It was an effective technique. Barton still relished outdoor exercise and enjoyed displaying her considerable equestrian skills. When a gentleman alighted from his horse she could, to the amazement of the other girls, “spring upon his horse and ride, to the astonishment of all, without change of saddle.”25 She liked to explore the countryside, so very different from that of Hubbell s. Dashing across the broad, level acres, Barton wondered at the immensity of these western farms and sensed her own provinciality when she realized how narrow her expectations of even the physical world had been. Everything in New York, she told a favorite nephew, was on a larger scale than she had come to expect in Hubbell s. “What we are accustomed to call rivers become brooks and creeks in New York and what we call ponds they don’t think worth calling at all, but what they call lakes we cannot call for we have nothing like them.” She was intrigued, too, by the Erie Canal, with its long, flat boats, the chant of the boatmen, and its strings of mules.26 As much as her studies broadened her intellectual world, so did this close examination of a different landscape broaden her outlook. She never again faced a journey to unknown parts with trepidation. Rather, she welcomed travel with its new vistas, its risk, and its element of surprise.
The kindness of Louise Barker, the close friendship of a few girls, and admiring glances of several young men eased Barton's stay in Clinton, but overall the year was a difficult one for her. She felt divorced from her family, on whom she had always relied for support, and longed, as she told a cousin, to “be situated near each other again so as to enable us to speak our thoughts and feelings to each other.”27 She never completely relinquished the feeling that she did not quite belong with the younger students, but she masked it by a show of aloofness. Rather than attempt to be a part of the student community, she simply withdrew and followed her own inclinations in study, dress, and recreation. When a classmate fell sick she volunteered to nurse her and responsibly accompanied the girl home, much to the admiration of the younger girls.28 But her classmates felt more awe than fellowship with her. As one recalled, “she was treated with…deference by her associates who always seemed to concede to her the right of doing just as she pleased.”29
Barton also faced financial difficulties during the year. It was with a start that she realized that her carefully saved earnings were barely going to keep her through the three terms of school. Barton therefore eschewed many of the frivolities of the more affluent students, spending increasing amounts of her leisure time in study. Monetary considerations also prevented her from leaving Clinton during the school holidays in spring and summer, and she spent this time alone in a hotel in town.30 Despite her economies, however, her worst fears materialized: before the final term had ended she was out of funds. Barton did not write to her immediate family—perhaps for reasons of pride—but instead called upon her old childhood playmate, Jerry Learned. He bailed her out, saw to it that she was comfortably situated for the remainder of the year, and paid her expenses home.31
Clara's reluctance to mingle too much with other students may also have been heightened by shocking news she received in May 1851. Her brother Stephen, whom she had always revered and even emulated, was indicted on charges of bank robbery in Otsego County, New York. The Learneds, who had been under surveillance for some time for less than honest business practices, were also implicated. An article in the Boston Courier stated that “the people of Oxford did not believe Barton had any connection” with the robbery, but a credit agent found that this was not really the case. Many Oxford citizens had long been suspicious of the ways in which the Barton brothers had found the funds to acquire such extensive real estate. Stephen Barton's immediate problem became the loss of faith by his creditors, who began calling in his debts. “His Cr has received a shock difficult to get over,” wrote an agent of R. G. Dun and Company, “his large R[eal] E[state] is under allocat[ion], & will not be enough in all prob. to pay his Cr's.” Not only was his financial position in peril, but his reputation of town leader, cherished for so long, was now irrevocably tarnished. As one observer wrote, “it will be extremely difficult for him to remove the unfavorable impression.”32
Stephen Barton was not convicted of the robbery, though many circumstances connected him with it. Clara has left no impression of the event or of the grief it must have caused her to learn of it. Otsego County was a jurisdiction bordering on the county in which she was attending school, and her brother may have been in the vicinity in connection with a visit to her. Clara appears never to have chastised her brother; instead she showed her strong sense of loyalty by upholding him in her mind and continuing to rely on him as her principal advisor. During the long years of her fame, when biographers were anxious for any detail of her family life, she effectively shielded this and other questionable activities from the public view. The extent to which this outward loyalty was inwardly felt is difficult to tell. Surely her brother's indictment and trial shook the very roots of her admiration for the energy and honor of her family. It probably contributed to her shy and aloof manner, for in attracting attention to herself, she might possibly attract attention to her brother's troubles.
Clara had barely recovered from this tragedy when she received more news of family sorrows. In early July she opened a letter from her brother that began: “Our excelent [sic] mother is no more. She died this afternoon at a quarter after five o’clock her last end was without a struggle and apparently easy.”33 Clara knew that Sarah Barton had been ill for several months and that she had not expected to live much longer, but like the indictment of her brother, this death flung her away from the anchors of the past, pressing her to rely more on herself. Helplessness overwhelmed her. She could not even attend the funeral, for her mother had already been buried in the new cemetery in Oxford by the time the news reached her. She locked herself in for nearly a week in order to be alone with her grief, telling no one of her sorrow.34 Her brother, sensing her isolation, tried to comfort her as best he could. “Dear Clara how much I think of you and what your feelings must be when this sad news reaches you,” he wrote. “I think of you as far away from connections and acquaintances in a strange country and among strangers and none to comfort and sympathize with you in this stroke of affliction. Yet I trust and hope that you will bear it meekly and with fortitude.”35 At last Louise Barker, hearing of the loss, sent for her; by pulling her out of her deep introspection she helped Clara to make the first small steps toward overcoming her loss.36
At the end of her term at the Clinton Liberal Institute, Barton had accomplished her goal of increasing her academic expertise, yet she had no idea how to shape a career or what direction her life should now take. Teaching, factory work, and domestic service were the only respectable choices widely available to women. Of these, teaching was by far the most prestigious. But to return to Oxford, to the same round of one-room schools and unruly boys, to the thorough familiarity of countryside and citizens, seemed a backward step, lacking in either challenge or productivity. Determined that she should not dry up in the static atmosphere of Oxford schools, Barton elected to avoid her old home town altogether while she debated her future. She boarded a train for New England Village, a neighboring community and the home of her adventurous cousin Jerry Learned.37
four
Clara's visit to the Learneds lasted only a few months. In the hazy days of late summer 1851 she returned to her family at North Oxford, still without plans and in a depressed state of mind. Despite her fine scholarship in Clinton, she had been forced to leave before completing the entire course, and for the remainder of her life she considered her education lacking. Though others would view her as learned and erudite, Barton felt that her formal