a chair to sit on, or a crust to eat. "The hardest thing to bear," he
said, "was to hear my little three-year-old Bertie begging for his
breakfast, and to know that there was nothing within miles of us to
satisfy his hunger, and that the next day it would be the same, and the
next, and the next.

"We were powerless to help ourselves. But while we sat there in utter
despair, a neighbor rode by and hailed us. He told us that Red Cross
committees had started out from Milwaukee and Chicago at first tidings
of the fire, with car-loads of supplies, and that if we could go to the
place where they were distributing we could get whatever we needed.

"I wish you could have seen what they were handing out when we got
there: tools and lumber to put up cabins, food and beds and clothes and
coal-oil. They'd thought of everything and provided everything, and they
went about the distributing in a systematic, business-like way that
somehow put heart and cheer into us all.

"They didn't make us feel as if they were handing out alms to paupers,
but as if they were helping some of their own family on to their feet
again, and putting them in shape to help themselves. Even my little
Bertie felt it. Young as he was, he never forgot that awful night when
we fled from the fire, nor the hungry day that followed, nor the fact
that the arm that carried him food, when he got it at last, wore a
brassard marked like that." He touched the Red Cross on Hero's collar.

"And when the chance came to show the same brotherly spirit to some one
else in trouble and pass the help along, he was as ready as the rest of
us to do his share.