THE STORY OF MY CHILDHOOD BY CLARA BARTON NEW YORK THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 1907 Copyright, 1907, by THE JOURNAL PUBLISHING CO., Meriden, Conn. THE JOURNAL PRESS. THE STORY OF MY CHILDHOOD. PREFACE _Dear Miss Clara Barton_: Our classes in The History of the United States are studying about you, and we want to know more. Our teacher says she has seen you. That you live in, or near Washington, District of Columbia, and that, although very busy, she thought you might be willing to receive a short letter from us, and I write to ask you to be so kind as to tell us what you did when you were a little girl like us. All of us want to know. I am almost thirteen. If you could send us a few words, we should all be very happy. I write for all. Your little girl friend, MARY ST. CLARE, * * * New York. October third, nineteen hundred, six. _Miss Clara Barton_: I am studying about you in my History, and what you did in the war, and I thought I would write and ask you what you did afore you did that. Yours truly, JAMES C. HAMLIN. * * * Center, Iowa, May 24th, 1906. =Dear Children of the Schools:= Your oft-repeated appeals have reached me. They are too many and too earnest to be disregarded; and because of them, and because of my love for you, I have dedicated this little book to you. I have made it small, that you may the more easily read it. I have done it in the hope that it may give you pleasure, and in the wish that, when you shall be women and men, you may each remember, as I do, that you were once a child, full of childish thoughts and action, but of whom it was said, “Suffer them to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Faithfully your friend, CLARA BARTON. Glen Echo, Maryland, May twenty-ninth, 1907. [Illustration] THE STORY OF MY CHILDHOOD. BY CLARA BARTON.