XXXVI
Clara Barton—a wonderful majesty in the simplicity of her character. Sacramento (Cal.)Record-Union.
Like the stories from fairy lore are the accounts, modestly written and simply given, of the tremendous, almost super-human, work done by this little woman. Oakland (Cal.)Tribune.
Clara Barton loved everything that lived. Roanoke (Va.)News.
Bugs and other insects, as well as squirrels and other animals, gave her hourly enjoyment. Clara used to say, “these are my friends, they have as good a right to live as I have.”
“Sister Harriette” L. Reed.
“Sister Harriette” L. Reed.
“Sister Harriette” L. Reed.
“Sister Harriette” L. Reed.
Her love for the farmyard and its animals never left her.
Percy H. Epler.
Percy H. Epler.
Percy H. Epler.
Percy H. Epler.
It was her heroic soul and deep woman sympathy that made Clara Barton strong and brave.William E. Barton.
Nothing endures but personal qualities.Walt Whitman.
Sir John Franklin,—who never turned his back upon a danger, yet of that tenderness that he would not brush away a mosquito.
William Matthews.
William Matthews.
William Matthews.
William Matthews.
I too have a kitty and he is pretty much master of the house. He doesn’t speak German, although I have no doubt he understands it.Clara Barton.
A harmless necessary cat.Merchant of Venice.
A cat may look on a king.Haywood’s Proverbs.
In the night all cats are grey.Cervantes.
When the cat’s away the mice will play.Old Proverbs.
As vigilant as a cat to steal cream.Shakespeare.
It has been the providence of nature to give this creature nine lives, instead of one.Pilpay.
Hang sorrow! Care will kill a cat,And therefore let’s be merry.George Wither.
Hang sorrow! Care will kill a cat,And therefore let’s be merry.George Wither.
Hang sorrow! Care will kill a cat,And therefore let’s be merry.George Wither.
Hang sorrow! Care will kill a cat,
And therefore let’s be merry.George Wither.
Confound the cats! All cats—alway—Cats of all colors, black, white, gray;By night a nuisance and by day—Confound the cats!Dobbin.
Confound the cats! All cats—alway—Cats of all colors, black, white, gray;By night a nuisance and by day—Confound the cats!Dobbin.
Confound the cats! All cats—alway—Cats of all colors, black, white, gray;By night a nuisance and by day—Confound the cats!Dobbin.
Confound the cats! All cats—alway—
Cats of all colors, black, white, gray;
By night a nuisance and by day—
Confound the cats!Dobbin.
Even poverty has its compensation.Clara Barton.
There is neither teacher nor preacher like necessity.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
No work can retain its vitality without constant action.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Though to bed at daylight, or at best midnight, Clara Barton never slept late in the morning.J. B. Hubbell.
Let us each make haste to do the work set before us, in the Providence of God, unostentatiously, thoroughly and well.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.Proverbs.
In October, 1911 (at the age of 90), while she was propped up in bed and seriously ill, I asked “why, Miss Barton, you haven’t a gray hair in your head, have you?” Quick was the response, “I don’t know, I haven’t had time to look.”The Author.
Oftener than I could wish my heart sinks heavily, oppressed with fear that I am falling short of the fulfillment of life’s duties.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Clara Barton.
Domestic Happiness, thou only blissOf Providence that hast survived the Fall.CowperTask.
Domestic Happiness, thou only blissOf Providence that hast survived the Fall.CowperTask.
Domestic Happiness, thou only blissOf Providence that hast survived the Fall.CowperTask.
Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss
Of Providence that hast survived the Fall.CowperTask.
SIMPLICITY OF CHILDHOOD—PET WASPS PET CATS—LOVED LIFE-DOMESTIC
The simplicity of childhood continued with Clara Barton through to her latest years. Because requested by children in letters to do so, at eighty-six years she commenced to write “The Story of My Childhood.” She did not reach second childhood; she was in her first childhood at ninety. On a certain occasion, having declined to address an audience, she reconsidered and said: “Oh, yes, I will talk to the children.”
Pets, as in childhood, continued; she had them wherever she happened to be,—pets of the chickens, pets of the birds, pets of the squirrels, pets of the domestic animals. She saw Divinity in nature; loved as does the believer in pantheism, as does the believer in the “transmigration of souls.” To the science of entomology she was not a stranger. Among her swarms of bees she continued the student of those who work for man and do not “bruise their Master’s flower;” loved even that household “pest,” the wasp.
A wasp met a bee that was just buzzing byAnd she said, “Little Cousin, Can you tell me whyYou are loved so much better by people than I?”
A wasp met a bee that was just buzzing byAnd she said, “Little Cousin, Can you tell me whyYou are loved so much better by people than I?”
A wasp met a bee that was just buzzing byAnd she said, “Little Cousin, Can you tell me whyYou are loved so much better by people than I?”
A wasp met a bee that was just buzzing by
And she said, “Little Cousin, Can you tell me why
You are loved so much better by people than I?”
But in the existence of a wasp Miss Barton did not think there was wholly of “mischief to do.” Genius philosophizes. To serve its uses, the wasp is perfect in its organs, and in its symmetry. The male wasp does not sting at all; and, while the “female of the species is deadlier than the male,” the female does not sting except in defence, in obeying the first law of nature,—the law which is the saving principle in the universe.
The wasp renders service, service to the fruit-grower by destroying the caterpillar, especially of the green fly and black fly, and of other harmful insects. The wasp is not too aristocratic to act as scavenger, stripping the bones of small dead animals of skin and flesh—for its grubs—thus precluding carrion from becoming offensive and, through pollution of the atmosphere, unhealthful. The social wasp is strategic, is accredited with amazing cleverness, with courage never-failing, with intelligence higher than instinct,—having a system of living that should shame its human enemy. He who, in his ignorance, comes to the wasp to scoff goes away to admire. If only the wasp would toil for man, appeasing man’s appetite for sweets, that winged “pest” would belovedas is the honey bee.
At the Glen Echo Red Cross house, on the window-ledges, in the slats for window-catches, where the walls and ceilings join, in every nook and corner, the welcomed wasps had their little mud cells. While at the dining table, or at her writing desk, Miss Barton would cut an apple and sometimes around it would gather a swarm of these “pests.” Of the wasps, that nobody likes, she was wont to say “these are my little friends; they keep me company;”—as they hovered over and around her she seemed to get inspiration from them in her literary work.
In her early years Clara Barton’s special pets were the dog and the horse; in later years, the cat. She accredited her black and white cat at Dansville with human personality. Her Maltese cat at Glen Echo she accredited withreasoningpowers, with alogicalmind. Of Maltese Tommie she tells this story. Tommie saw another cat in the mirror. He stared at it; moved hishead in rapid succession to one side of the mirror, then to the other side. The other cat did likewise. He dashed like mad to the back of the mirror, but found no cat. Returning to the front of the mirror, he put his left paw on the glass; the right paw of the other cat responded. He put his right paw on the glass; the left paw of the other cat met his. He again put his left paw on the glass, this time being close to the edge of the mirror and, continuing to hold it there he reached around to the back of the mirror with his right paw to grab the insolent intruder. Not seeing the other cat, as he quickly glanced around the edge of the mirror, and not having found it with his right paw, “he wiser grew” and walked away philosophizing;—in this vain world—
Things are not what they seem—but then,A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.
Things are not what they seem—but then,A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.
Things are not what they seem—but then,A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.
Things are not what they seem—but then,
A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.
The picture of Maltese Tommie, painted by Antoinette Margot, is still one of the historic art-treasures on the walls of the Clara Barton Glen Echo home.
Those who think of Clara Barton only as the “war woman” within the battle smoke, or on the rostrum addressing literary audiences, or on state occasions as the cynosure of all eyes, or as the guest of honor among the crowned heads of Europe—as masculine and not feminine—have not seen the daily life-picture of Clara Barton. Clara Barton was most womanly when most childlike, queenliest when lowliest and, like the Roman Matron, most aristocratic when most domestic.
As Divinity lives in all life, as God the first garden made and work was the best religion Clara Barton had,her applied religion was in the yard as she cared for the domestic animals; in the garden as she cared for the shrubs, the flowers, the vegetables, her special pride being in raising fine strawberries. Frequently was Miss Barton called from the yard or garden, to meet guests in her “House of Rough Hemlock Boards,”—there where was welcome ever royal and farewell went out loyal; there where—
Honest offered courtesyWhich oft is sooner found in lowly shedsWith smoky rafters than in tapestry hallsAnd courts of princes, where it first was namedAnd yet is most pretended.
Honest offered courtesyWhich oft is sooner found in lowly shedsWith smoky rafters than in tapestry hallsAnd courts of princes, where it first was namedAnd yet is most pretended.
Honest offered courtesyWhich oft is sooner found in lowly shedsWith smoky rafters than in tapestry hallsAnd courts of princes, where it first was namedAnd yet is most pretended.
Honest offered courtesy
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoky rafters than in tapestry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was named
And yet is most pretended.