do afterward," urged his wife. "The time will go very quickly when we are all thinking of that. It is not hard to endure for a little for the sake of 'a gude time coming'—a better time not only for us, but for many besides. For I know you will be the true sort of doctor, James."

Alice never quite knew how they did manage during those two years, but she was quite sure that work done for the sake of a good to come is all joy.

"I owe much of what I am to my milkmaid days," she said.

She was always sorry for children who do not grow up with the sights and sounds of the country. "One is very near to all the simple, real things of life on a farm," she used to say. "There is a dewy freshness about the early out-of-door experiences, and a warm wholesomeness about tasks that are a part of the common lot. A country child develops, too, a responsibility—a power to do and to contrive—that the city child, who sees everything come ready to hand from a near-by store, cannot possibly gain. However much some of my friends may deplore my own early struggle with poverty and hard work, I can heartily echo George Eliot's boast:

"But were another childhood-world my share,

I would be born a little sister there."

When Alice was ten years old, the family moved from the farm to the village of Windsor, where Dr. Freeman entered upon his life as a doctor, and where Alice's real education began. From the time she was four she had, for varying periods, sat on a bench in the district school, but for the most part she had taught herself. At Windsor Academy she had the advantage of a school of more than average efficiency.

"Words do not tell what this old school and place meant to me as a girl," she said years afterward. "Here we gathered abundant Greek, Latin, French, and mathematics; here we were taught truthfulness, to be upright and honorable; here we had our first loves, our first ambitions, our first dreams, and some of our first disappointments. We owe a large debt to Windsor Academy for the solid groundwork of education that it laid."

More important than the excellent curriculum and wholesome associations, however, was the influence of a friendship with one of the teachers, a young Harvard graduate who was supporting himself while preparing for the ministry. He recognized the rare nature and latent powers of the girl of fourteen, and taught her the delights of friendship with Nature and with books, and the joy of a mind trained to see and appreciate. He gave her an understanding of herself, and aroused the ambition, which grew into a fixed resolve, to go to college. But more than all, he taught her the value of personal influence.

"It is people that count," she used to say. "The truth and beauty that are locked up in books and in nature, to which only a few have the key, begin really to live when they are made over into human character. Disembodied ideas may mean little or nothing; it is when they are 'made flesh' that they can speak to our hearts and minds."

As Alice drove about with her father when he went to see his patients and saw how this true "doctor of the old school" was a physician to the mind as well as the body of those who turned to him for help, she came to a further realization of the truth: It is people that count.

"It must be very depressing to have to associate with bodies and their ills all the time," she ventured one day when her father seemed more than usually preoccupied. She never forgot the light that shone in his eyes as he turned and looked at her.

"We can't begin to minister to the body until we understand that spirit is all," he said. "What we are pleased to call body is but one expression—and a most marvelous expression—of the hidden life

"that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things."

It seemed to Alice that this might be a favorable time to broach the subject of college. He looked at her in utter amazement; few girls thought of wanting more than a secondary education in those days, and there were still fewer opportunities for them.

"Why, daughter," he exclaimed, "a little more Latin and mathematics won't make you a better home-maker! Why should you set your heart on this thing?"

"I must go, Father," she answered steadily. "It is not a sudden notion; I have realized for a long time that I cannot live my life—the life that I feel I have it within me to live—without this training. I want to be a teacher—the best kind of a teacher—just as you wanted to be a doctor."

"But, my dear child," he protested, much troubled, "it will be as much as we can manage to see one of you through college, and that one should be Fred, who will have a family to look out for one of these days."

"If you let me have this chance, Father," said Alice, earnestly, "I'll promise that you will never regret it. I'll help to give Fred his chance, and see that the girls have the thing they want as well."

In the end Alice had her way. It seemed as if the strength of her single-hearted longing had power to compel a reluctant fate. In June, 1872, when but a little over seventeen, she went to Ann Arbor to take the entrance examinations for the University of Michigan, a careful study of catalogues having convinced her that the standard of work was higher there than in any college then open to women.

A disappointment met her at the outset. Her training at Windsor, good as it was, did not prepare her for the university requirements. "Conditions" loomed mountain high, and the examiners recommended that she spend another year in preparation. Her intelligence and character had won the interest of President Angell, however, and he asked that she be granted a six-weeks' trial. His confidence in her was justified; for she not only proved her ability to keep up with her class, but steadily persevered in her double task until all conditions were removed.

The college years were "a glory instead of a grind," in spite of the ever-pressing necessity for strict economy in the use of time and money. Her sense of values—"the ability to see large things large and small things small," which has been called the best measure of education,—showed a wonderful harmony of powers. While the mind was being stored with knowledge and the intellect trained to clear, orderly thinking, there was never a "too-muchness" in this direction that meant a "not-enoughness" in the realm of human relationships. Always she realized that it is people that count, and her supreme test of education as of life was its "consecrated serviceableness." President Angell in writing of her said:

One of her most striking characteristics in college was her warm and demonstrative sympathy with her circle of friends. Her soul seemed bubbling over with joy, which she wished to share with the other girls. While she was therefore in the most friendly relations with all those girls then in college, she was the radiant center of a considerable group whose tastes were congenial with her own. Without assuming or striving for leadership, she could not but be to a certain degree a leader among these, some of whom have attained positions only less conspicuous for usefulness than her own. Wherever she went, her genial, outgoing spirit seemed to carry with her an atmosphere of cheerfulness and joy.

In the middle of her junior year, news came from her father of a more than usual financial stress, owing to a flood along the Susquehanna, which had swept away his hope of present gain from a promising stretch of woodland. It seemed clear to Alice that the time had come when she must make her way alone. Through the recommendation of President Angell she secured a position as teacher of Latin and Greek in the High School at Ottawa, Illinois, where she taught for five months, receiving enough money to carry her through the remainder of her college course. The omitted junior work was made up partly during the summer vacation and partly in connection with the studies of the senior year. An extract from a letter home will tell how the busy days went:

This is the first day of vacation. I have been so busy this year that it seems good to get a change, even though I do keep right on here at work. For some time I have been giving a young man lessons in Greek every Saturday. I have had two junior speeches already, and there are still more. Several girls from Flint tried to have me go home with them for the vacation, but I made up my mind to stay and do what I could for myself and the other people here. A young Mr. M. is going to recite to me every day in Virgil; so with teaching and all the rest I sha'n't have time to be homesick, though it will seem rather lonely when the other girls are gone and I don't hear the college bell for two weeks.

Miss Freeman's early teaching showed the vitalizing spirit that marked all of her relations with people.

"She had a way of making you feel 'all dipped in sunshine,'" one of her girls said.

"Everything she taught seemed a part of herself," another explained. "It wasn't just something in a book that she had to teach and you had to learn. She made every page of our history seem a part of present life and interests. We saw and felt the things we talked about."

The fame of this young teacher's influence traveled all the way from Michigan, where she was principal of the Saginaw High School, to Massachusetts. Mr. Henry Durant, the founder of Wellesley, asked her to come to the new college as teacher of mathematics. She declined the call, however, and, a year later, a second and more urgent invitation. Her family had removed to Saginaw, where Dr. Freeman was slowly building up a practice, and it would mean leaving a home that needed her. The one brother was now in the university; Ella was soon to be married; and Stella, the youngest, who was most like Alice in temperament and tastes, was looking forward hopefully to college.

But at the time when Dr. Freeman was becoming established and the financial outlook began to brighten, the darkest days that the family had ever known were upon them. Stella, the chief joy and hope of them all, fell seriously ill. The "little mother" loved this "starlike girl" as her own child, and looked up to her as one who would reach heights her feet could never climb. When she died it seemed to Alice that she had lost the one chance for a perfectly understanding and inspiring comradeship that life offered. At this time a third call came to Wellesley,—as head of the department of history,—and hoping that a new place with new problems would give her a fresh hold on joy, she accepted.

Into her college work the young woman of twenty-four put all the power and richness of her radiant personality. She found peace and happiness in untiring effort, and her girls found in her the most inspiring teacher they had ever known. She went to the heart of the history she taught, and she went to the hearts of her pupils.

"She seemed to care for each of us—to find each as interesting and worth while as if there were no other person in the world," one of her students said.

Mr. Durant had longed to find just such a person to build on the foundation he had laid. It was in her first year that he pointed her out to one of the trustees.

"Do you see that little dark-eyed girl? She will be the next president of Wellesley," he said.

"Surely she is much too young and inexperienced for such a responsibility," protested the other, looking at him in amazement.

"As for the first, it is a fault we easily outgrow," said Mr. Durant, dryly, "and as for her inexperience—well, I invite you to visit one of her classes."

The next year, on the death of Mr. Durant, she was made acting president of the college, and the year following she inherited the title and honors, as well as the responsibilities and opportunities, of the office. The Princess had come into her kingdom.

The election caused a great stir among the students, particularly the irrepressible seniors. It was wonderful and most inspiring that their splendid Miss Freeman, who was the youngest member of the faculty, should have won this honor. "Why, she was only a girl like themselves! The time of strict observances and tiresome regulations of every sort was at an end. Miss Freeman seemed to sense the prevailing mood, and, without waiting for a formal assembly, asked the seniors to meet her in her rooms. In they poured, overflowing chairs, tables, and ranging themselves about on the floor in animated, expectant groups. The new head of the college looked at them quietly for a minute before she began to speak.

"I have sent for you seniors," she said at last seriously, "to ask your advice. You may have heard that I have been called to the position of acting president of your college. I am, of course, too young; and the duties are, as you know, too heavy for the strongest to carry alone. If I must manage alone, there is only one course—to decline. It has, however, occurred to me that my seniors might be willing to help by looking after the order of the college and leaving me free for administration. Shall I accept? Shall we work things out together?"

The hearty response made it clear that the princess was to rule not only by "divine right," but also by the glad "consent of the governed." Perhaps it was her youth and charm and the romance of her brilliant success that won for her the affectionate title of "The Princess"; perhaps it was her undisputed sway in her kingdom of girls. It was said that her radiant, "outgoing spirit" was felt in the atmosphere of the place and in all the graduates. Her spirit became the Wellesley spirit.

"What did she do besides turning all of you into an adoring band of Freeman-followers?" a Wellesley woman was asked.

The reply came without a moment's hesitation: "She had the life-giving power of a true creator, one who can entertain a vision of the ideal, and then work patiently bit by bit to 'carve it in the marble real.' She built the Wellesley we all know and love, making it practical, constructive, fine, generous, human, spiritual."

For six years the Princess of Wellesley ruled her kingdom wisely. She raised the standard of work, enlisted the interest and support of those in a position to help, added to the buildings and equipment, and won the enthusiastic cooperation of students, faculty, and public. Then, one day, she voluntarily stepped down from her throne, leaving others to go on with the work she had begun. She married Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard, and, (quite in the manner of the fairy-tale) "lived happily ever after."

"What a disappointment!" some of her friends said. "That a woman of such unusual powers and gifts should deliberately leave a place of large usefulness and influence to shut herself up in the concerns of a single home!"

"There is nothing better than the making of a true home," said Alice Freeman Palmer. "I shall not be shut away from the concerns of others, but more truly a part of them. 'For love is fellow-service,' I believe."

The home near Harvard Yard was soon felt to be the most free and perfect expression of her generous nature. Its happiness made all life seem happier. Shy undergraduates and absorbed students who had withdrawn overmuch within themselves and their pet problems found there a thaw after their "winter of discontent." Wellesley girls—even in those days before automobiles—did not feel fifteen miles too great a distance to go for a cup of tea and a half-hour by the fire.

College Hall, destroyed by fire in 1914

Tower Court, which stands on the site of College Hall

Many were surprised that Mrs. Palmer never seemed worn by the unstinted giving of herself to the demands of others on her time and sympathy. The reason was that their interests were her interests. Her spirit was indeed "outgoing"; there was no wall hedging in a certain number of things and people as hers, with the rest of the world outside. As we have seen, people counted with her supremely; and the ideas which moved her were those which she found embodied in the joys and sorrows of human hearts.

Mrs. Palmer wrote of her days at this time:

I don't know what will happen if life keeps on growing so much better and brighter each year. How does your cup manage to hold so much? Mine is running over, and I keep getting larger cups; but I can't contain all my blessings and gladness. We are both so well and busy that the days are never half long enough.

Life held, indeed, a full measure of opportunities for service. Wellesley claimed her as a member of its executive committee, and other colleges sought her counsel. When Chicago University was founded, she was induced to serve as its Dean of Women until the opportunities for girls there were wisely established. She worked energetically raising funds for Radcliffe and her own Wellesley. Throughout the country her wisdom as an educational expert was recognized, and her advice sought in matters of organization and administration. For several years, as a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, she worked early and late to improve the efficiency and influence of the normal schools. She was a public servant who brought into all her contact with groups and masses of people the simple directness and intimate charm that marked her touch with individuals.

"How is it that you are able to do so much more than other people?" asked a tired, nervous woman, who stopped Mrs. Palmer for a word at the close of one of her lectures.

"Because," she answered, with the sudden gleam of a smile, "I haven't any nerves nor any conscience, and my husband says I haven't any backbone."

It was true that she never worried. She had early learned to live one day at a time, without "looking before and after." And nobody knew better than Mrs. Palmer the renewing power of joy. She could romp with some of her very small friends in the half-hour before an important meeting; go for a long walk or ride along country lanes when a vexing problem confronted her; or spend a quiet evening by the fire reading aloud from one of her favorite poets at the end of a busy day.

For fifteen years Mrs. Palmer lived this life of joyful, untiring service. Then, at the time of her greatest power and usefulness, she died. The news came as a personal loss to thousands. Just as Wellesley had mourned her removal to Cambridge, so a larger world mourned her earthly passing. But her friends soon found that it was impossible to grieve or to feel for a moment that she was dead. The echoes of her life were living echoes in the world of those who knew her.

There are many memorials speaking in different places of her work. In the chapel at Wellesley, where it seems to gather at every hour a golden glory of light, is the lovely transparent marble by Daniel Chester French, eternally bearing witness to the meaning of her influence with her girls. In the tower at Chicago the chimes "make music, joyfully to recall," her labors there. But more lasting than marble or bronze is the living memorial in the hearts and minds "made better by her presence." For it is, indeed, people that count, and in the richer lives of many the enkindling spirit of Alice Freeman Palmer still lives.

[OUR LADY OF THE RED CROSS:
CLARA BARTON]

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,—

Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me.

"The Vision of Sir Launfal."—Lowell.

OUR LADY OF THE RED CROSS

ACHRISTMAS baby! Now isn't that the best kind of a Christmas gift for us all?" cried Captain Stephen Barton, who took the interesting flannel bundle from the nurse's arms and held it out proudly to the assembled family.

No longed-for heir to a waiting kingdom could have received a more royal welcome than did that little girl who appeared at the Barton home in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Christmas Day, 1821. Ten years had passed since a child had come to the comfortable farm-house, and the four big brothers and sisters were very sure that they could not have had a more precious gift than this Christmas baby. No one doubted that she deserved a distinguished name, but it was due to Sister Dorothy, who was a young lady of romantic seventeen and something of a reader, that she was called Clarissa Harlowe, after a well-known heroine of fiction. The name which this heroine of real life actually bore and made famous, however, was Clara Barton; for the Christmas baby proved to be a gift not only to a little group of loving friends, but also to a great nation and to humanity.

The sisters and brothers were teachers rather than playmates for Clara, and her education began so early that she had no recollection of the way they led her toddling steps through the beginnings of book-learning. On her first day at school she announced to the amazed teacher who tried to put a primer into her hands that she could spell the "artichoke words." The teacher had other surprises besides the discovery that this mite of three was acquainted with three-syllabled lore.

Brother Stephen, who was a wizard with figures, had made the sums with which he covered her slate seem a fascinating sort of play at a period when most infants are content with counting the fingers of one hand. All other interests, however, paled before the stories that her father told her of great men and their splendid deeds.

Captain Barton was amused one day at the discovery that his precocious daughter, who always eagerly encored his tales of conquerors and leaders, thought of their greatness in images of quite literal and realistic bigness. A president must, for instance, be as large as a house, and a vice-president as spacious as a barn door at the very least. But these somewhat crude conceptions did not put a check on the epic recitals of the retired officer, who, in the intervals of active service in plowed fields or in pastures where his thoroughbreds grazed with their mettlesome colts, liked to live over the days when he served under "Mad Anthony" Wayne in the Revolutionary War, and had a share in the thrilling adventures of the Western frontier.

Clara was only five years old when Brother David taught her to ride. "Learning to ride is just learning a horse," said this daring youth, who was the "Buffalo Bill" of the surrounding country.

"How can I learn a horse, David?" quavered the child, as the high-spirited animals came whinnying to the pasture bars at her brother's call.

"Catch hold of his mane, Clara, and just feel the horse a part of yourself—the big half for the time being," said David, as he put her on the back of a colt that was broken only to bit and halter, and, easily springing on his favorite, held the reins of both in one hand, while he steadied the small sister with the other by seizing hold of one excited foot.

They went over the fields at a gallop that first day, and soon little Clara and her mount understood each other so well that her riding feats became almost as far-famed as those of her brother. The time came when her skill and confidence on horseback—her power to feel the animal she rode a part of herself and keep her place in any sort of saddle through night-long gallops—meant the saving of many lives.

David taught her many other practical things that helped to make her steady and self-reliant in the face of emergencies. She learned, for instance, to drive a nail straight, and to tie a knot that would hold. Eye and hand were trained to work together with quick decision that made for readiness and efficiency in dealing with a situation, whether it meant the packing of a box, or first-aid measures after an accident on the skating-pond.

She was always an outdoor child, with dogs, horses, and ducks for playfellows. The fuzzy ducklings were the best sort of dolls. Sometimes when wild ducks visited the pond and all her waddling favorites began to flap their wings excitedly, it seemed that her young heart felt, too, the call of large, free spaces.

"The only real fun is to do things," she used to say.

She rode after the cows, helped in the milking and churning, and followed her father about, dropping potatoes in their holes or helping weed the garden. Once, when the house was being painted, she begged to be allowed to assist in the work, even learning to grind the pigments and mix the colors. The family was at first amused and then amazed at the persistency of her application as day after day she donned her apron and fell to work.

They were not less astonished when she wanted to learn the work of the weavers in her brothers' satinet mills. At first, her mother refused this extraordinary request; but Stephen, who understood the intensity of her craving to do things, took her part; and at the end of her first week at the flying shuttle Clara had the satisfaction of finding that her cloth was passed as first-quality goods. Her career as a weaver was of short duration, however, owing to a fire which destroyed the mills.

The young girl was as enthusiastic in play as at work. Whether it was a canter over the fields on Billy while her dog, Button, dashed along at her side, his curly white tail bobbing ecstatically, or a coast down the rolling hills in winter, she entered into the sport of the moment with her whole heart.

When there was no outlet for her superabundant energy, she was genuinely unhappy. Then it was that a self-consciousness and morbid sensitiveness became so evident that it was a source of real concern to her friends.

"People say that I must have been born brave," said Clara Barton. "Why, I seem to remember nothing but terrors in my early days. I was a shrinking little bundle of fears—fears of thunder, fears of strange faces, fears of my strange self." It was only when thought and feeling were merged in the zest of some interesting activity that she lost her painful shyness and found herself.

When she was eleven years old she had her first experience as a nurse. A fall which gave David a serious blow on the head, together with the bungling ministrations of doctors, who, when in doubt, had recourse only to the heroic treatment of bleeding and leeches, brought the vigorous young brother to a protracted invalidism. For two years Clara was his constant and devoted attendant. She schooled herself to remain calm, cheerful, and resourceful in the presence of suffering and exacting demands. When others gave way to fatigue or "nerves," her wonderful instinct for action kept her, child though she was, at her post. Her sympathy expressed itself in untiring service.

In the years that followed her brother's recovery Clara became a real problem to herself and her friends. The old blighting sensitiveness made her school-days restless and unhappy in spite of her alert mind and many interests.

At length her mother, at her wit's end because of this baffling, morbid strain in her remarkable daughter, was advised by a man of sane judgment and considerable understanding of child nature, to throw responsibility upon her and give her a school to teach.

It happened, therefore, that when Clara Barton was fifteen she "put down her skirts, put up her hair," and entered upon her successful career as a teacher. She liked the children and believed in them, entering enthusiastically into their concerns, and opening the way to new interests. When asked how she managed the discipline of the troublesome ones, she said, "The children give no trouble; I never have to discipline at all," quite unconscious of the fact that her vital influence gave her a control that made assertion of authority unnecessary.

"When the boys found that I was as strong as they were and could teach them something on the playground, they thought that perhaps we might discover together a few other worth-while things in school hours," she said.

For eighteen years Clara Barton was a teacher. Always learning herself while teaching others, she decided in 1852 to enter Clinton Liberal Institute in New York as a pupil for graduation, for there was then no college whose doors were open to women. When she had all that the Institute could give her, she looked about for new fields for effort.

In Bordentown, New Jersey, she found there was a peculiar need for some one who would bring to her task pioneer zeal as well as the passion for teaching. At that time there were no public schools in the town or, indeed, in the State.

"The people who pose as respectable are too proud and too prejudiced to send their boys and girls to a free pauper school, and in the meantime all the children run wild," Miss Barton was told.

"We have tried again and again," said a discouraged young pedagogue. "It is impossible to do anything in this place."

"Give me three months, and I will teach free," said Clara Barton.

This was just the sort of challenge she loved. There was something to be done. She began with six unpromising gamins in a dilapidated, empty building. In a month her quarters proved too narrow. Each youngster became an enthusiastic and effectual advertisement. As always, her success lay in an understanding of her pupils as individuals, and a quickening interest that brought out the latent possibilities of each. The school of six grew in a year to one of six hundred, and the thoroughly converted citizens built an eight-room school-house where Miss Barton remained as principal and teacher until a breakdown of her voice made a complete rest necessary.

The weak throat soon made it evident that her teaching days were over; but she found at the same time in Washington, where she had gone for recuperation, a new work.

"Living is doing," she said. "Even while we say there is nothing we can do, we stumble over the opportunities for service that we are passing by in our tear-blinded self-pity."

The over-sensitive girl had learned her lesson well. Life offered moment by moment too many chances for action for a single worker to turn aside to bemoan his own particular condition.

The retired teacher became a confidential secretary in the office of the Commissioner of Patents. Great confusion existed in the Patent Office at that time because some clerks had betrayed the secrets of certain inventions. Miss Barton was the first woman to be employed in a Government department; and while ably handling the critical situation that called for all her energy and resourcefulness, she had to cope not only with the scarcely veiled enmity of those fellow-workers who were guilty or jealous, but also with the open antagonism of the rank and file of the clerks, who were indignant because a woman had been placed in a position of responsibility and influence. She endured covert slander and deliberate disrespect, letting her character and the quality of her work speak for themselves. They spoke so eloquently that when a change in political control caused her removal, she was before long recalled to straighten out the tangle that had ensued.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Miss Barton was, therefore, at the very storm-center.

The early days of the conflict found her binding up the wounds of the Massachusetts boys who had been attacked by a mob while passing through Baltimore, and who for a time were quartered in the Capitol. Some of these recruits were boys from Miss Barton's own town who had been her pupils, and all were dear to her because they were offering their lives for the Union. We find her with other volunteer nurses caring for the injured, feeding groups who gathered about her in the Senate Chamber, and, from the desk of the President of the Senate, reading them the home news from the Worcester papers.

Meeting the needs as they presented themselves in that time of general panic and distress, she sent to the Worcester "Spy" appeals for money and supplies. Other papers took up the work, and soon Miss Barton had to secure space in a large warehouse to hold the provisions that poured in.

Not for many days, however, did she remain a steward of supplies. When she met the transports which brought the wounded into the city, her whole nature revolted at the sight of the untold suffering and countless deaths which were resulting from delay in caring for the injured. Her flaming ardor, her rare executive ability, and her tireless persistency won for her the confidence of those in command, and, though it was against all traditions, to say nothing of iron-clad army regulations, she obtained permission to go with her stores of food, bandages, and medicines to the firing-line, where relief might be given on the battle-field at the time of direst need. The girl who had been a "bundle of fears" had grown into the woman who braved every danger and any suffering to carry help to her fellow-countrymen.

People who spoke of her rare initiative and practical judgment had little comprehension of the absolute simplicity and directness of her methods. She managed the sulky, rebellious drivers of her army-wagons, who had little respect for orders that placed a woman in control, in the same way that she had managed children in school. Without relaxing her firmness, she spoke to them courteously, and called them to share the warm dinner she had prepared and spread out in appetizing fashion. When, after clearing away the dishes, she was sitting alone by the fire, the men returned in an awkward, self-conscious group.

"We didn't come to get warm," said their spokesman, as she kindly moved to make room for them at the flames, "we come to tell you we are ashamed. The truth is we didn't want to come. We know there is fighting ahead, and we've seen enough of that for men who don't carry muskets, only whips; and then we've never seen a train under charge of a woman before, and we couldn't understand it. We've been mean and contrary all day, and you've treated us as if we'd been the general and his staff, and given us the best meal we've had in two years. We want to ask your forgiveness, and we sha'n't trouble you again."

She found that a comfortable bed had been arranged for her in her ambulance, a lantern was hanging from the roof, and when next morning she emerged from her shelter, a steaming breakfast awaited her and a devoted corps of assistants stood ready for orders.

"I had cooked my last meal for my drivers," said Clara Barton. "These men remained with me six months through frost and snow and march and camp and battle; they nursed the sick, dressed the wounded, soothed the dying, and buried the dead; and, if possible, they grew kinder and gentler every day."

An incident that occurred at Antietam is typical of her quiet efficiency. According to her directions, the wounded were being fed with bread and crackers moistened in wine, when one of her assistants came to report that the entire supply was exhausted, while many helpless ones lay on the field unfed. Miss Barton's quick eye had noted that the boxes from which the wine was taken had fine Indian meal as packing. Six large kettles were at once unearthed from the farm-house in which they had taken quarters, and soon her men were carrying buckets of hot gruel for miles over the fields where lay hundreds of wounded and dying. Suddenly, in the midst of her labors, Miss Barton came upon the surgeon in charge sitting alone, gazing at a small piece of tallow candle which flickered uncertainly in the middle of the table.

"Tired, Doctor?" she asked sympathetically.

"Tired indeed!" he replied bitterly; "tired of such heartless neglect and carelessness. What am I to do for my thousand wounded men with night here and that inch of candle all the light I have or can get?"

Miss Barton took him by the arm and led him to the door, where he could see near the barn scores of lanterns gleaming like stars.

"What is that!" he asked amazedly.

"The barn is lighted," she replied, "and the house will be directly."

"Where did you get them!" he gasped.

"Brought them with me."

"How many have you?"

"All you want—four boxes."

The surgeon looked at her for a moment as if he were waking from a dream; and then, as if it were the only answer he could make, fell to work. And so it was invariably that she won her complete command of people as she did of situations, by always proving herself equal to the emergency of the moment.

Though, as she said in explaining the tardiness of a letter, "my hands complain a little of unaccustomed hardships," she never complained of any ill, nor allowed any danger or difficulty to interrupt her work.

"What are my puny ailments beside the agony of our poor shattered boys lying helpless on the field?" she said. And so, while doctors and officers wondered at her unlimited capacity for prompt and effective action, the men who had felt her sympathetic touch and effectual aid loved and revered her as "The Angel of the Battlefield."

One incident well illustrates the characteristic confidence with which she moved about amid scenes of terror and panic. At Fredericksburg, when "every street was a firing-line and every house a hospital," she was passing along when she had to step aside to allow a regiment of infantry to sweep by. At that moment General Patrick caught sight of her, and, thinking she was a bewildered resident of the city who had been left behind in the general exodus, leaned from his saddle and said reassuringly:

"You are alone and in great danger, madam. Do you want protection?"

Miss Barton thanked him with a smile, and said, looking about at the ranks, "I believe I am the best-protected woman in the United States."

The soldiers near overheard and cried out, "That's so! that's so!" And the cheer that they gave was echoed by line after line until a mighty shout went up as for a victory.

The courtly old general looked about comprehendingly, and, bowing low, said as he galloped away, "I believe you are right, madam."

Clara Barton was present on sixteen battle-fields; she was eight months at the siege of Charleston, and served for a considerable period in the hospitals of Richmond.

Clara Barton

When the war was ended and the survivors of the great armies were marching homeward, her heart was touched by the distress in many homes where sons and fathers and brothers were among those listed as "missing." In all, there were 80,000 men of whom no definite report could be given to their friends. She was assisting President Lincoln in answering the hundreds of heartbroken letters, imploring news, which poured in from all over the land when his tragic death left her alone with the task. Then, as no funds were available to finance a thorough investigation of every sort of record of States, hospitals, prisons, and battle-fields, she maintained out of her own means a bureau to prosecute the search.

Four years were spent in this great labor, during which time Miss Barton made many public addresses, the proceeds of which were devoted to the cause. One evening in the winter of 1868, while in the midst of a lecture, her voice suddenly left her. This was the beginning of a complete nervous collapse. The hardships and prolonged strain had, in spite of her robust constitution and iron will, told at last on the endurance of that loyal worker.

When able to travel, she went to Geneva, Switzerland, in the hope of winning back her health and strength. Soon after her arrival she was visited by the president and members of the "International Committee for the Relief of the Wounded in War," who came to learn why the United States had refused to sign the Treaty of Geneva, providing for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers. Of all the civilized nations, our great republic alone most unaccountably held aloof.

Miss Barton at once set herself to learn all she could about the ideals and methods of the International Red Cross, and during the Franco-Prussian War she had abundant opportunity to see and experience its practical working on the battle-field.

At the outbreak of the war in 1870 she was urged to go as a leader, taking the same part that she had borne in the Civil War.

"I had not strength to trust for that," said Clara Barton, "and declined with thanks, promising to follow in my own time and way; and I did follow within a week. As I journeyed on," she continued, "I saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field accomplishing in four months under their systematic organization what we failed to accomplish in four years without it—no mistakes, no needless suffering, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever that little flag made its way—a whole continent marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross. As I saw all this and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself 'if I live to return to my country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.'"

Months of service in caring for the wounded and the helpless victims of siege and famine were followed by a period of nervous exhaustion from which she but slowly crept back to her former hold on health. At last she was able to return to America to devote herself to bringing her country into line with the Red Cross movement. She found that traditionary prejudice against "entangling alliances with other powers," together with a singular failure to comprehend the vital importance of the matter, militated against the great cause.

"Why should we make provision for the wounded?" it was said. "We shall never have another war; we have learned our lesson."

It came to Miss Barton then that the work of the Red Cross should be extended to disasters, such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and epidemics—"great public calamities which require, like war, prompt and well-organized help."

Years of devoted missionary work with preoccupied officials and a heedless, short-sighted public at length bore fruit. After the Geneva Treaty received the signature of President Arthur on March 1, 1882, it was promptly ratified by the Senate, and the American National Red Cross came into being, with Clara Barton as its first president. Through her influence, too, the International Congress of Berne adopted the "American Amendment," which dealt with the extension of the Red Cross to relief measures in great calamities occurring in times of peace.

The story of her life from this time on is one with the story of the work of the Red Cross during the stress of such disasters as the Mississippi River floods, the Texas famine in 1885, the Charleston earthquake in 1886, the Johnstown flood in 1899, the Russian famine in 1892, and the Spanish-American War. The prompt, efficient methods followed in the relief of the flood sufferers along the Mississippi in 1884 may serve to illustrate the sane, constructive character of her work.

Supply centers were established, and a steamer chartered to ply back and forth carrying help and hope to the distracted human creatures who stood "wringing their hands on a frozen, fireless shore—with every coal-pit filled with water." For three weeks she patrolled the river, distributing food, clothing, and fuel, caring for the sick, and, in order to establish at once normal conditions of life, providing the people with many thousands of dollars' worth of building material, seeds, and farm implements, thus making it possible for them to help themselves and in work find a cure for their benumbing distress.

"Our Lady of the Red Cross" lived past her ninetieth birthday, but her real life is measured by deeds, not days. It was truly a long one, rich in the joy of service. She abundantly proved the truth of the words: "We gain in so far as we give. If we would find our life, we must be willing to lose it."

[A MAIDEN CRUSADER:
FRANCES E. WILLARD]

Instead of peace, I was to participate in war; instead of the sweetness of home, I was to become a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I have felt that a great promotion came to me when I was counted worthy to be a worker in the organized crusade for "God and Home and Native Land."... If I were asked the mission of the ideal woman, I would say it is to make the whole world homelike. The true woman will make every place she enters homelike—and she will enter every place in this wide world.

Frances E. Willard.

A MAIDEN CRUSADER

THERE is no place like a young college town in a young country for untroubled optimism. Hope blossoms there as nowhere else; the ideal ever beckons at the next turn in the road. When Josiah Willard brought his little family to Oberlin, it seemed to them all that a new golden age of opportunity was theirs. Even Frances, who was little more than a baby, drank in the spirit of the place with the air she breathed.

It was not hard to believe in a golden age when one happened to see little Frances, or "Frank," Willard dancing like a sunbeam about the campus. She liked to play about the big buildings, where father went every day with his big books, and watch for him to come out. Sometimes one of the students would stop to speak to her; sometimes a group would gather about while, with fair hair flying and small arms waving, in a voice incredibly clear and bird-like, she "said a piece" that mother had taught her.

"Is that a little professorling?" asked a new-comer one day, attracted by the child's cherub face and darting, fairylike ways.

"Guess again!" returned a dignified senior. "Her father is one of the students. Haven't you noticed that fine-looking Willard? The mother, too, knows how to appreciate a college, I understand—used to be a teacher back in New York where they came from."

"You don't mean to say that this happy little goldfinch is the child of two such solemn owls!" exclaimed the other.

"Nothing of the sort. They are very wide-awake, alive sort of people, I assure you,—the kind who'd make a success of anything. The father wants to be a preacher, they say—wait, there he comes now!"

It was plain to be seen that Mr. Willard was an alert, capable man and a good father. The little girl ran to him with a joyful cry, and a sturdy lad who had been trying to climb a tree bounded forward at the same time.

"I trust that my small fry haven't been making trouble," said the man, giving his free hand to Frances and graciously allowing Oliver to carry two of his armful of books.

"Only making friends," the senior responded genially, "and one can see that they can't very well help that."

The Oberlin years were a happy, friendly time for all the family. While both father and mother were working hard to make the most of their long-delayed opportunity for a liberal education, they delighted above all in the companionship of neighbors with tastes like their own. After five years, however, it became clear that the future was not to be after their planning. Mr. Willard's health failed, and a wise doctor said that he must leave his book-world, and take up a free, active life in the open. So the little family joined the army of westward-moving pioneers.

Can you picture the three prairie-schooners that carried them and all their goods to the new home? The father drove the first, Oliver geehawed proudly from the high perch of the next, and mother sat in the third, with Frances and little sister Mary on a cushioned throne made out of father's topsyturvy desk. For nearly thirty days the little caravan made its way—now through forests, now across great sweeping prairies, now over bumping corduroy roads that crossed stretches of swampy ground. They cooked their bacon and potatoes, gypsy-fashion, on the ground, and slept under the white hoods of their long wagons, when they were not kept awake by the howling of wolves.

When Sunday came, they rested wherever the day found them—sometimes on the rolling prairie, where their only shelter from rain and sun was the homely schooner, but where at night they could look up at the great tent of the starry heavens; sometimes in the cathedral of the forest, where they found Jack-in-the-pulpit preaching to the other wild-flowers and birds and breezes singing an anthem of praise.