I am only a tiny bit of paper, with a little green and red color in the form of a cross or a wreath. I am not much larger than a postage stamp. I am going to tell you of some of the work I have done for mankind in this big world, notwithstanding my small size. Please don't think I am boasting of myself in an unbecoming manner. I was made long, long years ago, when our grandfathers were just soldiers, and fighting each other in a long and bloody war. [Illustration] The mothers and wives of these soldiers were constantly thinking out some plan by which they could do something for the "boys" at the front. It is hard to sit with idle hands when those we love are in the thick of battle, and I sometimes think that the women and children suffer most in our great wars. So, in 1862, when the days were very dark, when the battle seemed so fierce, and when the hospitals, North and South, were crowded with the sick and wounded, some good ladies of Boston thought of me. They decided to make me into a stamp, and to sell me to get money to help the sick soldiers. I was made and sold at a kind of "post-office booth" at many fairs. I did not look then just as I do now--you see the style of my dress has changed with the change in fashion. I have taken as my color the Red Cross, the emblem of that great army of workers who, in 1864, first organized the Red Cross Society at Geneva, Switzerland. This society works for the sick and suffering; it does not matter under what flag they live. Did you ever think of what a great thing a flag is? Just a little bit of cotton with a few colors on it, the red, white and blue, the tri-color of France; the red, white and black, of Germany; the stars and stripes of our own free land; or the Red Cross of Greece on a white field, the flag of the Red Cross Society. Men have fought and died for the thing which these bits of rag and color mean to them. But I am getting away from my story. With all the newness of the idea, and my very small size, I helped to make nearly a million dollars during that terrible war between our own beloved States. This money was used for the benefit of the sick and wounded soldiers. My mission has always been one of mercy. I cannot but feel good when I think over the days of the past, and recall to memory the deeds I have done. For a long time after that war I had nothing to do but to think of these past deeds, and, as I thought of the poor fever-stricken soldiers to whom I had brought medicine to cool their fever, and how I had gotten bandages to bind the wounds made by shot and shell, I thought sadly that I was forgotten, and that my mission was ended. These thoughts were sad, for I knew there was a work to be done, and I wanted to be up and about it. I wondered if the time would ever come when I could go on another errand of mercy. I felt that I must be needed somewhere in the big world, but I hoped I would never see another war.