To her mother's dismay little Clara Barton preferred riding her horse or playing with her brothers to cooking and sewing indoors. One winter evening she slipped out of the house to go iceskating on a dare against her mother's wishes—and came from with a badly injured knee. She spent the next three weeks in bed and in that time her mother taught her how to sew. And although her beloved brother David teased her about being so domestic, her mother said that one day she would be glad of it.

And that day did indeed come—but not until Clara had spent a year nursing David back to health when the doctors had all but given up hope for his life. When the Civil War began she was working in Washington and she lost no time in offering her services as a volunteer nurse to the Union Army. Only after much argument and persuasion did she succeed in winning her point that the place for a nurse was on the battlefield, but win it she finally did, and before long the brisk and gentle hands of Clara Barton were bringing comfort to wounded soldiers at Cedar Mountain, Bull Run, and Antietam.

Even after the war was over Clara Barton's work was not done. She put into work a project to locate the thousands of soldiers missing in battle and she founded the American Red Cross. Indeed, ever girl and boy will be thrilled by Olive Price's story of this brave woman who courageously and successfully undertook the things that so desperately needed doing.

From the dust jacket