I thank you with all my heart, Mr. President, for the encouragement given me at the commencement, and the privilege of writing you. I have done this little bit of work faithfully, and hope it may meet your approval. I am home, with scarcely strength to leave my bed, but I trust we have heard the _last of "Texas drouth_." I have the honor to be, Most respectfully, CLARA BARTON. [Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Clara Barton. CAMP PERRY. _The Northern Florida Yellow Fever Quarantine Station of the U.S. Marine Hospital, during the epidemic of 1888, for refugees coming north._] [Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Clara Barton. RED CROSS HEADQUARTERS. PARLORS. VESTIBULE AND LOWER HALL. FIRST OFFICE. SECOND OFFICE AND BREAKFAST ROOM.] THE MOUNT VERNON CYCLONE. ILLINOIS. Sunday, February 19, 1888, will ever be a memorable day in the annals of the little town of Mount Vernon, Ill.--a day of supreme horrors, destruction and death. There had been thunder and lightning during the afternoon, followed by rain and hail, which had given away to an ominous stillness. The sky was covered with a wierd light, and the air was strangely oppressive. The clouds rapidly changed color, rolling and whirling, and dropping nearer to the earth, until suddenly they assumed the dreaded shape of a huge funnel or inverted cone, which came whirling along with an awful roar, and within three minutes after the fury of the storm had struck the town, thirty people had been killed and scores of others injured, and an immense amount of property destroyed. Mount Vernon is the county seat of Jefferson county, and contained four thousand inhabitants. It was a pretty and prosperous place; its business centre surrounded a public square, whose four sides were lined with stores, and the middle ground occupied by the county court house, a fine three-story building; its broad streets were bordered with shade trees and lighted by electricity. The cyclone cut a broad swath through the eastern half of the town, destroying everything in its path, tearing down brick houses, uprooting trees, and picking up small wooden houses and carrying them along as if they were made of cardboard, and finally dashing them to pieces against more substantial obstacles. In a very few minutes after the storm had passed, the sun shone out brightly, but on what a scene! The air was filled with cries of anguish coming from the maimed sufferers crushed under the ruins, and with the wailings for the dead and missing.