ountry 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.

There was no floor to the Lincoln's log cabin and no furnishings but a
few three-legged stools and a bed made of wooden slats fastened together
with pegs. Abraham and Sarah slept on piles of leaves or brush.

Slates and pencils were scarce, and Abraham used to lie before the fire
when he was seven or eight y