Читать книгу When They Were Girls онлайн

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People used to ask Miss Barton if she had not always been brave. The woman who walked coolly through Fredericksburg when every street was a firing line answered, telling of her childhood: “I was a shrinking little bundle of fears—fears of thunder, fears of strange faces, fears of my strange self.” It was when the shy girl forgot herself in working for others that she forgot her fears.

Bravery and willingness to help others, however, would have been of little use to Clara Barton had she not been level headed. The ability to see what should be done next and to do it quickly and well were of equal value. It seemed as if Clara Barton worked magic, but her magic was only a mixture of common sense and a great pity for the suffering.

Once at Antietam, when there seemed to be nothing to feed to the wounded men, she noticed that the medicine had been packed in fine meal. Quickly she borrowed several big kettles from the farm where they were quartered, and she soon was serving the men with steaming gruel.