dollar of outside help passed through our hands, but the little
permanent provision was equal to the occasion and we had still a half
left of our three thousand dollars. That was our first acquaintance with
Texas. Galveston followed many years later with the same firm accord and
good results. The bonds of affection had grown deep and strong between
the great thousand-mile State and the little Red Cross that loved to
serve her.

In the following year, 1887, we were notified by the International
Committee of Geneva of the conference to be held at Carlsruhe, by
invitation of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden. We were
directed to inform the Department of State of this fact. We did so, and
an appropriation was made by Congress to defray the expenses of three
delegates.

It may be well to explain that in these appointments the Government does
not place the appropriation in the hands of the appointees, but simply
becomes a guaranty. The appointee provides his own funds. If, after
return, vouchers can be shown that the sum guaranteed has been spent
according to regulations, he is reimbursed in due course.

Here was at least a contrast from a rough Mississippi River boat and the
crude homes of an unsettled Western State, to the royal carriage waiting
to convey one to the apartments reserved in a palace, the elegance and
culture of a court, the precision of a congress of representatives of
the nations of the world. The questions of humanity discussed by them,
the meeting of friends of other days, the regal bearing of the royal
host and hostess, the last parting from the dear old Emperor of
ninety-two, and his tenderly spoken, "It is the last time, good-by"; the
loving and last farewell of the beloved Empress Augusta, the patron
saint of the Red Cross; Bismarck and Moltke, in review, each with his
Red Cross insignia; the cordial hand grasp and the farewell never
repeated--and all of this attention to and interest in a subject that
the country I had gone to represent scarcely realized had an existence
beyond the receiving of some second-hand clothing, misfit shoes, and a
little money sent by some one to some place, where something bad had
happened.

No one dreamed that it meant anything more, or that it needed anything
after this, and nothing more was done.

It is only now, after almost two decades and within the last three
months, that we commence to awaken and wonder, with a mingled national
and personal sense of in