My first individual ownership was “Button.” In personality (if the term be admissible), Button represented a sprightly, medium-sized, very white dog, with silky ears, sparkling black eyes and a very short tail. His bark spoke for itself. Button belonged to me. No other claim was instituted, or ever had been. It was said that on my entrance into the family, Button constituted himself my guardian. He watched my first steps and tried to pick me up when I fell down. One was never seen without the other. He proved an apt and obedient pupil, obeying me precept upon precept, if not line upon line. He stood on two feet to ask for his food, and made a bow on receiving it, walked on three legs when very lame, and so on, after the manner of his crude instruction; went everywhere with me through the day, waited patiently while I said my prayers and continued his guard on the foot of the bed at night. Button shared my board as well as my bed. After her first year’s instruction at the hands of Colonel Stone, that gentleman ceased his connection with the common schools, and established what was known as the Oxford High School, an institution of great repute in its day. This left the district school to be taught by the members of the Barton household. For the next three years Clara’s sisters were her public school-teachers in the autumn and spring, and her brother Stephen had charge of the school in the winter terms. Two things she remembered about those years. One was her preternatural shyness. She was sensitive and retiring to a degree that seemed to forbid all hope of her making much progress in study with other children. The other was that she had a fondness for writing verses, some of which her brothers and sisters preserved and used to tease her with in later years. One thing she learned outside the schoolroom, and she never forgot it. That was how to handle a horse. She inherited her mother’s sidesaddle, and though she protested against having to use it, she learned at an early age to lift and buckle it, and to ride her father’s horses. Meantime her brothers grew to be men and bought out her father’s two large farms. Her father purchased another farm of three hundred acres nearer the center of the town, a farm having upon it one of the forts used for security against the Indians by the original Huguenot settlers. She now became interested in history, and added that to her previous accomplishments. At the age of eight, Clara Barton entered what was called high school, which involved boarding away from home. The arrangement met with only partial success on account of her extreme timidity: