XII

Clara Barton’s simple life was long, and so full of stirring incidents that all the books will not record the whole of it.

Worcester (Mass.)Telegram.

Be not like dumb-driven cattle.

Longfellow—The Psalm of Life.

The Ox has therefore stretched his yoke in vain.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And the plain ox,That harmless, honest guileless animal,In what has he offended? he whose toil,Patient and ever ready, clothes the landWith all the pomp of harvest.Thompson—The Seasons.

And the plain ox,

That harmless, honest guileless animal,

In what has he offended? he whose toil,

Patient and ever ready, clothes the land

With all the pomp of harvest.

Thompson—The Seasons.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.Much Ado About Nothing.

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

Brillat Savarin.

The sign of true, not casual, progress, ... is the progress of vegetarianism ... more and more people have given up animal food.Tolstoi.

I had not then learned the mystery of nerves.Clara Barton.

Among the Puritans the horse was a luxury; the beast of burden was the ox. In the first half of the nineteenth century the ox made possible in Massachusetts even the existence of man. In the snows ofwinter, at seed time and at harvest, the toiling ox was loyal—faithful to the best interests of the family. The ox himself was unsuspecting, and untutored in the art of deceiving others. He couldn’t think his kindly attentive Master, Man, unappreciative, disloyal—wholly obsessed with greed. He didn’t know that money was above life,—he hadn’t read war-history. He didn’t know that through the love of money, by man, come life’s woes. The ox knew only thathewas the friend to man; and he thought man must behisfriend. Poor credulous ox! And yet in the child the friendship of the ox is not misplaced. Innocent child! to man and beast Heaven’s best gift, a loyal friend.

Captain Stephen Barton kept a dairy. When a small girl Clara used to drive the cows and oxen to, and from, the pasture. Clara also assisted morning and evening in milking the cows. One evening she observed three men, one holding in his hand an axe, driving a big, red, fat ox into the barn. She saw the man with the axe strike the ox in the head, then saw the ox drop to the floor. At the same moment she fell unconscious to the ground. She was carried to the house, placed on a bed, and a camphor bottle freely used. When she regained consciousness, in reply as to why she fell, she said: “Someone struck me.” “Oh, no, no one struck you,” they said. “Then what makes my head sore,” she asked. At that time her desire for meat left her; and in later years she used to say, “all through life to the present, I have eaten meat only when I must for the sake of appearances. The bountiful ground always yields enough for all of my needs and wants.”

ANNIE WITTENMEYERClara Barton is second to none of womankind.—Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, First President W. C. T. U.

JOHN B. GOUGHClara Barton’s lecture—I never heard anything more thrilling in my life.—John B. Gough, America’s Greatest Temperance Lecturer.

REPRESENTATIVE TEMPERANCE ADVOCATES

MARY STEWART POWERSClara Barton was prominent among women as an advocate of the cause of temperance. Through her leadership in practical humanitarianism she endeared herself to the whole world. Her good name will live forever.—Mrs. Mary Stewart Powers, Public Lecturer and State Superintendent of Scientific Temperance of Ohio.

FRANCES WILLARDPresident W. C. T. U.In the name of your God and my God, ask your people and my people not to be discouraged in the good work (Red Cross) they have undertaken.—Clara Barton.From Armenia, in 1896, to Miss Willard.See page347.

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