THE DAYS OF HER YOUTH
So large a part of the schooling of Clara Barton was passed under the
instruction of her own sisters and her brother Stephen that she ceased
to feel in school the diffidence which elsewhere characterized her, and
which she never fully overcame. Not all of her education, however, was
accomplished in the schoolroom. While her mother refrained from giving
to her actual instruction as she received from her father and brothers
and sisters, her knowledge of domestic arts was not wholly neglected.
When the family removed to the new home, her two brothers remained upon
the more distant farm, and the older sisters kept house for them. Into
the new home came the widow of her father’s nephew, Jeremiah Larned,
with her four children, whose ages varied from six to thirteen years.
She now had playmates in her own household, with frequent visits to the
old home where her two brothers and two sisters, none of them married,
kept house together. Although her mother still had older kitchen
help, she taught Clara some of the mysteries of cooking. Her mother
complained somewhat that she never really had a fair chance at Clara’s
instruction as a housekeeper, but Clara believed that no instruction
of her youth was more lasting or valuable than that which enabled her,
on the battle-field or elsewhere, to make a pie, “crinkly around the
edges, with marks of finger-prints,” to remind a soldier of home.
Two notable interruptions of her schooling occurred. The first was
caused by an alarming illness when she was five years of age. Dysentery
and convulsions came very near to robbing Captain and Mrs. Barton of
their baby. Of this almost mortal illness, she preserved only one
memory, that of the first meal which she ate when her convalescence
set in. She was propped up in a huge cradle that had been constructed
for an adult invalid, with a little low table at the side. The meal
consisted of a piece of brown bread crust about two inches square,
a tiny glass of homemade blackberry cordial, and a wee bit of her
mother’s well-cured cheese. She dropped asleep from exhaustion as she
finished this first meal, and the memory of it made her mouth water as
long as she lived.
The other interruption occurred when she was eleven. Her brother
David, who was a dare-devil rider and fearless climber, ascended to
the ridge-pole on the occasion of a barn-raising. A board broke under
his feet, and he fell to the ground. He fell upon solid timbers and
sustained a serious injury, especially by a blow on the head. For two
years he was an invalid. For a time he hung between life and death, and
then was “a sleepless, nervous, cold dyspeptic, and a mere wreck of his
former self.” After two years of suffering, he completely recovered
under a new system of steam baths; but those two years did not find
Clara in the schoolroom. She nursed her brother with such assiduity as
almost permanently to injure her own health. In his nervous condition
he clung to her, and she acquired something of that skill in the care
of the sick which remained with her through life.
Clara Barton was growing normally in her twelfth year when she became
her brother’s nurse. Not until that long vigil was completed was it
discovered that she had ceased to grow. Her height in her shoes, with
moderately high heels, was five feet and three inches, and was never
increased. In later life people who met her gave widely divergent
reports of her stature. She was described as “of medium height,” and
now and then she was declared to be tall. She had a remarkable way of
appearing taller than she was. As a matter of fact in her later years,
her height shrank a little, and she measured in her stocking-feet
exactly sixty inches.
Clara was an ambitious child. Her two brothers owned a cloth-mill where
they wove satinet. She was ambitious to learn the art of weaving. Her
mother at first objected, but her brother Stephen pleaded for her,
and she was permitted to enter the mill. She was not tall enough to
tend the loom, so a raised platform was arranged for her between a
pair of looms and she learned to manage the shuttle. To her great
disappointment, the mill burned down when she had been at work only
two weeks; but this brief vocational experience served as a basis of a
pretty piece of fiction at which she always smiled, but which annoyed
her somewhat--that she had entered a factory and earned money to pay
off a mortgage on her father’s farm. The length of her service in the
mill would not have paid a very large mortgage, but fortunately there
was no mortgage to pay off. Her father was a prosperous man for his
time, and the family was well to do, possessing not only broad acres,
but adding to the family income by manufacture and trade. They were
among the most enterprising, prosperous, and respected families in a
thrifty and self-respecting community.
One of the enterprises on the Barton farm afforded her great joy.
The narrow French River ran through her father’s farm. In places it
could be crossed by a foot-log, and there were few days when she did
not cross and recross it for the sheer joy of finding herself on a
trembling log suspended over a deep stream. This river ran the only
sawmill in the neighborhood. Here she delighted to ride the carriage
which conveyed the logs to the old-fashioned up-and-down saw. The
carriage moved very slowly when it was going forward and the saw was
eating its laborious way through the log, but it came back with violent
rapidity, and the little girl, who remembered nothing but fear of her
earliest childhood, was happy when she flaunted her courage in the face
of her natural timidity and rode the sawmill carriage as she rode her
high-stepping blooded Billy.
She went to church every Sunday, and churches in that day had no
fires. Her people had been brought up in the orthodox church, but,
revolting at the harsh dogmatism of the orthodox theology of that day,
they withdrew and became founders of the first Universalist Church
in America. The meeting-house at Oxford, built for the Universalist
Society, is the oldest building in existence erected for this
communion. Hosea Ballou was the first minister--a brave, strong,
resolute man. Though the family liberalized their creed, they did not
greatly modify the austerity of their Puritan living. They kept the
Sabbath about as strictly as they had been accustomed to do before
their break with the Puritan church.
Once in her childhood Clara broke the Sabbath, and it brought a painful
memory:
One clear, cold, starlight Sunday morning, I heard a low whistle
under my open chamber window. I realized that the boys were out for
a skate and wanted to communicate with me. On going to the window,
they informed me that they had an extra pair of skates and if I could
come out they would put them on me and “learn” me how to skate. It
was Sunday morning; no one would be up till late, and the ice was so
smooth and “glare.” The stars were bright; the temptation was too
great. I was in my dress in a moment and out. The skates were fastened
on firmly, one of the boy’s wool neck “comforters” tied about my
waist, to be held by the boy in front. The other two were to stand
on either side, and at a signal the cavalcade started. Swifter and
swifter we went, until at length we reached a spot where the ice had
been cracked and was full of sharp edges. These threw me, and the
speed with which we were progressing, and the distance before we could
quite come to a stop, gave terrific opportunity for cuts and wounded
knees. The opportunity was not lost. There was more blood flowing than
any of us had ever seen. Something must be done. Now all of the wool
neck comforters came into requisition; my wounds were bound up, and I
was helped into the house, with one knee of ordinary respectable cuts
and bruises; the other frightful. Then the enormity of the transaction
and its attendant difficulties began to present themselves, and how
to surround (for there was no possibility of overcoming) them was the
question.
The most feasible way seemed to be to say nothing about it, and we
decided to all keep silent; but how to conceal the limp? I must have
no limp, but walk well. I managed breakfast without notice. Dinner not
quite so well, and I had to acknowledge that I had slipped down and
hurt my knee a little. This gave my limp more latitude, but the next
day it was so decided, that I was held up and searched. It happened
that the best knee was inspected; the stiff wool comforter soaked off,
and a suitable dressing given it. This was a great relief, as it
afforded pretext for my limp, no one observing that I limped with the
wrong knee.
But the other knee was not a wound to heal by first intention,
especially under its peculiar dressing, and finally had to be
revealed. The result was a surgical dressing and my foot held up
in a chair for three weeks, during which time I read the Arabian
Nights from end to end. As the first dressing was finished, I heard
the surgeon say to my father: “That was a hard case, Captain, but
she stood it like a soldier.” But when I saw how genuinely they all
pitied, and how tenderly they nursed me, even walking lightly about
the house not to jar my swollen and fevered limbs, in spite of my
disobedience and detestable deception (and persevered in at that), my
Sabbath-breaking and unbecoming conduct, and all the trouble I had
caused, conscience revived, and my mental suffering far exceeded my
physical. The Arabian Nights were none too powerful a soporific to
hold me in reasonable bounds. I despised myself, and failed to sleep
or eat.
My mother, perceiving my remorseful condition, came to the rescue,
telling me soothingly, that she did not think it the worst thing that
could have been done, that other little girls had probably done as
badly, and strengthened her conclusions by telling me how she once
persisted in riding a high-mettled, unbroken horse in opposition to
her father’s commands, and was thrown. My supposition is that she had
been a worthy mother of her equestrian son.
The lesson was not lost on any of the group. It is very certain
that none of us, boys or girls, indulged in further smart tricks.
Twenty-five years later, when on a visit to the old home, long left,
I saw my father, then a gray-haired grandsire, out on the same little
pond, fitting the skates carefully to the feet of his little twin
granddaughters, holding them up to make their first start in safety,
I remembered my wounded knees, and blessed the great Father that
progress and change were among the possibilities of His people.
I never learned to skate. When it became fashionable I had neither
time nor opportunity.
Another disappointment of her childhood remained with her. She wanted
to learn to dance, and was not permitted to do so. It was not because
her parents were wholly opposed to dancing, but chiefly because the
dancing-school was organized while a revival of religion was in
progress in the village, and her parents felt that her attendance at
dancing-school at such a time would be unseemly. Of this she wrote:
I recall another disappointment which, though not vital, was still
indicative of the times. During the following winter a dancing-school
was opened in the hall of the one hotel on Oxford Plain, some three
miles from us. It was taught by a personal friend of my father, a
polished gentleman, resident of a neighboring town, and teacher of
English schools. By some chance I got a glimpse of the dancing-school
at the opening, and was seized with a most intense desire to go and
learn to dance. With my peculiar characteristics it was necessary for
me to want a thing very much before mentioning it; but this overcame
me, especially as the cordial teacher took tea with us one evening
before going to his school, and spoke very interestingly of his
classes. I even went so far as to beg permission to go. The dance was
in my very feet. The violin haunted me. “Ladies change” and “All hands
round” sounded in my ears and woke me from my sleep at night.
The matter was taken up in family council. I was thought to be very
young to be allowed to go to a dancing-school in a hotel. Dancing at
that time was at a very low ebb in good New England society, and,
besides, there was an active revival taking place in both of the
orthodox churches (or, rather, one a church and the other a society
without a church), and it might not be a wise, nor even a courteous,
thing to allow. Not that our family, with its well-known liberal
proclivities, could have the slightest objection on that score; still,
like Saint Paul, if meat were harmful to their brethren, they would
not eat it, and thus it was decided that I could not go. The decision
was perfectly conscientious, kindness itself, and probably wise; but I
have wondered, if they could have known (as they never did) how severe
the disappointment was, the tears it cost me in my little bed in the
dark, the music and the master’s voice still sounding in my ears, if
this knowledge would have weighed in the decision.
I have listened to a great deal of music since then, interspersed
with very positive orders, and which generally called for “All hands
round,” but the dulcet notes of the violin and the “Ladies change”
were missing. Neither did I ever learn to dance.
As she looked back over her childhood, she was unable to recall many
social events which could have been characterized as thrilling. By
invitation she once wrote out for a gathering of women her recollection
of a party which she attended on election day just after she was ten
years old. It is worth reading, and may well remind us that happy
childhood memories do not always gather about events which seem to be
intrinsically great:
A CHILD’S PARTY
It is the “reminiscence of a happy moment” which my beloved friends of
the Legion of Loyal Women ask of me--some moment or event so happy as
to be worth the telling. That may not be an easy thing in a life like
mine, but there are few things the “Legion” could ask of me that I
would not at least try to do. But, dear sisters, I fear I must ask of
you patiently to travel far back with me to the little childhood days
which knew no care. Patiently, I say, for that was long ago.
I lived in the country, a mile or more from the village. Olivia Bruce,
my favorite friend, lived in the village.
Olivia had “made a party,” and invited twelve little girls,
schoolmates and playmates, herself making the thirteenth (we had never
learned that there could be bad luck in numbers).
It was May, and the party was to be held on “Old Election Day.” Care
and thought were given to the occasion.
Each guest was to learn a little poem to recite for the first time, as
a surprise to the others.
There was some effort at costume. We were all to wear aprons alike,
from the village store--white, with a pretty vine, and cozy, little,
brown birds in the corners. Embroidered? Oh, no! just stamped; but
what embroidery has since ever borne comparison with that?
Our ages must conform--no one under ten, or over twelve. How glad I
was that I had been ten the Christmas before!
At length arrangements were completed, and nothing to be wished for
but a pleasant day.
The morning came, heavy and dark. The thunder rolled, the clouds
gathered and broke, and the lightning as if in cruel mockery darted in
and out among them, lighting up their ragged edges, or enveloping the
whole mass in quivering flame. The rain came down in torrents, and I
fear there were torrents of tears as well. Who could give comfort in a
disappointment and grief like that? Who, but old Morgan, the gardener,
with his poetic prophecy--
“Rain before seven, be clear before ’leven.”
I watched the clouds, I watched the clock, but most of all I watched
the hopeful face of old Morgan. How long and how dark the morning was!
At length, as the clock pointed half-past ten, the clouds broke again,
but this time with the bright, clear sun behind them, and the high
arching rainbow resting on the tree-tops of the western woods.
It was long to wait, even for dinner, and the proper time to go.
Finally, all traces of tears were washed away, the toilet made even
to the apron and hat, the mother’s kiss given upon the cheek of her
restless child with the gentle admonition “Be a good girl!” and, as I
sprang from the doorstep striving hard to keep at least one foot on
the ground, who shall say that the happiness and joy of that little
bit of humanity was not as complete as ever falls to the lot of
humanity to be?
The party was a success. The thirteen little girls were there; each
wore her pretty apron and the knot of ribbon in her hair; each recited
her little poem unknown to the others.
We danced--played ring plays.
“The needle’s eye that can supply
The thread that runs so truly.”
“For no man knows
Where oats, peas, beans, or barley grows.”
We “chased the squirrel,” “hunted the slipper,” trimmed our hats with
wild flowers and stood in awe before the great waterwheel of the busy
mill.
At five o’clock a pretty tea was served for us, and dark-eyed Olivia
presided with the grace and gravity of a matron; and, as the sun was
sinking behind the western hills, we bade good-bye, and each sped away
to the home awaiting her, I to be met by a mother’s approving kiss,
for I had been “a good girl,” and gladly sought the little bed, and
the long night of unbroken sleep that only a child may know.
Long, long years ago the watchful mother went to that other world;
one after another the guests of the little party followed her--some
in girlhood, some in young womanhood, some in weary widowhood. One by
one, I believe, she has met and welcomed them--welcomed each of the
twelve, and waits
CLARA BARTON
Another formative influence which must not be overlooked was that of
phrenology. This now discredited science had great influence in the
early part of the nineteenth century. Certain men, among whom the
Fowler brothers were most conspicuous, professed to be able to read
character and to portray mental aptitude by a tactual examination of
the head. The perceptive faculties, according to this theory, were
located in the front part of the brain, the moral faculties in the
top of it, and the faculties that governed the animal nature in the
back. They professed to be able by feeling over the “bumps” or “organs
of the brain,” to discover what vocation a person was good for and
what undesirable tendencies he ought to guard against. The mother of
Clara Barton was greatly troubled by the abnormal sensitiveness of
this little child. She asked L. W. Fowler, who was then staying at the
Barton home, what this little girl ought to do in life. Mr. Fowler
answered: “The sensitive nature will always remain. She will never
assert herself for herself; she will suffer wrong first. But for others
she will be perfectly fearless. Throw responsibility upon her.”
He advised that she should become a school-teacher. School-teaching
scarcely seemed a suitable vocation for a child of so shrinking a
nature. Clara was fifteen at the time, and still diffident. She was
lying in bed with the mumps, and overheard her mother’s question and
the answer. Her mother was impressed by it, and so was Clara. Years
afterward she looked back upon that experience as the turning-point
in her life. Long after she had ceased to have very much faith in
phrenology, she blessed the day that sent a phrenologist into her home.
When asked in later years what book had influenced her most, she wrote
the following reply:
THE BOOK WHICH HAS MOST INFLUENCED ME
Superlatives are difficult to deal with, the comparative is always so
near.
That which interests most, may influence little. Most books interest
in a greater or less degree, and possibly have a temporary influence.
The yellow-covered literature which the boy from twelve to sixteen
reads, surely interests him, and only too often creates an involuntary
influence, the results of which mark his entire life. He adopts
methods and follows courses which he otherwise would not have done,
and reaps misfortune for a harvest.
And so with the girl of like age who pores and weeps over some tender,
unwholesome, love-lorn picture of impossible personages, until they
become real to her, and, while she can never personate them, they
stand in the way of so much which she really does need, it may well be
said that the results influence her entire life.
Not alone the character of what is read, but the period in life of the
reader, may and will have much to do with the potency of results. The
little girl who is so fortunate as to clasp her child fingers around a
copy of “Little Women,” or “Little Men” (Bless the memory of my friend
and co-worker Louisa M. Alcott!), is in small danger from the effects
of the literature she may afterwards meet. Her tastes are formed for
wholesome food.
And the boy! Ah, well; it will require a great deal of prodding to
curb and root the wild grass out of his nature! But what a splendid
growth he makes, once it is done!
All of these conditions of character, circumstances, and time may
be said to have found place in the solution of the little problem
now before me; viz: “What book most influenced me?” If it had read
“interested” rather than “influenced,” I should have made a wide
range--“The Fables of Æsop,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Arabian Nights,”
“The Ballads of Scott,” “The Benign Old Vicar,” “The Citizens of the
World,” and mainly the mass of choice old English classics--for who
can select?--The glorious “Idylls of the King.” In fancy I should have
sat at the round table with Arthur’s knights, searched for the Holy
Grail with Sir Galahad, roamed Africa with Livingstone and Stanley,
breakfasted with the Autocrat, and dropped the gathering tear for the
loved Quaker poet, so dear to us all.
How grateful I am for all this; and to these writers immortal! How
they have sweetened life! But they really changed no course, formed no
character, opened no doors, “influenced” nothing.
In a little children’s booklet I have explained my own nature--timid,
sensitive, bashful to awkwardness--and that at this period of a dozen
years or so I chanced to make the acquaintance of L. W. Fowler, of
the “Fowler Brothers,” the earliest, and then only, exponents of
Phrenology in the country.
I had at that time read much of the literatures above cited which then
existed. Mr. Fowler placed in my hands their well-written book and
brochures on Phrenology, “The Science of the Mind.” This carried me
to another class of writers, Spurzheim, and Combe--“The Constitution
of Man.” These became my exemplars and “Know thyself” became my text
and my study. A long life has passed, and so have they, but their
influence has remained. In every walk of life it has gone with me.
It has enabled me to better comprehend the seeming mysteries about
me; the course of those with whom I had to deal, or come in contact;
not by the studying of their thoughts, or intentions, for I abhor the
practice of reading one’s friends; but to enable me to excuse, without
offense, many acts which I could in no other way have accounted
for. It has enabled me to see, not only that, but why it was their
nature, and could not be changed. They “could no other, so help them
God.” It has enriched my field of charitable judgment; enlarged my
powers of forgiveness, made those things plain that would have been
obscure to me, easy, that would have been hard, and sometimes made
possible to endure, without complaint, that which might otherwise
have proved unendurable. “Know thyself” has taught me in any great
crisis to put myself under my own feet; bury enmity, cast ambition to
the winds, ignore complaint, despise retaliation, and stand erect in
the consciousness of those higher qualities that made for the good of
human kind, even though we may not clearly see the way.
“I know not where His Islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”
Even though phrenology be now regarded as a scientific error, it must
not be supposed that all the men who practiced it were conscious
charlatans, or that all who believed in it were ignorant dupes. It
was in its day what popularized psychology has become in the present
day. Apart from the exploded idea that the brain contains separate
“organs” which act more or less independently in the development and
manifestation of character, it dealt with the study of the human mind
in more nearly practical fashion than anything which up to that time
had become popularly available. The phrenologist would now be called
a psychologist, and would make no pretense of reading character by
manipulating the skull. But some of those men taught people to consider
their own mental possibilities, and to determine to realize all that
was potentially best within them. This was the effect of phrenology
upon Clara Barton.