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.