he neighboring gardens, always
mindful of their mother's injunction never to take a flower
without permission. Happy indeed were they when they could bring
home a handful of wild flowers to their mother. "God's flowers"
they called them, because they did not grow in anyone's garden.

Clara's love for animals led her to pat every dog she met, and
more than once she caught a stray cat and took it home to pet it.
A story is told that seeing a lame chicken she wrapped it in her
apron and took it home and bandaged its leg neatly, tending it
with such devotion that she soon had the happiness of seeing it
able to run about to seek its own food. The cousin who told this
story laughingly said, "She probably used splints, but of this I
am not sure."

Mrs. Swain's sister Elizabeth lived a mile out of the village,
while the home of the Swain family was within the boundary line,
and as the little red school-house was between them the children
of both families attended this school.

Clara was very fond of her Aunt Post and often went home with her
cousins, staying with them days at a time. One of these cousins,
now eighty-eight years of age, writes: "When Clara was seven years
of age she was a very pleasant child, always eager to help
someone. She lived with us, off and on, until she was twelve years
old, when we moved to Michigan. She was as much at home with us as
in her own home and we were sorry to part with her."

CONVERSION

When Clara was eight years old her sister Ann, six years her
senior, joined the Methodist Church, and this made a great
impression on her youthful mind. The consistent life of this
sister and the sweet and simple religious life of her mother gave
her many thoughtful hours, and she asked one day, "Why am I not a
Christian? I want to be good, too." Just before she was ten years
old, under the influence of a powerful sermon, she felt that she
must give herself to the Lord to be his child forever. There were
hours of darkness when she felt that she was too great a sinner to
be forgiven, but light came at last and she was happy in the
consciousness that she was an accepted child of God.

From her father's family she inherited a fund of Irish humor,
while her mother, of good old New England blood, inclined to
quietness of spirit with earnestness of purpose; and this blending
of fun and sobriety caused the young Christian much perturbation
of spirit. Conscientious in the extreme, she had many an hou