who taught Clara how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. She made
such good figures and so often had the examples right that she enjoyed
her little slate next best to riding horseback with her brother David.
David did not care much for study, but did like farm work and horses. He
taught Clara to ride, and the two used to gallop across the country at a
mad pace. She felt as safe on the back of a horse as in a rocking-chair.
She did not look much larger than a doll when the neighbors first
noticed her dashing by on the back of a colt which wore neither saddle
nor bridle, clinging to the animal's mane, keeping close to David's
horse, and laughing with joy. Sometimes Button, the white dog, tore
along after them, trying his best to keep up with them. Button belonged
to Clara. He had taken care of her when she was a baby, and very gravely
picked her up each time she fell in the days when she was learning to
walk.
Stephen and David went to a school that was several miles away. They
wanted to take Clara with them. It was one of the old-fashioned,
ungraded schools, and the pupils were all ages. The snowdrifts were
high, and Stephen carried Clara on his shoulder. Clara sat very quiet
with her slate until the primer class was called. Then she stepped
before the teacher with the other little ones. The serious man pointed
to the letters of different words for each child, then he asked them to
spell short words like dog and cat. When Clara was asked to do the same,
she smiled at the teacher and said: "But I do not spell _there_!"
"Where do you spell?" he inquired.
"I spell in _artichoke_," she answered, looking very dignified.
"In that case," he laughed, "I think you belong with the scholars who
spell in three and four syllables." So after that, she spelled in the
class of her big brothers.
When Clara was twelve, she was very shy of strangers, and her parents
thought it might help her to get over it if she went away from home to
school in New York. She was a bright pupil and decided she would like to
be a teacher like her two sisters.
Clara made an excellent teacher, but was not very well and went to
Washington, D.C., to work. While there, the Civil War broke out, and
she offered her services as a nurse. Nobody doubted she would be good at
nursing, for when she was only ten years old, she took all the care of
her dear brother David, who was sick for nearly two years. She really
knew just exactly what sick people needed.
Clara worked in hospitals, camps, and battlefields all the time the four
years' war lasted. Sometimes she had to jump on to a horse whose rider
had been shot and dash away for bandages or a surgeon, and she was glad
enough that David had taught her to be such a fine horsewoman.
Clara helped every sick and wounded man she came across, and some people
thought she should only help the northerners. But she did not mind what
anybody said or thought. She made all the soldiers as comfortable as she
could. And she was delighted when, four years later, while she was in
beautiful Switzerland for a rest, she heard of the Red Cross Society.
This society helped every wounded person, no matter what color he was,
no matter what cause or country he fought for.
Clara Barton worked with this Swiss society all through the war between
France and Prussia. The foreigners called her the Angel.
When Clara Barton came back to America, she tried a long time to have a
branch of the Swiss society started in this country, but it was eight
years before the Red Cross Society was actually formed in America. Then,
because there was often sickness and suffering from fires and floods, as
well as from wars, Miss Barton persuaded Congress to say that the
society might help wherever there had been any great disaster.
Miss Barton's name is known in Europe as well as in America. She did Red
Cross work until she was eighty years old. Almost every country on the
globe gave her a present or medal. When we think what a heroine Clara
Barton proved herself, it would seem as if the little girl born on the
sunny December morning was a Christmas present to the whole world.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The more you find out about Abraham Lincoln, the more you will love him.
Abraham was born in Kentucky and lived in that State with his parents
and his one sister until he was eight years old.
The Lincolns were very, very poor. They lived in a small log cabin on
the banks of a winding creek. They need not have been quite so poor, but
the truth of the matter is that Mr. Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father,
was _lazy_. To be sure he fastened a few logs together for shelter, cut
a little wood, and dug up some ground for a garden. But after the corn
and potatoes were planted, they never received any care, and there is no
doubt the family would have gone hungry many a day if Abraham had not
hurried home with fish which he caught in a near-by stream, or if Mrs.
Lincoln had not taken her rifle into the woods and shot a deer or a
bear. The meat from these would last for weeks, and the skins of animals
Mrs. Lincoln always saved to make into clothes for the children.
Thomas Lincoln could not read or spell, and as near as I can find out,
was not a bit ashamed of it, either. But his wife, Nancy Hanks Lincoln,
was a fair scholar and taught Abraham and his sister, Sarah, to read and
spell.
There was no floor to the Lincoln's log cabin and no furnishings but a
few three-legged stools and a bed made of wooden slats fastened together
with pegs. Abraham and Sarah slept on piles of leaves or brush.
Slates and pencils were scarce, and Abraham used to lie before the fire
when he was seven or eight years old, with a flat slab of wood and a
stick which he burned at one end till it was charred; then he formed
letters with it on the wood. In that way he taught himself to write. His
mother had three books, a Bible, a catechism, and a spelling-book. He
had never had any boy playmate and was greatly excited when an aunt and
uncle of his mother's, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow, with a nephew, named Dennis
Hanks, arrived at the creek and lived in a half-faced camp near by.
Dennis and Abraham became fast friends.
A fever swept the country, and Abraham's mother died. Three years later
his father married a new wife. The second Mrs. Lincoln had been married
before and had three children, a boy and two girls. So there were five
children to play together. Mr. Lincoln had built a better cabin, and she
brought such furniture as the Lincoln children had never seen. Their
eyes opened wide at the sight of real chairs and tables. She made
Abraham and Sarah pretty new clothes. They had neat, comfortable beds,
and the two sets of children were very happy. Mrs. Lincoln loved Abraham
and saw that there was the making of a smart man in him. She helped him
study, and when there was school for a short time in a distant log hut,
she sent Abraham every day. When the school ended, there were four years
when there was no school anywhere near their settlement, so she read
with Abraham and kept him at his lessons in reading and arithmetic all
that time.
Hunters and traders rode that way sometimes, and if a traveler had a
book about him, Abraham was sure to get a look at it.
A new settler had a _Life of Washington_. Abraham looked at the book
hungrily for weeks and finally worked up courage to ask the loan of it.
He promised to take good care of it. He was then earning money to give
his parents by chopping down trees in the forests, and he had no time to
read but in the evenings. One night the rain soaked through the cracks
of the cabin, and the precious book that he had promised to take good
care of was stained on every page. What was he to do? He had no money to
pay for the book, but he hurried to the settler's cabin and told him
what had happened. He offered to work in the cornfield for three days to
pay Mr. Crawford for the loss of the book. It was heavy work, but he did
it and, in the end, owned the stained _Life of Washington_, himself.
Abraham had a fine memory. He could repeat almost the whole of a sermon,
a speech, or a story that he had happened to hear. He had a funny way
of telling stories, too, so when the farmers or woodchoppers were taking
their noon rest, they always asked him to amuse them.
When Abraham was sixteen years old, he was six feet tall and so strong
that all the neighbors hired him whenever he was not working for his
father. He joked and laughed at his work, and every one liked him. He
did any kind of work to earn an honest penny. Once he had a fine time
working for a man that ran a ferry-boat, because this man owned a
history of the United States and took a newspaper, and Abraham had more
to read than ever before in his life. But he had to take the time he
should have slept to read, because when the boat wasn't running there
was farm work, housework (for he helped this man's wife, even to tending
the baby), and rail splitting. Then he kept store for a man. It was here
that he won a nickname that he kept all his life--"Honest Abe." A
woman's bill came to two dollars and six cents. Later in the day
Abraham found he had charged her six cents too much. After he closed
the store that night, he walked three miles to pay her back those six
cents. Another time when he weighed tea for a woman, there was a weight
on the scales so that she did not get as much tea as she paid for. That
meant another long tramp. But he was liked for his honesty and good
nature.
When there was trouble with the Indians, Abraham proved that he could
fight and also manage troops, so he was a captain for three months.
Abraham was so well informed that the people sent him to legislature.
They made him postmaster. They hired him to lay out roads and towns. It
became the fashion, if there was need of some honest, skilful work, for
people to say: "Why not get Abraham Lincoln to do it? Then you'll know
it's done right."
He studied law, went to legislature again, and became a circuit judge.
This meant that he had to ride all round the country to attend different
courts. He would start off on horseback to be away three months, with
saddle-bags holding clean linen, an old green umbrella, and a few books
to read as he rode along. When he came to woodchoppers, as he rode
through forests, he liked to dismount, ask for an axe, and chop a log so
quickly that the men would stare.
Abraham Lincoln settled, with his wife and children, in Springfield,
Illinois. He was a lawyer but would not take a case if he thought his
client was guilty. He was still "Honest Abe." He loved children and
usually when he went to his office in the morning, the baby was perched
on his shoulder, while the others held on to his coat tails and followed
behind. All the children in Springfield felt he was their friend. No
wonder, for he was never too busy to help them. One morning as he was
hurrying to his law office, he saw a little girl, very much dressed up,
crying as if her heart would break. Her sobs almost shook her off the
doorstep where she sat. Mr. Lincoln unlatched the gate and went up the
walk, singing out: "Well, well, now what does all this mean?"
"Oh, Mr. Lincoln, I was going to Chicago to visit my aunt. I have my
ticket in my purse and," here the sobs came faster than ever, "the
expressman can't get here in time for my trunk."
"How big is your trunk?"
"This size," stretching her hands apart.
"Pooh, I'll carry that trunk to the station for you, myself. Where is
it?"
The little girl pointed to the hall, and in a minute Mr. Lincoln, with
his tall silk hat on his head, his long coat tails flying out behind,
the trunk on his shoulder, was striding to the railroad station, as the
now happy little girl skipped beside him. He was not going to have the
child disappointed.
[Illustration: "How big is your trunk?" _Page 88._]
Mr. Lincoln had a big heart. It never bothered him to stop long enough
to do a kindness. One bitterly cold day he saw an old man chopping wood.
He was feeble and was shaking with the cold. Mr. Lincoln watched him for
a few minutes and then asked him how much he was to be paid for the
whole lot. "One dollar," he answered, "and I need it to buy shoes." "I
should think you did," said the lawyer, noticing that the poor old man's
toes showed through the holes of those he was wearing. Then he gently
took the axe from the man's hands and said: "You go in by the fire and
keep warm, and I'll do the wood." Mr. Lincoln made the chips fly. He
chopped so fast that the passers-by never stopped talking about it.
Abraham Lincoln was known to be honest, unselfish, and clear-headed. He
had grown very wise by much reading and study. Finally the people of the
United States paid him the greatest honor that can come to an American.
They made him President. Yes, this man who had taught himself to write
in the Kentucky log cabin was President of the United States!
As President, Mr. Lincoln lived in style at the White House. But he was
just the same quiet, modest man that he had always been. He was busier,
that was all.
When President Lincoln spoke to the people, or sent letters (messages,
they are called) to Congress, every one said: "What a brain that man
has!" But he used very short, simple words. Once he gave a reason for
this. He said it used to make him angry, when he was a child, to hear
the neighbors talk to his father in a way that he could not understand.
He would lie awake, sometimes, half the night, trying to think what they
meant. When he thought he had at last got the idea, he would put it into
the simplest words he knew, so that any boy would know what was meant.
This got to be a habit, and even in his great talk at Gettysburg the
beautiful words are short and plain.
* * * * *
One day when Lincoln was running the ferry-boat for the man I have
spoken of before, he saw at one of the river landings some negro slaves
getting a terrible beating by their master. He was only a boy, but he
never forgot the sight, and one of the things he brought about when he
became President of the United States was the freedom of the black
people.
There are a great many lives and stories about Lincoln which you will
read and enjoy, and it is certain that the more you know of this great
man, Dear "Honest Abe," the better you will love him.
ROBERT EDWARD LEE
Small Robert Lee, of Virginia, aged five, was playing one day with
another boy of his own age, whose mother was visiting Mrs. Lee. The Lees
had lived for two centuries in the beautiful brick mansion, "Stratford,"
on the Potomac River. While the boys played on the veranda, there was
the sound of busy feet inside the house, and an air of bustle and
hurrying to and fro. Robert knew the cause of this and was feeling very
happy. His father, Colonel Robert E. Lee, was coming home from Mexico,
where he had done brave things in the Mexican War. The story of this had
been in the papers, and though Robert had not seen his father for two
years and sometimes could not remember just how he looked, he knew from
the way people mentioned Colonel Lee's name that he was a man to be
proud of.
When Eliza, Robert's black mammy, called him in to be dressed, there
was trouble. He would not wear what she had ready for him. He was the
Colonel's namesake, and if his father was coming home, nothing was nice
enough but his best frock of blue and white.
Small Robert had his way about the frock. His hair was freshly curled,
and he rushed down to the broad hall, where the family were waiting for
Colonel Lee. The lady visitor had pinned a rose in her hair, and the
other little boy had been dressed in his prettiest clothes. Pretty soon
there were shouts of "Here he comes--here he comes!" and they could see
Colonel Lee, in a handsome uniform, riding his chestnut horse, Grace
Darling.
He sprang from the horse and up the steps, and when he had greeted the
older ones, he sang out: "Where's my little boy--where's Robbie?" He
seized the child nearest him and kissed him half a dozen times.
But it wasn't Robert that he kissed. It was the other boy!
For a minute Robert cried, but his father had plenty of kisses for him
when he found what a mistake he had made, and he whispered something to
Robert that made everything all right. There was a mustang pony on the
way from Mexico for his little son!
This pony was pure white. A faithful Irish servant taught Robert to ride
in a short time, and he was the proudest boy in the world when he rode
out on Santa Anna beside his father on Grace Darling. Robert bragged a
good deal to his playmates about Grace Darling, because she had carried
his father all through the Mexican War and had the scars of seven
bullets on her sides.
Colonel Lee loved animals and taught all his children to be kind to
their pets. When the family lived in Arlington, "Spec," a lively black
and tan terrier, went everywhere with them, even to church. Colonel Lee
thought he made the children restless, so one Sunday, when they started
for church, he shut Spec in a chamber in the second story. Spec looked
out of the window for awhile. It was open, and he soon made up his mind
that he would rather be with his friends. So he jumped to the ground,
ran as fast as he could, and walked into the pew just behind the
family. After that he was allowed to go to church every Sunday.
Colonel Robert E. Lee was a very handsome man. When he and Mrs. Lee were
going out in the evening, the children always begged to sit up and see
them start. They never saw any man or any picture of a man they thought
so beautiful as their own father.
General Lee was not just a good leader of soldiers; he knew how to make
everyone mind, and although he was the best playmate his children had,
he was very firm with them. No slipshod ways were allowed in his house.
No, indeed! If his boys and girls were not tidy about their clothes,
faithful in their lessons, polite, and truthful, they found their father
stern enough.
When their father was so quick at sports and games and could plan such
perfectly splendid holidays, it did seem pretty hard to the Lee children
that he was so often sent away on war duties. But wherever he was, he
found time from his military affairs to write long letters to his
children, and these were so playful and told of so many strange things
that it partly made up for his absence. The neighboring playmates used
to watch for those letters almost as eagerly as the family, and probably
they envied the Lee children sometimes when their father came for a
visit, wearing some new honor or title. For as he was wise and good and
brave, he did not fail to rise higher and higher in rank. His father had
been a general under George Washington and had taught his son that there
is no grander honor for a man than to defend his country. And in order
that Robert should make a fine soldier, he had been trained at West
Point. When he had proved how keen and skilful he was, Abraham Lincoln,
then president of the United States, asked Robert E. Lee, who had become
a general, to take command of all the armies of the Union.
But general Lee was much troubled in his mind. Just then there was
danger of the northern and southern States fighting against each other.
If the people of the different States should really grow so angry that
they came to blows, Lee felt he must stand by Virginia, because that
was his father's State. Indeed, the Lees had lived there since 1642, and
Robert Lee loved every inch of its soil. He felt sad enough when he
found there must be fighting, but he could not accept Lincoln's offer,
so he gave up his high place in the United States Army and took the post
of Major-general among the Virginian soldiers.
Then the Lee family had to do without their father and chum for four
long years. They had grown up by this time, and all their childhood pets
were dead. Grace Darling's place was taken by Traveller, an iron-gray
horse with black points. He was so large and strong it did not seem
possible to tire him out. He carried General Lee all through the Civil
War. He often went cold and hungry, but he loved his master and would
come when he heard the general's whistle or call, no matter how far away
he might be. The soldiers loved Lee, too, and they obeyed his slightest
wish.
The Civil War was long and cruel, as all war is, and at the end Lee had
to yield because his men were starving. But he is counted as one of the
greatest generals known in history, and his fame will never die.
The little Robert E. Lee, who rode the mustang pony, is now a
gray-haired man. He has written the life of his father and has told how
General Lee became a college president after the War. The students loved
their president as well as the soldiers loved their general, and they
always felt proud of him as he went galloping past them on dear old
Traveller after the duties were over for the day. Good old Traveller
deserved a medal, if ever a horse did, for sharing the dangers of her
gallant master, General Robert E. Lee.
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
Have you ever happened to see a book that cost a thousand dollars?
A man who loved birds and knew a great deal about them drew pictures of
all the kinds to be found in our country, calling these drawings, when
they were colored and bound together _The Birds of North America_. It
took four volumes to hold all these pictures, and each one of these
books costs a thousand dollars. There were only seventy-five or eighty
of these sets of bird books made, but you can see them in the Boston
Public Library, the Lenox and Astor libraries in New York city, and at
several colleges and private homes. Each one of these books is more than
three feet long and a little over two feet wide, and is so heavy that it
takes two strong men to lift it on to a rack when some one wants to look
at the pictures. If you should look through all four books, you would
see more than a thousand kinds of birds, all drawn as big as life, and
each one colored like the bird itself.
You may be sure it took the maker of these books many, many years to
travel all over the United States to find such a number of birds. The
man's name was John James Audubon. He slept in woods, waded through
marshes and swamps, tramped hundreds of miles, and suffered many
hardships before he could learn the colors and habits of so many birds.
He always said his love for birds began when his pet parrot was killed.
It happened this way.
One morning when John James was about four years old and his nurse was
giving him his breakfast, the little parrot Mignonne, who said a lot of
words as plainly as a child, asked for some bread and milk. A tame
monkey who was in the room happened to be angry and sulking over
something. He sprang at Mignonne, who screamed for help. Little John
James shouted too, and begged his nurse to save the bird, but before any
one could stop the ugly monkey's blows, the parrot was dead.
The monkey was always kept chained after that, and John James buried his
parrot in the garden and trimmed the grave with shrubs and flowering
plants. But he missed his pet and so roamed through the woods adjoining
his father's estate, watching the birds that flew through them. By and
by he did not care for anything so much as trying to make pictures of
these birds, listening to their songs, finding what kind of nests they
built, and at what time of year they flew north or south.
John James lived in Nantes, France, when he was a small boy, although he
was born in Louisiana. His father was a wealthy French gentleman, an
officer in the French navy, and was much in America, so that John James
was first in France and then in America until he was about twenty-five,
at which time he settled in his native country for good. Few men have
loved these United States better than he.
John James did not care much for school. Figures tired his head. He
loved music, drawing, and dancing. His father was away from home most of
the time, and his pretty, young stepmother let the boy do quite as he
pleased. She loved him dearly, and as he liked to roam through the
country with boys of his age, she would pack luncheon baskets day after
day for him, and when he came back at dusk, with the same baskets filled
with birds' eggs, strange flowers, and all sorts of curiosities, she
would sit down beside him and look them over, as interested as could be.