The Story of the Red Cross as Told to the Little Colonel

The Story of the Red Cross as Told to the Little

Annie Fellows Johnston's "The Story of the Red Cross as Told to the Little Colonel" opens in Geneva, Switzerland, where the Little Colonel (Lloyd Sherman) sits at breakfast with her parents, Mrs. Sherman and Mr. Sherman ("Papa Jack"), watching the lively scene outside their hotel on the lake. She notices a dignified one-armed old gentleman at a nearby table, later identified by her father as Major Pierre de Vaux, who owns a St. Bernard war dog named Hero, trained to search for wounded soldiers. Before going shopping with her parents, Lloyd accidentally sets off a musical chair in the hotel hall and, embarrassed, collides with the Major coming out of the office. He introduces her to Hero, and she is immediately charmed, hugging the dog's neck. Later that day, while her parents are inside a shop having a buckle repaired, Lloyd waits in the carriage. The coachman, drowsy from a festival the night before, falls asleep, and the old horse bolts after a ladder falls from a painters' scaffold. The runaway carriage careens through the streets, throwing the coachman off and terrifying Lloyd, until Hero, recognizing the Major's shouted command, springs at the horse's bit and stops it. The Major finds Lloyd in the crowd, comforts her, and returns her to the hotel, where Hero becomes a local celebrity. That evening, Lloyd seeks out the lonely Major in the hotel courtyard, where he tells her about Hero's origins: trained at the ambulance-dog kennels of Herr Bungartz's German Society for Ambulance Dogs, injured, and given to the Major after the dog's leg healed. The Major recalls his own wartime wound and his belief that a trained dog could have saved his arm. He demonstrates Hero's Red Cross training with the dog's shoulder-bags and flask, both marked with a red cross. Lloyd learns to give Hero's command. The Major also speaks of his late daughter Christine, whom Lloyd resembles, and is invited by Mrs. Sherman to join the Shermans' table and, subsequently, their travels. Examining Hero's new collar, engraved by Mr. Sherman with an inscription commemorating the rescue, Lloyd asks the Major to explain the red cross symbol. He is startled that she has never heard of Clara Barton and tells her the story of Henri Durant, the battle of Solferino, and the founding of the Red Cross treaty in Geneva, plus Clara Barton's work in the American Civil War, her search for missing soldiers, and her founding of the American Red Cross. Later, in Zug, the Major is injured by a falling tree limb; Hero leads rescuers to him. Sensing he is dying, the Major gives Lloyd his own bravery medal to fasten to Hero's collar and entrusts Hero to her, asking her to take him to America. On the voyage home, Hero travels with special privileges because of his Red Cross collar, and Lloyd hears further Red Cross stories from fellow passengers about relief efforts after Michigan forest fires, Mississippi floods, the Johnstown flood, the Mt. Vernon cyclone, and the Charleston earthquake, including the story of a boy named Bertie who donated his toys and clothes to the Red Cross. The narrative closes years later: Hero has died and is buried under a white stone at the Sherman home, "The Locusts." The grown Little Colonel, now a mother, tells her young son the story, noting that the Red Cross's protections have since been violated in a war that has "filled the world with horrors," and expressing hope that war will end before her son is old enough to learn its darker chapters, so that the Red Cross may come to mean for the world what it already means to him.

By Annie Fellows Johnston · First published 1908 · Genre: Historical Fiction, Children's Literature, Biographical Fiction · 5 chapters · 12,256 words

First lines

It was in Switzerland in the old town of Geneva. The windows of the big hotel dining-room looked out on the lake, and the Little Colonel, sitting at breakfast the morning after their arrival, could scarcely eat for watching the scene outside.

Gay little pleasure boats flashed back and forth on the sparkling water. The quay and bridge were thronged with people. From open windows down the street came the tinkle of pianos, and out on the pier, where a party of tourists were crowding on to one of the excursion steamers, a band was playing its merriest holiday music.

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The Story of the Red Cross as Told to the Little Colonel is listed on Textopian as a novella by Annie Fellows Johnston, dated 1908 CE.

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historical fiction · children's literature · war stories · humanitarianism · volunteering · charity · Red Cross · nonprofit organizations · American Civil War · Southern United States · frontier life · adventure

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