to make up one hundred dollars would help her to get up her
house? It was _her_ turn to be speechless. At length with a struggling,
choking voice she managed to say--"God knows how much it would be to me.
Yes, with my good boys I can do it, and do it well."

We put in her hands a check for this sum, and directed from the boat
clean boxes of clothing and bedding, to help restore the household, when
the house should have been completed.

Before we left her, we asked if she would name her house when it should
be done? She thought a second, and caught the idea.

"Yes," she replied quickly, with a really winsome smile on that worn and
weary face, "yes, I shall name it 'The Little Six.'"

We came to Pittsburg, discharged our empty boat, bade a heart-breaking
good-by to our veteran volunteers from Evansville, who had shared our
toil and pain and who would return on the boat, we taking train once
more for Washington. We had been four months on the rivers, among fogs,
rain, damp, and malaria--run all manner of risks and dangers, but had
lost no life nor property, sunk no boat, and only that I was by this
time too weak to walk without help--all were well.

Through the thoughtfulness of our new societies--St. Louis and
Chicago--we had been able to meet our share of the expenses, and to keep
good the little personal provision we started with, and were thus ready
to commence another field when it should come.

On arriving home I found that I was notified by the International
Committee of Geneva, that the Fourth International Conference would be
held in that city in September, and I was requested to inform the
United States Government, and ask it to send delegates. With the aid of
a borrowed arm, I made my way up the steps of the Department of State
(that was before the luxury of elevators) and made my errand known to
Secretary Frelinghuysen, who had heard of it and was ready with his
reply:

"Yes, Miss Barton, we will make the needful appointment of delegates to
the International Conference, and I appoint you as our delegate."

"No, Mr. Frelinghuysen," I said, "I can not go. I have just returned
from field work. I am tired and ill. Furthermore, I have not had time to
make a report of our work."

"There is no one else who sufficiently understands the Red Cross, and
the provisions of the treaty, that our Government can send, and we can
not afford to make a mistake in the matter of delegates to this first
conference in which