Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

MRS. JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Eng^d by H B Hall & Sons New York.

MEMORIAL EDITION.

THE
Life and Work
OF
JAMES A. GARFIELD,
TWENTIETH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
EMBRACING
AN ACCOUNT OF THE SCENES AND INCIDENTS OF HIS BOYHOOD; THE STRUGGLES OF HIS YOUTH; THE MIGHT OF HIS EARLY MANHOOD; HIS VALOR AS A SOLDIER; HIS CAREER AS A STATESMAN; HIS ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY;
AND
THE TRAGIC STORY OF HIS DEATH.

BY

JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL. D.,

Author of A Popular History of the United States; A Grammar-School History of the United States; An Inductive Grammar of the English Language, etc.

Copiously Illustrated.

P. W. ZIEGLER & CO.,

PHILADELPHIA AND CHICAGO.

1881.

COPYRIGHTED, 1881, BY J. T. JONES.

PREFACE.

Dean Swift describes the tomb as a place where savage enmity can rend the heart no more. Here, in the ominous shadow of the cypress, the faults and foibles of life are forgotten, and the imagination builds a shining pathway to the stars. Ascending this with rapid flight, the great dead is transfigured as he rises; the clouds close around him, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he is set afar on the heights with Miltiades and Alexander.

The tendency to the deification of men is strongest when a sudden eclipse falls athwart the disk of a great life at noontide. The pall of gloom sweeps swiftly across the landscape, and the beholder, feeling the chill of the darkness, mistakes it for the death of nature. So it was three hundred years ago when the silent Prince of Orange, the founder of Dutch independence, was smitten down in Delft. So it was when the peerless Lincoln fell. So it is when Garfield dies by the bullet of an assassin.

No doubt this man is glorified by his shameful and causeless death. The contrast between his life and his death is indeed the very irony of fate. On the popular imagination he is borne away to Washington and Lincoln. He is canonized—the American people will have it so.

In due season fervor will subside. The keen indignation and poignant sorrow of this great and sensitive citizenship will at length give place to other emotions. The murdered Garfield will then pass through an ordeal more trying than any of his life. He will be coolly measured and his stature ascertained by those inexorable laws which determine the rank and place of both living and dead. No doubt he will suffer loss; but there is of James A. Garfield a residuum of greatness—

Which shall tire

Torture and Time, and breathe though he expire;

Something unearthly which we deem not of,

Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,—

And this residuum of greatness, whatever it shall be, will constitute the Garfield of the future—the Garfield of history.

For the present there will be—there can but be—a blending of the real and the ideal. The glamour of the apotheosis will dazzle the vision of those who witnessed it. It is enough, therefore, that the narrative of to-day shall be such as befits the universal sentiment. The biographer of the future may weigh with more critical exactitude the weakness against the greatness, and poise in a more delicate balance the evil against the good.

The following pages embody an effort to present, in fair proportion, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield. Such sources of information as are at present accessible have been faithfully consulted; and it is sincerely hoped that the outline here given of the personal and public career of the illustrious dead, will be found true to the life. As far as practicable in the following pages, the purposes and character of President Garfield will be determined from his own words. His apothegms and sayings, not a few, and his public papers and speeches have alike contributed their wealth to the better parts of the volume. The story of the President’s wounding and death has been gathered from the abundant sources—official and semi-official—of the journals and magazines of the day. It is hoped that the narrative, as a whole, will not be found deficient in interest, or unworthy of the subject.

This preface would be incomplete if failure should be made to mention the invaluable and extensive service rendered the author in the preparation of the work, by Messrs. Augustus L. Mason, Nathaniel P. Conrey, and Leonard Barney, to whose industry and discriminating taste much of whatever merit the book contains, must be accredited. And with this acknowledgment should be coupled a like recognition of the spirit of The Publishers, who, with their accustomed liberality, have spared no pains to illustrate the work in a manner befitting the subject. May all who read these pages find in them as full a measure of profit as the author has found of pleasure in their preparation.

J. C. R.

Indiana Asbury University,

November, 1881.

CONTENTS.

DEATHLESS.

This man hath reared a monument more grand

Than sculptured bronze, and loftier than the height

Of regal pyramids in Memphian sand,

Which not the raging tempest nor the might

Of the loud North-wind shall assailing blight,

Nor years unnumbered nor the lapse of time!

Not all of him shall perish! for the bright

And deathless part shall spurn with foot sublime

The darkness of the grave—the dread and sunless clime!

He shall be sung to all posterity

With freshening praise, where in the morning’s glow

The farm-boy with his harnessed team shall be,

And where New England’s swifter rivers flow

And orange groves of Alabama blow—

Strong in humility, and great to lead

A mighty people where the ages go!

Take then thy station, O illustrious dead!

And place, Immortal Fame, the garland on his head!

—Horace: B. iii., Ode xxx.

LIFE AND WORK

OF

JAMES A. GARFIELD.

CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.

Genius delights in hatching her offspring in out-of-the-way places.—Irving.

When some great work is waiting to be done,

And Destiny ransacks the city for a man

To do it; finding none therein, she turns

To the fecundity of Nature’s woods,

And there, beside some Western hill or stream,

She enters a rude cabin unannounced,

And ere the rough frontiersman from his toil,

Where all day long he hews the thickets down,

Returns at evening, she salutes his wife,

His fair young wife, and says, Behold! thou art

The Mother of the Future!

Men, like books, have their beginnings. James Abram Garfield was born on the 19th day of November, 1831. His first outlook upon things was from a cabin door in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The building was of rough logs, with mud between the cracks, to keep out the winter cold. The single room had a puncheon floor, and on one side a large fire-place, with a blackened crane for cooking purposes. In winter evenings, a vast pile of blazing logs in this fire-place filled the cabin with a cheerful warmth and ruddy glow. Overhead, from the rude rafters, hung rows of well-cured hams, and around the mud chimney were long strings of red-pepper pods and dried pumpkins. The furniture was as primitive as the apartment. A puncheon table, a clumsy cupboard, a couple of large bedsteads, made by driving stakes in the floor, some blocks for seats, and a well-kept gun, almost complete the catalogue. The windows had greased paper instead of glass; and, in rough weather, were kept constantly closed with heavy shutters.

THE GARFIELD CABIN.

Stepping out of doors, one would see that the cabin stood on the edge of a small clearing of some twenty acres. On the south, at a little distance, stood a solid log barn, differing from the house only in having open cracks. The barn-yard had a worm fence around it, and contained a heavy ox-wagon and a feeding-trough for hogs. Skirting the clearing on all sides was the forest primeval, which, on the 19th of November, the frost had already transfigured with gold and scarlet splendors. Cold winds whistled through the branches, and thick showers of dry leaves fell rustling to the ground.

Already the cabin shutters were closed for the winter; already the cattle munched straw and fodder at the barn, instead of roaming through the forest for tender grass and juicy leaves; already a huge wood-pile appeared by the cabin door. The whole place had that sealed-up look which betokens the approach of winter at the farm-house. The sun rose late, hung low in the sky at high noon; and, after feeble effort, sunk early behind the western forest. Well for the brave pioneers is it, if they are ready for a long and bitter struggle with the winter.

So much for the home. But what of the family? Who and what are they? As the babe sleeps in its mother’s arms, what prophecy of its destiny is there written in the red pages of the blood ancestral?

In America, the Southern States have been the land of splendid hospitality, chivalric manners, and aristocratic lineage; the West the land of courage, enterprise, and practical executive ability; but the New England States have been preëminently the home of intellectual genius and moral heroism. From New England came both the father and mother of James A. Garfield, and it means much. But there are reasons for looking at his ancestry more closely.

The law of heredity has long been suspected, and, in late years, has been, to a considerable extent, regarded as the demonstrated and universal order of nature. It is the law by which the offspring inherits the qualities and characteristics of its ancestors. It makes the oak the same sort of a tree as the parent, from which the seed acorn fell. It makes a tree, which sprang from the seed of a large peach, yield downy fruit as large and luscious as the juicy ancestor. It says that every thing shall produce after its kind; that small radishes shall come from the seed of small radishes, and a richly perfumed geranium from the slip cut from one of that kind. It says that, other things being equal, the descendants of a fast horse shall be fast, and the posterity of a plug shall be plugs. It says that a Jersey cow, with thin ears, straight back, and copious yield of rich milk, shall have children like unto herself. But a man has many more qualities and possibilities than a vegetable or a brute. He has an infinitely wider range, through which his characteristics may run. The color of his hair, his size, his strength, are but the smallest part of his inheritance. He inherits also the size and texture of his brain, the shape of his skull, and the skill of his hands. It is among his ancestry that must be sought the reason and source of his powers. It is there that is largely determined the question of his capacity for ideas, and it is from his ancestry that a man should form his ideas of his capacity. It is there that are largely settled the matters of his tastes and temper, of his ambitions and his powers. The question of whether he shall be a mechanic, a tradesman, or a lawyer, is already settled before he gets a chance at the problem.

The old myth about the gods holding a council at the birth of every mortal, and determining his destiny, has some truth in it. In one respect it is wrong. The council of the gods is held years before his birth; it has been in session all the time. If a man has musical skill, he gets it from his ancestry. It is the same with an inventor, or an artist, or a scholar, or a preacher. This looks like the law of fate. It is not. It is the fate of law.

But this is not all of the law of inheritance. Men have an inherited moral nature, as well as an intellectual one. Drunkenness, sensuality, laziness, extravagance, and pauperism, are handed down from father to son. Appetites are inherited, and so are habits. On the other hand, courage, energy, self-denial, the power of work, are also transmitted and inherited. If a man’s ancestry were thieves, it will not do to trust him. If they were bold, true, honest men and women, it will do to rely upon him.

In late years, this law of inheritance has been much studied by scientists. The general law is about as has been stated; but it has innumerable offsets and qualifications which are not understood. Sometimes a child is a compound of the qualities of both parents. More frequently the son resembles the mother, and the daughter the father. Sometimes the child resembles neither parent, but seems to inherit every thing from an uncle or aunt. Often the resemblance to the grand-parent is the most marked. That these complications are governed by fixed, though, at present, unknown laws, can not be doubted; but for the purposes of biography the question is unessential.

Scientists say that nine-tenths of a man’s genius is hereditary, and one-tenth accidental. The inherited portion may appear large, but it is to be remembered that only possibilities are inherited, and that not one man in a million reaches the limit of his possibilities. If the lives of the ancestors of James A. Garfield were studied, we could tell what his possibilities were; while, by studying the life of Garfield himself, we see how nearly he realized those possibilities. This is the reason why biography interests itself in a man’s ancestors. They furnish the key to the situation.

Of the many classes of colonists who settled this continent, by far the most illustrious were the Puritans and the Huguenots. Their names, alike invented as epithets of contempt and derision, have become the brightest on the historic page. Their fame rests upon their sacrifices. Not for gold, nor adventure, nor discovery, did they seek the forest-wrapped continent of North America, but for the sake of worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Different in nationality, language, and temperament—the one from the foggy isle of England, the other from the sunny skies of France—they alike fled from religious persecution; the Puritan from that intolerance and bigotry which cost Charles I. his head and revolutionized the English monarchy; the Huguenot from the withdrawal of the last vestige of religious liberty by Louis XIV. The proudest lineage which an American can trace is to one or the other of these communities of exiles.—In James A. Garfield these two currents of noble and heroic blood met and mingled.

The first ancestor, by the name of Garfield, of whom the family have any record, is Edward Garfield, a Puritan, who, for the sake of conscience, in 1636, left his home near the boundary line of England and Wales, and joined the colony of the distinguished John Winthrop, at Watertown, Massachusetts. He appears to have been a plain farmer, of deep, religious convictions, and much respected by the community in which he lived. Of his ancestry, only two facts are known. One is that no book of the peerage or list of English nobility ever contained the name of Garfield. The other is that, at some time in the past, possibly during the Crusades, the family had received, or adopted, a coat of arms. The device was a golden shield crossed by three crimson bars; in one corner a cross; in another a heart; above the shield an arm and hand grasping a sword. A Latin motto, “In cruce vinco,”—“In the cross I conquer,”—completed the emblem. It is probable that the family had been soldiers, not unlikely in a religious war. The wife of Edward Garfield was a fair-haired girl from Germany.—To the brave heart and earnest temper of the Welshman, was added the persistence and reflectiveness of the German mind. Of their immediate descendants, but little can be told. Like the ancestor they were

“To fortune and to fame unknown.”

But they were honest and respected citizens—tillers of the soil—not infrequently holding some local position as selectman or captain of militia. Five of the lineal descendants are said to sleep in the beautiful cemetery in Watertown, “careless alike of sunshine and of storm.”

Tracing the family history down to the stirring and memorable period of the American Revolution, the name which has now become historic emerges from obscurity. The spirit of Puritanism, which had braved the rigors of life in the colonies rather than abate one jot of its intellectual liberty, nourished by hardship and strengthened by misfortune, had been handed down by the law of inheritance through eight peaceful generations. It was the spirit which resented oppression, demanded liberty, and fought for principle till the last dollar was spent, and the last drop of blood was shed in her cause.

We might have calculated on the descendants of the Puritan colonist being in the front of battle from the very outbreak of the War for Independence. It was so. They were there. They were the kind of men to be there. Abraham Garfield, great-uncle of the President, took part in the first real battle of the Revolution, the fight at Concord Bridge, which fixed the status of the Colonies as that of rebellion. On the fourth day after the bloodletting the following affidavit was drawn up and sworn to before a magistrate:

Lexington, April 23, 1775.

“We, John Hoar, John Whithead, Abraham Garfield, Benjamin Munroe, Isaac Parker, William Hosmer, John Adams, Gregory Stone, all of Lincoln, in the County of Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay, all of lawful age, do testify and say, that on Wednesday last, we were assembled at Concord, in the morning of said day, in consequence of information received that a brigade of regular troops were on their march to the said town of Concord, who had killed six men at the town of Lexington. About an hour afterwards we saw them approaching, to the number, as we apprehended, of about 1,200, on which we retreated to a hill about eighty rods back, and the said troops then took possession of the hill where we were first posted. Presently after this we saw the troops moving toward the North Bridge, about one mile from the said Concord meeting-house; we then immediately went before them and passed the bridge, just before a party of them, to the number of about two hundred, arrived; they there left about one-half of their two hundred at the bridge, and proceeded with the rest toward Col. Barrett’s, about two miles from the said bridge; and the troops that were stationed there, observing our approach, marched back over the bridge and then took up some of the planks; we then hastened our march toward the bridge, and when we had got near the bridge they fired on our men, first three guns, one after the other, and then a considerable number more; and then, and not before (having orders from our commanding officers not to fire till we were fired upon), we fired upon the regulars and they retreated. On their retreat through the town of Lexington to Charlestown, they ravaged and destroyed private property, and burnt three houses, one barn, and one shop.”

MOTHER OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

GEN. GARFIELD ADDRESSING THE PEOPLE AT CLEVELAND.

RECEPTION TO GEN. GARFIELD AFTER THE NOMINATION.

The act of signature to that paper was one of the sublimest courage. It identified the leaders of the fight; it admitted and justified the act of firing on the troops of the government! It seemed almost equal to putting the executioner’s noose around their necks. But to such men, life was a feather-weight compared to principle. If the Colonies were to be roused to rebellion and revolution, the truth of that fight at Concord bridge had to be laid before the people, accompanied by proofs that could not be questioned. The patriots not only did the deed but shouldered the responsibility. Of the signers with Abraham Garfield, John Hoar was the great-grandfather of Senator George F. Hoar, presiding officer of the convention which nominated James A. Garfield for the Presidency.

Solomon Garfield, brother of Abraham, and great-grandfather of the subject of this history, had married Sarah Stimpson in 1766, and was living at Weston, Massachusetts, when the war broke out. Little is known of him except that he was a soldier of the Revolution, and came out of the war alive, but impoverished by the loss of his property. He soon moved to Otsego County, New York, where one of his sons, Thomas Garfield, married. It was on the latter’s farm, in December, 1799, that was born Abram Garfield, the ninth lineal descendant of the Puritan, and father of the man whose name and fame are henceforth the heritage of all mankind. Two years after the birth of Abram, his father died suddenly and tragically, leaving his young widow and several children in most adverse circumstances. When about twelve years old, Abram, a stout sun-burnt little fellow, fell in with a playmate two years younger than himself, named Eliza Ballou, also a widow’s child whose mother had recently moved to Worcester, Otsego County, New York, where the Garfields were living. In that childhood friendship lay the germ of a romantic love, of which the fruit was to be more important to men and to history than that of the most splendid nuptials ever negotiated in the courts of kings.

James Ballou, Eliza’s older brother, impatient of the wretched poverty in which they dwelt, persuaded his mother to emigrate to Ohio. The emigrant wagon, with its jaded horses, its muddy white cover, its much jostled load of household articles, and its sad-eyed and forlorn occupants! How the picture rises before the eyes! What a history it tells of poverty and misfortune; of disappointment and hardship; of a wretched home left behind, yet dear to memory because left behind; of a still harder life ahead in the western wilderness toward which it wends its weary way! More showy equipages there have been. The Roman chariot, the English stage-coach, and the palace railway train, have each been taken up and embalmed in literature. But the emigrant wagon, richer in association, closer to the heart-throb, more familiar with tears than smiles, has found no poet who would stoop to the lowly theme. In a few years the emigrant wagon will be a thing of the past, and forgotten; but though we bid it farewell forever, let it have a high place in the American heart and history, as the precursor of our cities and our civilization.

Thus the boy and girl were separated. Abram Garfield was brought up as a “bound boy” by a farmer named Stone. While he was filling the place of chore boy on the New York farm, Eliza Ballou, having something more than an ordinary education, taught a summer school in the Ohio wilderness. It is said that one day, in a terrific storm, a red bolt of lightning shot through the cabin roof, smiting teacher and scholars to the floor, thus breaking up the school. The spirit of tragedy seems to have hovered over her entire life.

Love laughs at difficulties and delays, and in a few years after the Ballou emigration, Abram Garfield, a “stalwart” of the earlier and better kind, tramped his muddy way along the same roads, across the same rivers, and—strange, was it not?—to the very cabin where the emigrant wagon had stopped. Swift flew the shining days of courtship; and Eliza Ballou became Eliza Ballou Garfield, the mother of the President.

Eliza Ballou was a lineal descendant of Maturin Ballou, a French Huguenot, who, about the year 1685, upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, fled from the smiling vineyards of France to the rugged but liberty-giving land of America. Joining the colony of Roger Williams, at Cumberland, Rhode Island, which had adopted for its principle “In civil matters, law; in religious matters, liberty,” he built a queer old church, from the pulpit of which he thundered forth his philippics against religious intolerance. The building still stands, and is a curiosity of architecture. Not a nail was used in its construction. For generation after generation the descendants of this man were eloquent preachers, occupying the very pulpit of their ancestor. Their names are famous. They were men of powerful intellects, thorough culture, and splendid characters. Their posterity has enriched this country with many distinguished lawyers, soldiers, and politicians. They were a superior family from the first, uniting to brilliant minds a spotless integrity, an indomitable energy, and the burning and eloquent gifts of the orator. The best known member of the family is Rev. Hosea Ballou, the founder of the Universalist Church in America, of whom Eliza Ballou was a grand-niece. He was a man of wide intellectual activity, a prolific and powerful writer, and made a marked impress on the thought of his generation.

From this brief view of the ancestry of James A. Garfield, it is easy to see that there was the hereditary preparation for a great man. From the father’s side came great physical power, large bones, big muscles, and an immense brain. From the father’s line also came the heritage of profound conviction, of a lofty and resistless courage, which was ready anywhere to do and die for the truth, and of the exhaustless patience which was the product of ten generations of tilling the soil. On the other hand, the Ballous were small of stature, of brilliant and imaginative minds, of impetuous and energetic temperament, of the finest grain, physically and mentally. They were scholars; people of books and culture, and, above all, they were orators. From them, albeit, came the intellectual equipment of their illustrious descendant. From the mother, Garfield inherited the love of books, the capacity for ideas, the eloquent tongue, and the tireless energy. To the earnest solidity and love of liberty of the Welshman, Edward Garfield, mixed with the reflective thought of the fair-haired German wife, was added the characteristic clearness and vivacity of the French mind.

The trend of Garfield’s mind could not have been other than deeply religious. The Ballous, for ten generations, had been preachers. No man could combine in himself the Puritan and Huguenot without being a true worshiper of God. On the other hand, while Puritans and Huguenots were at first religious sects, their struggles were with the civil power; so that each of them in time became the representative of the deepest political life of their respective nationalities. Through both father and mother, therefore, came a genius for politics and affairs of state; the conservatism of the sturdy Briton being quickened by the radicalism, the genius for reform which belongs to the mercurial Frenchman. From both parents would also come a liberality and breadth of mind, which distinguishes only a few great historic characters. The large, slow moving, good natured Garfields were by temperament far removed from bigotry; while the near ancestor of the mother had been excommunicated from the Baptist Church, because he thought God was merciful enough to save all mankind from the flames of ultimate perdition.

In Garfield’s ancestry there was also a vein of military genius. The coat of arms, the militia captaincy of Benjamin Garfield, the affidavit of Abraham at Concord bridge, are the outcroppings on the father’s side. The mother was a near relative of General Rufus Ingalls; and her brother, for whom the President was named, was a brave soldier in the war of 1812.

These, then, are some of the prophecies which had been spoken of the child that was born in the Garfield cabin in the fall of 1831. Future biographers will, perhaps, make more extended investigations, but we have seen something, in the language of the dead hero himself, “of those latent forces infolded in the spirit of the new-born child; forces that may date back centuries and find their origin in the life and thoughts and deeds of remote ancestors; forces, the germs of which, enveloped in the awful mystery of life, have been transmitted silently from generation to generation, and never perish.” As we pursue his history we will see these various forces cropping out in his career; at one time the scholar, at another, the preacher; at others, the soldier, the orator, or the statesman, but always, always the man.

For two years after the birth of their youngest child James, the lives of Abram and Eliza Garfield flowed on peacefully and hopefully enough. The children were growing; the little farm improving; new settlers were coming in daily; and there began to be much expected from the new system of internal improvements. With happy and not unhopeful hearts they looked forward to a future of comfortable prosperity. But close by the cradle gapes the grave. Every fireside has its tragedy. In one short hour this happy, peaceful life had fled. The fire fiend thrust his torch into the dry forests of north-western Ohio, in the region of the Garfield home. In an instant, the evening sky was red with flame. It was a moment of horror. Sweeping on through the blazing tree-tops with the speed of the wind came the tornado of fire. Destruction seemed at hand, not only of crops and fences, but of barns, houses, stock, and of the people themselves. In this emergency, the neighbors for miles around gathered under the lead of Abram Garfield to battle for all that was near and dear. A plan of work was swiftly formed. Hour after hour they toiled with superhuman effort. Choked and blinded by volumes of smoke, with scorched hands and singed brows, they fought the flames hand to hand till, at last, the current of death was turned aside. The little neighborhood of settlers was saved. But the terrific exertions put forth by Abram Garfield had exhausted him beyond the reach of recuperation. Returning home, from the night of toil, and incautiously exposing himself, he was attacked with congestion of the lungs. Every effort to relieve the sufferer was made by the devoted wife. Every means known to her was used to rally the exhausted vitality, but in vain. Chill followed chill. The vital powers were exhausted, and the life-tide ebbed fast away. In a few hours the rustle of black wings was heard in that lowly home in the wilderness. Calling his young wife to him he whispered, “Eliza, you will soon be alone. We have planted four saplings here in these woods; I leave them to your care.” One last embrace from the grief-stricken wife and children; one more look through the open door at the little clearing and the circling forest, over which the setting sun was throwing its latest rays, and the heroic spirit had departed. Little by little the darkness of the night without came in and mingled with the darkness of the night within.

Though stunned by this appalling calamity, Eliza Ballou Garfield, true to the heroic ancestry from which she sprung, took up the burden of life with invincible courage. The prospect was a hard one. Of the four children, the oldest, Thomas, was ten years of age; the two little girls ranged at seven and four, and the blue-eyed baby, James, had seen only twenty months. On the other hand, the widow’s resources were scanty indeed. The little farm was only begun. To make a farm in a timber country is a life task for the stoutest man. Years and years of arduous toil would be required to fell the timber, burn the stumps, grub out the roots, and fence the fields before it could really be a farm. Worse than this, the place was mortgaged. The little clearing of twenty acres, with the imperfect cultivation which one weak woman, unaided, could give it, had to be depended on, not only to furnish food for herself and the four children, but to pay taxes and interest on the mortgage, and gradually to lessen the principal of the debt itself. The pioneer population of the country was as poor as herself, hardly able to raise sufficient grain for bread, and reduced almost to starvation by the failure of a single crop.

So fearful were the odds against the plucky little widow that her friends pointed out the overwhelming difficulties of the situation, and earnestly advised her to let her children be distributed among the neighbors for bringing up. Firmly but kindly she put aside their well-meant efforts. With invincible courage and an iron will, she said: “My family must not be separated. It is my wish and duty to raise these children myself. No one can care for them like a mother.” It is from such a mother that great men are born. She lost no time in irresolution, but plunged at once into the roughest sort of men’s labor. The wheat-field was only half fenced; the precious harvest which was to be their sustenance through the winter was still ungathered, and would be destroyed by roving cattle, which had been turned loose during the forest fires. The emergency had to be met, and she met it. Finding in the woods some trees, fresh fallen beneath her husband’s glittering ax, she commenced the hard work of splitting rails. At first she succeeded poorly; her hands became blistered, her arms sore, and her heart sick. But with practice she improved. Her small arms learned to swing the maul with a steady stroke. Day by day the worm fence crawled around the wheat field, until the ends met.

The highest heroism is not that which manifests itself in some single great and splendid crisis. It is not found on the battle-field where regiments dash forward upon blazing batteries, and in ten minutes are either conquerors or corpses. It is not seen at the stake of martyrdom, where, for the sake of opinion, men for a few moments endure the unimaginable tortures of the flames. It is not found in the courtly tournaments of the past, where knights, in glittering armor, flung the furious lance of defiance into the face of their foe. Splendid, heroic, are these all. But there is a heroism grander still; it is the heroism which endures, not merely for a moment, but through the hard and bitter toils of a life-time; which, when the inspiration of the crisis has passed away, and weary years of hardship stretch their stony path before tired feet, cheerfully takes up the burden of life, undaunted and undismayed. In all the annals of the brave, who, in all times, have suffered and endured, there is no scene more touching than the picture of this widow toiling for her children.

The annals of this period of life in the Garfield cabin are simple. But biography, when it has for its theme one of the loftiest men that ever lived, loves to busy itself with the details of his childhood and to try to trace in them the indications of future greatness. The picture of that life has been given by the dauntless woman herself. In the spring of the year, the little corn patch was broken up with an old-fashioned wooden plow with an iron share. At first the ox-team was mostly driven by the widow herself, but Tom, the oldest boy, soon learned to divide the labor. The baby was left with his older sister, while the mother and older son worked at the plow, or dragged a heavy tree branch—a primitive harrow—over the clods. When the seed was to be put in, it was by the same hands. The garden, with its precious store of potatoes, beans, and cabbages, came in for no small share of attention, for these were the luxuries of the frugal table. From the first Tom was able largely to attend to the few head of stock on the little place. When a hog was to be killed for curing, some neighbor was given a share to perform the act of slaughter. The mysteries of smoking and curing the various parts were well understood by Mrs. Garfield. At harvest, also, the neighbors would lend a hand, the men helping in the field, and the women at the cabin preparing dinner. Of butter, milk, and eggs, the children always had a good supply, even if the table was in other respects meager. There was a little orchard, planted by the father, which thrived immensely. In a year or two the trees were laden with rosy fruit. Cherries, plums, and apples peeped out from their leafy homes. The gathering was the children’s job, and they made it a merry one.

From the first the Garfield children performed tasks beyond their years. Corn-planting, weed-pulling, potato-digging, and the countless jobs which have to be performed on every farm, were shared by them. The first winter was one of the bitterest privation. The supplies were so scanty that the mother, unobserved by the four hungry little folks, would often give her share of the meal to them. But after the first winter, the bitter edge of poverty wore off. The executive ability of the little widow began to tell on the family affairs. In the following spring, the mortgage on the place was canceled by selling off fifty of the eighty acres. In the absence of money, the mother made exchanges of work—sewing for groceries, spinning for cotton, and washing for shoes. In time, too, the children came to be a valuable help.

But though this life was busy and a hard one, it was not all that occupied the attention of the family. The Garfield cabin had an inner life; a life of thought and love as well as of economy and work. Mrs. Garfield had a head for books as well as business. Her husband and herself had been members of the Church of the Disciples, followers of Alexander Campbell. In her widowhood, for years she and her children never missed a sabbath in attending the church three miles away. If ever there was an earnest, honest Christian, Eliza Garfield was one. A short, cheerful prayer each morning, no matter how early she and the children rose, a word of thankfulness at the beginning of every meal, no matter how meager, and a thoughtful, quiet Bible-reading and prayer at night, formed part of that cabin life. Feeling keenly the poor advantages of the children in the way of education, she told them much of history and the world, and thus around her knee they learned from the loving teacher lessons not taught in any college. When James was five years old, his older sister for awhile carried him on her back to the log school-house, a mile and a half distant, at a place dignified with the name of a village, though it contained only a store, blacksmith shop, and the school. But the school was too far away. The enterprise of Mrs. Garfield was nowhere better shown than in her offering the land, and securing a school-house on her own farm. She was determined on her children having the best education the wilderness afforded, and they had it.

But the four children were strangely different. They had the same ancestry, and the same surroundings. Who could have foretold the wide difference of their destinies? The girls were cheerful, industrious, and loving. They were fair scholars at the country school, and were much thought of in the neighborhood. At a very early age they took from the tired mother’s shoulders a large share of the work of the little household. They carded, spun, wove, and mended the boys’ clothes when they were but children themselves. They beautified the rough little home, and added a cheery joy to its plain surroundings. They were superior to the little society in which they mingled, but not above it. There were apple-parings, corn-huskings, quilting-bees, apple-butter and maple-sugar boilings, in which they were the ringleaders of mischief—romping, cheerful, healthy girls, happy in spite of adversity, ambitious only to make good wives and mothers.

Thomas, the elder brother, was a Garfield out and out. He was a plodding, self-denying, quiet boy, with the tenderest love for his mother, and without an ambition beyond a farmer’s life. When the other children went to school, he staid at home “to work,” he said, “so that the girls and James might get an education.” For himself he “would do without it.” Wise, thoughtful, and patient, he was the fit successor of the generations of Garfields who had held the plow-handle before he was born. Without a complaint, of his own will he worked year after year, denying himself every thing that could help his brother James to education and an ambitious manhood. For from the first, mother and children felt that in the youngest son lay the hope of the family.

James took precociously to books, learning to read early, and knowing the English reader almost by heart at eight years of age. His first experience at the school built on the home farm is worth noting. The seats were hard, the scene new and exciting, and his stout little frame tingled with restrained energy. He squirmed, twisted, writhed, peeped under the seats and over his shoulder; tied his legs in a knot, then untied them; hung his head backwards till the blood almost burst forth, and in a thousand ways manifested his restlessness. Reproofs did no good. At last the well-meaning teacher told James’s mother that nothing could be made of the boy. With tears in her eyes the fond, ambitious mother talked to the little fellow that night in the fire-light. The victory was a triumph of love. The boy returned to school, still restless, but studious as well. At the end of the term he received a copy of the New Testament as a prize for being the best reader in the school. The restlessness, above mentioned, seems to have followed him through life. Sleeping with his brother he would kick the cover off at night, and then say, “Thomas, cover me up.” A military friend relates that, during the civil war, after a day of terrible bloodshed, lying with a distinguished officer, the cover came off in the old way, and he murmured in his sleep, “Thomas, cover me up.” Wakened by the sound of his own voice, he became aware of what he had said; and then, thinking of the old cabin life, and the obscure but tender-hearted brother, General Garfield burst into tears, and wept himself to sleep.

The influences surrounding the first ten or twelve years of life are apt to be underestimated. But it can not be doubted that the lessons of child-life learned in the cabin and on the little farm had more to do with Garfield’s future greatness than all his subsequent education. Like each of his parents, he was left without a father at the age of two years. If any one class of men have more universally risen to prominence than another it has been widow’s sons. The high sense of responsibility, the habits of economy and toil, are a priceless experience. None is to be pitied more than the child of luxury and fortune, and no one suspects his disadvantages less. Hated poverty is, after all, the nursery of greatness. The discipline which would have crushed a weak soul only served to strengthen the rugged and vigorous nature of this boy.

The stories which come down to us of Garfield’s childhood, though not remarkable, show that he was different from the boys around him. He had a restless, aspiring mind, fond of strong food. Every hint of the outside world fascinated him, and roused the most pertinacious curiosity. Yet to this wide-eyed interest in what lay outside of his life this shock-haired, bare-legged boy added an indomitable zeal for work. From dawn to dark he toiled; but whether chopping wood, working in the field or at the barn, it was always with the idea and inspiration that he was “helping mother.” Glorious loyalty of boyhood!

CHAPTER II.
THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.

Socrates.—Alcibiades, what sayest thou that is, passing between us and yon wall?

Alcibiades.—I should call it a thing; some call it a boy.

Soc.—Nay, I call it neither a thing nor a boy, but rather a young man. By Hercules, if I should go further, I should say that that being is a god in embryo!

Alc.—You are my master, Socrates, or I should say that nature would have hard work to hatch a god out of such an object.

Soc.—Most men are fools, Alcibiades, because they are unable to discover in the germ, or even in the growing stalk, the vast possibilities of development. They forget the beauty of growth; and, therefore, they reckon not that nature and discipline are able to make yon boy as one of the immortals.

So the child James Garfield advanced into the golden age of boyhood. This period we will now briefly live over after him. Spring time deepens into early summer; the branches and the leaves are swollen with life’s young sap; what manner of fruit will this growing tree offer the creative sun to work upon?

The young lad, in whom our interest centers, was now, in the autumn of 1843, twelve years old, when something new came into his life, and gave to him his first definite and well-fixed purpose. He had always, and by nature, been industrious. In that little farm home, where poverty strove continually to carry the day against the combined forces of industry and economy, no service was without its value. And, therefore, it had doubtless been a delight to all in that narrow circle to observe in James the qualities of a good worker. He seemed a true child of that wonderful western country which is yet so young, and so able to turn its energies to advantage in every available way. So, while still too young to “make a hand” at anything, James had found his place wherever there was demand for such light duties as he was able to perform. At field, barn or cabin, in garden or in kitchen, place there was none where the little fellow’s powers were not exercised. Instinct with forces larger than his frame, development of them was inevitable.

GARFIELD AT SIXTEEN.

But now a great event in the family took place. Thomas, who had just attained his majority, had returned from a trip to Michigan with a sum of ready money, and wanted to build his mother a new house. Life in the cabin had, in his estimation, been endured long enough. Some of the materials for a frame building were already accumulated, and under the directions of a carpenter the work was begun and rapidly pushed to completion. In all these proceedings James took an intense interest, and developed such a liking for tools and timber as could but signify a member of the Builders’ Guild. He resolved to be a carpenter; and from this day on was never for a moment without an object in life.

The ambition to “be something” took many different turns, but was a force which, once created, could never be put down. The care and skill requisite to putting a house together, fitting the rafters into place, and joining part to part with mathematical precision, gave him an idea that these things were of a higher order than farm labor. Plain digging would no longer do; there must be a better chance to contrive something, to conjure up plans and ways and means in the brain, and show forth ideas by the skill of the hand. Consequently a variety of tools began to accumulate about James Garfield. There was a corner somewhere which, in imitation of the great carpenter who built their house, he called his “shop;” a rough bench, perhaps, with a few planes, and mallets, and chisels, and saws, and the like, to help in mending the gates and doors about the place. No independent farm can get along without such help, and of course these services were in constant demand.

The dexterity thus acquired soon led to earnings abroad. The first money Garfield ever received in this way was one dollar, which the village carpenter paid him for planing a hundred boards at a cent apiece. His active and earnest performance of every duty brought him plenty of offers, and between the ages of twelve and fifteen years he helped to put up a number of buildings in that district of country, some of which are standing to this day.

Thus this young life passed away the precious time of the early teens. Work and study; study and work. Hands and feet, marrow and muscle, all steadily engaged in the rugged discipline of labor, battling with nature for subsistence. But time rolls on; childhood fast recedes from that glory from the other side which fringes the dawn; and, as we move on, every rising sun wakes up a new idea. While our young friend gave his attention and strength to industry, his imagination began to live in a new world. He had been to school, and still went a few months each year; and the following incident will indicate what a good-hearted, bright school-boy he was. There was a spelling-match in the little log school-house, in which James, who was thirteen years old, took part. The teacher told the scholars that if they whispered she would send them home. The lad standing next to James got confused, and to help him James told him how to spell the word. The teacher saw this, and said: “James, you know the rule; you must go home.” James picked up his cap and left. In a very few seconds he returned and took his place in the class. “Why, how is this, James? I told you to go home,” said his teacher. “I know it, and I went home,” said James.

But the log school-house, with its mystery of the three R’s, was not sufficient. James was one of the boys who are born to the love of books. Whatever had an intelligent aspect, whatever thing had the color and glow of an idea, was by nature attractive to his mind, and this he sought with eagerness and zeal. Therefore, even before the boy could read, his mother had read to him; and afterwards winter evening and leisure summer hour alike went swiftly by. The scholar in him hungered for the scholar’s meat and drink; which means books, and books, and never enough of them.

These people did not have many volumes, but they used them only the more, and knew them the better. Among them all, first in their affections, was the Bible. The woman, whose staff at eighty, when bowed down under the great sorrow, was the Everlasting Word, loved the Bible in her youth, and led her children to it as to a fountain of pure water. Thus James early acquired some knowledge of the old Bible stories, and it is said was somewhat fond of showing his superior learning. This he did by asking his little friends profound questions, such as: “Who slew Absalom?” “What cities were destroyed with fire and brimstone from the sky?” And when all had professed ignorance, he would invite their admiration by a revelation of the facts.

At this period of time, however, it is likely that his lively imagination was more vividly impressed with two or three other books which had found their places on the book-shelf of the house—books of adventure, with their thrilling scenes, their deeds of danger, dashing and gallant. And accordingly it is related that about this time James Garfield became deeply interested in the life of Napoleon, as told by Grimshaw. How eagerly he must have followed out the magical story of that wonderful career of glory and blood through all its varied windings; seeing first a young Corsican lieutenant on the road to Paris, by sudden and brilliant successes rising quickly, step by step, but ever on the run, to be First Consul of the new French Republic, and then Emperor. Austerlitz, its carnage, its awful crisis, and its splendid victory; the terrible Russian campaign, with the untold horrors of that memorable retreat before the fierce troops of Cossack riders; on, and ever on through the changing fields of bright transfigurations and the Cimmerian darkness of defeat, down to the fell catastrophe at Waterloo,—and young Garfield lived and moved in it all, like an old soldier of the Imperial Legion. Another brave old book he knew was a “Life of Marion,” which had the added interest of telling the story of our own first great struggle for liberty. No wonder then, that, with such food for wild fancies as these at hand, James felt in his veins the hot blood of a martial hero, and resolved aloud, before his laughing relatives, that he meant to “be a soldier, and win great battles, as Napoleon did.”

But the smoke of battle was yet afar off. So on flew the winter days and nights at more than lightning speed, in hours of work and school, books and dreams, and all the myriad modes and moods of human life. So, too, passed the summer time, whose busy labors preserved the family from want. Our young farmer and carpenter kept ever at the post of duty. Pressed by necessity from without, moved from within by the growing restlessness of a spirit which fed on stories of adventure, a nervous and ceaseless activity pushed him steadily forward to the new experiences which only waited for his coming. Another motive, more to the credit of his goodness of heart, which kept James busy, was that deathless love for his mother which, from the beginning, was the chief fountain of all good in his life. He knew how the faithful widow had lived and worked only for her children; that her hopes were bound up in their fortunes; and he determined that, as for him, she should not be disappointed. With this high purpose in mind, he worked on,—worked on the farm, labored on the neighboring farms, exercised his carpentering skill in country and in village, till his friends proudly said: “James Garfield is the most industrious boy in his neighborhood; there is not a lazy hair on his head.”

When about fifteen years old, in the course of his trade, he was called on to assist in the building of an addition to a house, for a man who lived several miles away from the home farm. This man, whose business was that of a “black-salter,” noticed the peculiar activity and ingenuity displayed by James in his work, and took a liking to him. Being in need of such a person, he offered him his board and fourteen dollars a month to stay with him, help in the saltery, and superintend the financial part of the concern. After some meditation, and a consultation on the subject at home, James accepted the offer. This was against the judgment of Mrs. Garfield, whose advice was, at least, always respectfully heard, though not always followed. In this business he succeeded well, and was expected, by his employer, to make a first-class salter. But the spirit of adventure again revived in him. There came a new book, and a new epoch, and the old wish to become an American Napoleon took a fresh turn. He saw no way to be a soldier. The peaceful progress of the Ohio country, fast developing in agriculture and its attendant industries, did not offer very good opportunity for a great campaign, and military leadership was, therefore, not in demand.

In this unfortunate conjuncture of civil surroundings with uncivil ambitions, James began to read books about the sea. “Jack Halyard” took the place of General Marion; white sails began to spread themselves in his brain; the story of Nelson and Trafalgar, and the like men and things began to take shape in his thought as the central facts of history; and a life on the ocean wave hung aloft before him as the summit of every aspiration worth a moment’s entertainment. Through all these notions we can see only a reflection of the books he read. Give a child its first look at the world through blue spectacles, and the world will be blue to the child; give a boy his first ideas of the world beyond his neighborhood by means of soldiers and navies, and he will be soldier and sailor at once. James was now approaching the age of sixteen years. New force was added to the sea-fever by a work named “The Pirate’s Own Book.” New tales of adventure stirred his blood; he could even sympathize with the triumphs of a bold buccaneer, and with the Corsair sing:

“Oh! who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,

And danced in triumph o’er the waters wide,

The exulting sense, the pulse’s maddening play,

That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?”

While in this brittle state of mind no great provocation would he need to produce a break with the black-salter. Accordingly, an insult, which soon offered, led to a scene and a departure. Some member of the family alluded to James as a “servant.” In an instant his warm blood rose to fever heat; he refused to stay another hour where such things could be said of him. The employer’s stock of eloquence was too small to change the fiery youth’s mind; and that night he slept again beneath his mother’s roof.

Hitherto the forces and facts which rested in and about James A. Garfield had kept him near home; the outward tending movement now became powerful, and struggled for control. With the passion for the sea at its height, he began to consider the situation. At home was the dear mother with her great longing that he should love books, go to school, and become a man among men, educated, a leader, and peer of the best in character and intellect. And how could he leave her? The struggle for life had not yet become easy on the farm, and his absence would be felt. “Leave us not,” pleads the home. “The sea, land-lubber, the wide, free ocean,” says the buccaneer within. At this point, while he reflected at home on these things, being out of employment, a new incident occurred.

Our young friend had now acquired something more than the average strength of a full-grown man. Born of a hardy race, constant exercise of so many kinds was giving him extraordinary physical power. So he felt equal to the opportunity which offered itself, and became a wood-chopper. Twenty-five cords of wood were rapidly cut for a reward of seven dollars. The place where this was done was near Newburg, a small town close to Cleveland. During this time his mother hoped and prayed that the previous intention of her son, to go to the lake and become a sailor, would weaken, and that he would be led to remain at home; but fate decreed otherwise. The scene of his wood-cutting exploit was close to the lake shore, where the vessels passed at every hour. The excitement within him, as each sail went out beyond the horizon, never ceased. The story never grew old. The pirate had not died, but still plotted for plunder, and hungered for black flags, cutlasses and blood. No doubt Garfield would have been a good-hearted corsair—one of the generous fellows who plundered Spanish galleons just because their gain had been ill-gotten; who spared the lives and restored the money of the innocent, gave no quarter to the real villains, and never let a fair woman go unrescued.

Returning home from Newburg to see his mother, she persuaded him to remain a while longer. Harvest-time would soon approach, and his services were needed on the farm. Of course, he stayed; helped them through the season, and even spent some extra time working for a neighbor. But the facts of a boy’s future sometimes can not be changed by circumstances. A firm-set resolve may be hindered long, but not forever. James Garfield had set his head to be a sailor, and a sailor he would be. Farming was a very good business, no doubt, and just the thing for the brother Thomas, but by no means suited to a young salt like himself.

Now, bright blue waves of Erie, dash against your shores with glee, and rise to meet your coming conqueror! The last family prayer was uttered, the good-bye kiss was given; and mother Garfield stood in the low doorway, peering out through the mists of morning, to catch a last glimpse of the boy who has just received her parting blessing. The story of that memorable time is already well known. With a bundle of clothes on a stick, thrown across his sturdy shoulder, he trudged along, sometimes wearily, but always cheerily, bound for the harbor of Cleveland. The way was probably void of noteworthy incidents; and, with his thoughts all absorbed on what he believed to be his coming experiences on deck, he arrived at Cleveland. It was an evening in July of 1848. The next morning, after due refreshment and a walk about the city, being determined on an immediate employment, he lost no more time in hastening toward the rolling deep. Boarding the only vessel in port at the time, he strolled about and waited for the appearance of his intended captain. The experience of that hour was never forgotten. Garfield’s ideas of a sailor had thus far chiefly come out of books, and Jack, as a swearing tar, he was not prepared to meet. Presently a confused sound came up from the hold, first faintly muttering, then swelling in volume as it came nearer and nearer. Uncertainty about the matter soon ceased, however, as the “noble captain’s” head appeared, from which were issuing rapid volleys of oaths, fired into space, probably, as a salute to the glorious god of day. Rough in looks, rude in manners, a coarse and petty tyrant on the water, and a drunkard both there and on land, this bloated individual was not the one to greet a green and awkward boy with soft words. Glad to see a new object for his hitherto objectless oaths, he inquired Garfield’s business there, in language not well shaped to courtesy nor kindness. The offer of his services was made, however, as James was not disposed to back out of any thing; but he was informed that they had no use for him, and obliged to retire in confusion, amid the continued curses of a magnanimous commander, and the profane laughter of an uncouth group of the commanded.

At this moment of time the reader will pause to reflect and consider on what a delicate balance hangs the history of the world, and the men who make the world. “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” The results of that day’s experience at Cleveland are written in every public event that ever felt the force of Garfield’s molding influence.

Senates owed a name which raised their reputation, armies owed their victories to the drunken vulgarity of an Erie captain! That was Garfield’s first day in Cleveland. You who know the future, which has now become the past, think, and compare it with his last day there!

Having beat an inglorious retreat from the lake, James was now forced to confront a new and unexpected difficulty. First, he became sensible that his treatment there had probably arisen principally from his rustic appearance; and the notion came close behind that the same scene was liable to be enacted if he should try again. He had plenty of pluck, but also a good stock of prudence. Go home he would not, at least till he had by some means conquered defeat. “What shall I do next?” he muttered as he sauntered along. He had already learned, by inquiries in town during the day, that work there would be difficult to get. In this perplexity, as in every doubtful situation in the world, when difficulties are met by determination, a clear way out came to him. The problem was solved thus: “I’m going to be a sailor. But the ocean is too far away, and I must make my way there by lake, meanwhile learning what I can about the business. But I can’t go on the lake now,—and there’s nothing left me but the muddy canal. I will go first by way of the canal, meanwhile learning what I can about the business.” To the canal he turned his tired steps.

It was the old Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal; and he found, by rare good fortune, a boat ready to start, and in need of a driver. The captain of this less ambitious navigating affair proved to be not quite so rich in profanity, but more wealthy in good-natured sympathy; his name was Amos Letcher, and he was Garfield’s cousin. To this man James told the story of his experience thus far, and asked employment on the boat. The result was a contract to drive mules. Letcher became much interested in his young friend, and is authority for some good stories about this “voyage.”

When the time came to start, the Evening Star was brought up to the first lock, and after some delay got through. On the other side waited the mule-team and its impatient driver, who was eager for the trip to begin. In a few hours he would be farther from home than ever in his life before, traveling a path which led he knew not whither. Practically, they were bound for Pittsburgh. To his imagination, it was a trip around the world. So the whip was flourished triumphantly, and this circumnavigation committee of one was on his way.

Directly a boat approached from the opposite direction. Jim bungled, in his excitement, and got his lines tangled. While he stopped to get things straight, the boat came up even with him, leaving the tow-line slack for several yards. Eased of their load, the mules trotted on quickly to the extent of the line, when, with a sudden jerk, the boat caught on a bridge they were passing, and team, driver, and all were in the canal.

The boy, however, was not disconcerted, but climbed out, and, amid loud laughter from those on board, proceeded coolly along as if it had been a regular morning bath.

The rough men of the canal were fond of a fight, and always ready at fisticuffs. One of the most frequent occasions of these difficulties was at the locks, where but one boat could pass at a time. When two boats were approaching from opposite directions each always tried to get there first, so as to have the right to go through before the other. This was a prolific source of trouble.

As the Evening Star approached lock twenty-one at Akron, one of these scenes was threatened. An opposite boat came up just as Letcher was about to turn the lock for his own. The other got in first. Letcher’s men all sprang out for a fight. Just then Jim walked up to the captain and said, “Does the right belong to us?” “No, I guess not; but we’ve started in for it, and we are going to have it anyhow.” “No, sir,” said Garfield. “I say we will not have it. I will not fight to keep them out of their rights.” This brought the captain to his senses, and he ordered his men to give room for the enemy to pass.

There was half-mutiny on board that night, and many uncomplimentary remarks about the young driver. He was a coward, they said. Was he a coward? Or simply a just, fair-minded youth, and as brave as any of them? He made up his mind to show them which he was, when a good time came.

The captain had defended Jim from these accusations of the men, for a reason unknown to them. The boy had whipped him before they came to Akron. It was after a change of teams, and Jim was on the boat. Letcher was a self-confident young man, who had recently been a school teacher in Steuben County, Indiana, and felt as if all knowledge was his province. He had made all his men revere him for his learning, and now was the time to overwhelm the new driver.

So, sitting down near where the lad was resting, he said: “Jim, I believe you have been to school some, and as I have not heard a class lately, I will ask you some questions to see where you are, if you don’t care.”

GARFIELD ON THE TOW-PATH.

James assented. Pedagogue Letcher thought his time had come; he searched out witty inventions; he asked deep questions; he would open this youngling’s eyes. The examination did not last long, for all questions were quickly answered, and the quizzer ran out of materials; his stock of puzzlers was exhausted.

Then the tables turned. The tailor was out-tailored in three minutes, for in that time James had asked him seven questions which he could not answer. Hence the captain’s allowance for the boy’s refusal to fight. Letcher knew enough to appreciate the reason.

The Evening Star had a long trip before her, as the present load consisted of copper ore consigned to Pittsburgh. This ore came down to Cleveland first in schooners from Lake Superior, where those great treasuries of ore, which still seem inexhaustible, were at that time just beginning to become important interests. The habit of the canal-boatmen was to take up the copper at Cleveland, carry it to Pittsburgh, and bring back loads of coal. Garfield’s first experience here must have given him new ideas of the growing industries of his country. This constant and immense carrying trade between distant places indicated the play of grand forces; these great iron foundries and factories at Pittsburgh betokened millions of active capital, thousands of skilled workmen, and fast-increasing cities abounding in wonders and in wealth. Whatever the immediate result of Garfield’s canal life might have been, whether the boatmen had voted him coward or general, one fact must have remained—the mental stimulus imparted from these things which he had seen. Then must have dawned upon him for the first time a sense of the unmeasured possibilities which lay before his own country. Tramp, tramp the mules; lock after lock has been left behind, each turn bringing a new landscape, and the young driver pushed bravely on, self-reliant, patient, and popular with all the men. For these rough comrades liked him from the first as a pleasant fellow, and soon admired him as well. Opportunity came to him on the way to prove himself their equal in fighting qualities, and more than their equal in generosity. The occasion was one the like of which he often knew, where he came off victor with the odds favoring his enemies. At Beaver, from a point where the boats were towed up to Pittsburgh by steamboat, the Evening Star was about to be taken in. As Garfield stood in the bow of the boat, a burly Irishman, named Dave Murphy, who stood a few feet behind, was accidentally struck by a flying piece of rope from the steamer, which had evaded Garfield and gone over his head. No harm was done, but Murphy was a bully who saw here a good chance for a fight. He was thirty-five years old, Garfield sixteen. Turning on the boy in a towering rage, he aimed a blow with all his strength. But as sometimes occurs to men with more brawn than brains, he soon discovered that in this case Providence was not “on the side of the heavy battalions.” By a dexterous motion James eluded his antagonist, at the same instant planting a blow behind the fellow’s ear which sent him spinning into the bottom of the boat. Before the man could recover, his young antagonist held him down by the throat. The boatmen cheered the boy on; according to their rules of pugilism, satisfaction was not complete till a man’s features were pounded to a jelly. “Give him a full dose, Jim;” “Rah fer Garfield!” The two men arise; what does this mean? The Murphy face has not been disfigured; the Murphy nose bleeds not! Slowly the astonished men take in a new fact. Generosity has won the day, and brutality itself has been vanquished before their eyes. From that hour James became one of the heroes of the tow-path; and the day he left it was a day of regret to all his new acquaintances there.

On the way back from Pittsburgh a vacancy occurred on deck; Garfield was promoted to the more responsible position of bowman, and the mules found a new master. So the ocean drew one step nearer; this was not exactly the sea, of course, but after all it was a little more like sailing. Up and down the narrow course, following all its windings, the Evening Star pursued its way without serious accident, and James Garfield stood at the bow till November of 1848. Then came a change. New things were preparing for him, and all unknown to him old things were passing away. The mother at home still watched for her boy; the mother at home still prayed for her son, and yearned for a fulfillment of her steadfast desire that he should be such a man as she had begun to dream of him when he was a little child. An accident now brought him home to her. The position of bowman on the Evening Star was rather an unsafe one. The place where James stood was narrow and often slippery, and, in a brief period of time, he had fallen into the water fourteen times. The last immersion chanced in the following manner: One night as the boat approached a lock the bowman was hastily awakened, and tumbled out half asleep to attend to his duty. Uncoiling a rope which was to assist in steadying the boat through, he lost his balance, and in a second found himself in a now familiar place at the bottom of the canal. The night was dark, and no help near. Struggling about, his hand accidentally clutched a section of the rope which had gone over with him. Now, James, pull for your life, hand over hand; fight for yourself, fight for another visit to home and mother. Strength began to fail. The rope slid off; swim he could not. Jerk, jerk; the rope has caught. Pulling away with a will, he climbed back to his place, and found that he had been saved by a splinter in a plank in which the rope had caught by a knot.

Such a narrow escape might well stir up the most lethargic brain to new and strange reflections; but to the active intellect and bright imagination of James A. Garfield it brought a profound impression, a fresh resolution and a new sphere of action. He saw himself rescued by a chance which might have failed him a thousand times. Might not this be in answer to a mother’s prayer? Was it possible that he had been saved for some better fortune than his present life promised? He recalled the vague ambitions which had at times stirred him for a career of usefulness, such as he knew his mother had in mind for him.

When the boat neared home again, James bade good-bye to the Evening Star. Now, farewell visions of the Atlantic; farewell swearing captain of the lake; farewell raging canal, for this sailor lad is lost to you forever. The romantic element of his character indeed was not destroyed, as it never could be; nor was the glamour of the sea quite gone. It would take the winter of sickness which was before him to remove all nautical aspirations. Arriving before the old gate one night while the stars were out in all their glory, he softly raised the latch, and walked up to the house. Never was happier mother than greeted him at that door. Mrs. Garfield felt that her triumph was now at hand; and set herself to secure it at once.

Four hard months of life on and in the canal had told heavily on the young man’s constitution. Four months more ague and fever held him fast; four months more he longed in vain for the vigor of health. During this dreary time one voice above all others comforted, cheered, and swayed his drooping spirits, and helped him back to a contented mood. In conversation and in song, the mother was his chief entertainer. Indeed, Mrs. Garfield had not only a singing voice of splendid quality, but also knew a marvelous number of songs; and James said, later in life, that he believed she could have sung many more songs consecutively, from memory, than her physical powers would have permitted. Songs in every kind of humor,—ballads, war songs (especially of 1812) and hymns with their sacred melody—these she had at command in exhaustless stores. And we may be sure that such sweet skill was not without its power on her children. That voice had been the dearest music James ever heard in childhood, and his ear was well fitted to its every tone; escape from its power was hopeless now if he had even wished it so.

Meanwhile the past receded, and new plans for the future were unfolding. It is interesting to notice how smoothly, and all unknown to ourselves, we sometimes pass over the lines which mark the periods of our lives. The manner of Garfield’s present experience was no exception to the rule.

Samuel D. Bates was a young man, not many years older than James A. Garfield. He was a good scholar, and had been attending a place called “Geauga Seminary,” which had grown up in the adjoining county. This winter he had taken the school on the Garfield farm, expecting to save some money and return to Geauga. With his head full of these ideas, he met Garfield, and soon had the latter interested in his plans. When the time came for the next term to begin, James was well again, and his mother and Bates proposed that he should go also. He thought the subject over carefully, but was still uncertain what to do. He was not sure of his capacity to turn an education to account, and did not wish to spoil a good carpenter for the sake of a bad professor or preacher. Before making a final decision, he therefore did a characteristically sensible thing. Dr. J. P. Robison was a physician of Bedford, a man well known for good judgment and skill in his profession. One day he was visited by an awkward country lad, who asked a private conversation with him, and, that favor being granted, said to him: “My name is James Garfield. My home is at Orange. Hitherto I have acquired only the rudiments of an education, and but a scanty knowledge of books. But, at this time, I have taken up the notion of getting an education, and, before beginning, I want to know what I have to count on. You are a physician, and know men well. Examine me, and say plainly whether you think I will be able to succeed.”

This frank speech was rewarded by as fair an answer. The physician sounded him well, as to both body and mind, and ended with an opinion which summed up in about this fashion: “You are well fitted to follow your ambition as far as you are pleased to go. Your brain is large and good; your physique is adapted to hard work. Go ahead, and you are sure to succeed.”

This settled the question at once and forever. Garfield the student, the thinker, the teacher, the preacher, and the statesman, are all included in this new direction, and time alone is wanting to reveal them to himself and to the world.

Geauga Seminary was situated at a place called Chester, in Geauga County. The faculty consisted of three men and as many women. They were: Daniel Branch and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Coffin, Mr. Bigelow, and Miss Abigail Curtis. In the second year of Garfield’s attendance, Mr. and Mrs. Branch retired, and were succeeded by Mr. Fowler and Mr. Beach. The students were about one hundred in number, and of both sexes. There was a library of one hundred and fifty volumes, and a literary society, which offered a chance for practice in writing and speaking. Knowing these facts, and that the seminary offered the advantages common to many such institutions, we know the circumstances under which Garfield began that course of studies which, in seven years, graduated him with honor from an Eastern college.

There went with him to Chester two other friends besides Bates—one his cousin, William Boynton, the other a lad named Orrin H. Judd. These three being all poor boys, they arranged to live cheaply. Garfield himself had only seventeen dollars, which Thomas and his mother had saved for him to begin on; and he expected to make that go a long way by working at his old carpenter trade at odd hours, as well as by economy in spending money. So the trio kept “bachelors’ hall” in a rough shanty, which they fitted up with some articles brought from home; and a poor woman near by cooked their meals for some paltry sum.

There came a time when even this kind of life was thought extravagant. Garfield had read an autobiography of Henry C. Wright, who related a tale about supporting life on bread and crackers. So they dismissed their French cook, and did the work themselves. This did not last long, but it showed them what they could do.

“What tho’ on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoddin gray, and a’ that;

Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine,

A man’s a man for a’ that!”

Life at college on such a scale as this lacks polish, but may contain power. The labors which James A. Garfield performed at this academy, in the one term, from his arrival on March 6, 1849, to the end, were probably more than equal to the four years’ studies of many a college graduate. He never forgot a moment the purpose for which he was there. Every recitation found his work well done; every meeting of the literary society knew his presence and heard his voice. The library was his favorite corner of the building. A new world was to be conquered in every science, a new country in every language. Thus a year passed, and Garfield’s first term at Geauga was ended. During the summer vacation he was constantly busy; first he helped his brother to build a barn at home, then turned back for a season to his old business as a wood-cutter, and then worked in the harvest-field. About the latter a good story remains to us. With two well-grown, but young, school-fellows, James applied to a farmer who needed more hands, asking employment. The farmer thought them rather too young for the business; but, as they offered to work for “whatever he thought right,” he agreed, thinking it would not be much. But they had swung the scythe before, and soon made it a warm task for the other men to keep even with them. The old man looked on in mute admiration for a while, and finally said to the beaten men: “You fellows had better look to your laurels; them boys are a beatin’ ye all holler.” The men, thus incited to do their best, worked hard; but they had begun a losing battle, and the Garfield crowd kept its advantage. When settling time came round, these “boys” were paid men’s full wages.

Having, in these ways, saved enough money to begin on, James began the fall term at Geauga. Here he still pursued the same plan of alternate work and study, inching along the best he could. His boarding accommodations were furnished by a family named Stiles, for one dollar and six cents a week. The landlady, Mrs. Stiles, is made responsible for a story which illustrates how nearly penniless James was all this time. He had only one suit of clothes, and no underclothing. But toward the end of the term, his well-worn pantaloons split at the knee, as he bent over one day, and the result was a rent of appalling proportions, which the pin, with which he tried to mend matters, failed to conceal. Mrs. Stiles kindly undertook to assist him out of his trouble while he was asleep that night. But the time soon came when, though still poor, Garfield was beyond danger of being put in such straights again. For, even before the time came to go home again, he had paid his expenses and purchased a few books. One piece of work which he did at this time was to plane all the boards for the siding of a house, being paid two cents a board.

About the first of November James applied for an examination, and received a certificate of fitness to teach school. One whole year was gone since the sea-vision vanished, and his means for support in the new life had been made chiefly by the unaided force of his own tough muscles. Enough capital of a new kind had now accumulated to become productive, and he determined, for the future, to make money out of the knowledge in his head, as well as out of the strength and skill of his arm. The time for opening the country schools was come, and the young man made several applications to school trustees near his home, but found no place where he was wanted. Returning home discouraged, he found that an offer was waiting for him. He took the contract to teach the Ledge school, near by, for twelve dollars a month and board.

This school was one of those unfortunate seats of learning so often found in rural districts, where teachers are habitually ousted each term by the big boy terrible. For James Garfield, not yet quite eighteen years old, this would be a trying situation, but we already know enough about him to feel confident that he can not easily be put down. His difficulties were, however, peculiarly great; for, though a prophet, he was in his own country, and the scholars were not likely to be forward in showing respect to “Jim Gaffil.” It was the old story, which many a man who has taught country school can parallel in his own experience. First came insubordination, then correction, then more fight, followed by a signal victory, and at last Master Garfield was master of the situation. Then came success, his reward for hard study and hard blows. The Ledge prospered, its teacher became popular; and, when the time came to close, he did so, satisfied with himself, and possessor of a neat little sum of money.

Garfield went back to Geauga that year as planned. Early in 1851 he had his first ride on a railroad train. Taking passage on a train of the Cleveland and Columbus road, then new, he went, with his mother, to Columbus. There the representative to the legislature from Geauga County, Gamaliel Kent, kindly showed him the sights of the capital; from there they went to Zanesville, and then down the Muskingum, eighteen miles, to visit some relatives. There James is said to have taught a short term of school before he returned home again; after this came the renewal of school-days at Chester; and so progressing, we may end by saying that James managed to support himself at Chester for somewhat over two years, and to save a little money to begin on when he moved a step higher. We have been thus minute in relating these incidents only because they best show the stuff that was in this heroic young fellow, and he can have no better eulogy.

Now, what were some of the elements of Garfield’s mental development at this period? During the first term he had revived the rusty recollections of his early acquirements, and pursued arithmetic, algebra, grammar, and natural philosophy; afterwards came more of the regular academic studies, including the rudiments of Latin and Greek; he also studied botany, and collected a good herbarium. Every step had been carefully taken, and his mind was becoming accustomed to close thinking. Probably his first political impressions of importance were at this time being made, but we have no record of any opinions formed by him at that time on the subjects which then made political affairs interesting.

At the end of the first term in Chester, the literary society gave a public entertainment; on that occasion James made a speech, which is referred to in the diary he kept at that time, with this comment: “I was very much scared, and very glad of a short curtain across the platform that hid my shaking legs from the audience.” Soon afterwards, he took some elocution lessons, which is evidence of the fact that he began to think of making some figure as a public speaker.

While Garfield taught the Ledge school another change had come to him. The old log school-house on his mother’s farm was used regularly as a church, where a good old man, eloquent and earnest in his devotion to religion, ministered to the little congregation of “Disciples” who assembled to hear him. Recent events, and serious thinking, had predisposed James to listen with a willing ear, and he began to feel drawn back again to the simple faith of childhood which had been taught him by his mother. The sect, of which his family were all members, were followers of a new religious leader. Alexander Campbell is a name familiar to all the present generation of older men. At a time of furious disputation on religious subjects, Campbell was one of the ablest of controversialists. First, a Presbyterian preacher, he had rejected the Confession of Faith, and founded a new church, called the “Disciples of Christ,” whose only written creed was the Bible. Gifted with a proselyting spirit, he soon saw his one society spread and grow into a multitude, so that soon not Virginia alone, but many surrounding States were included in the religious territory of the “Disciples,” called sometimes the “Campbellites.” It was one of this man’s followers and preachers who now attracted Garfield. Their fundamentals of belief have been summed up thus:

1. We call ourselves Christians or Disciples.

2. We believe in God the Father.

3. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and our only Savior. We regard the divinity of Christ as the fundamental truth in the Christian system.

4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, both as to its agency in conversion and as an indweller in the heart of the Christian.

5. We accept both the Old and New Testament Scriptures as the inspired Word of God.

6. We believe in the future punishment of the wicked and the future reward of the righteous.

7. We believe that Deity is a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.

8. We observe the institution of the Lord’s Supper on every Lord’s Day. To this table it is our practice neither to invite nor debar. We say it is the Lord’s Supper for all the Lord’s children.

9. We plead for the union of all God’s people on the Bible, and the Bible alone.

10. The Bible is our only creed.

11. We maintain that all the ordinances of the Gospel should be observed as they were in the days of the Apostles.

Aside from its adherence to the Bible, this organization did not have or profess to have any thing in the way of creed to attract a fervid young man to its acceptance.

Garfield was a man of susceptibility to influences; and peculiarly to those of religion. Nature prepared him for it, and his early influences led to it. The “wild-oats” had been sown, and the prodigal was ready to return. In March, 1850, he joined the Church, and at once became an enthusiastic worker for its interests. How this new connection came to have a potent influence in the shaping and development of his progress, will constantly appear as we observe the next few years of his life.

Garfield was always interested in any cause which still had its place to make in the world; for in that particular it would be like himself. He joined a young church; the first school he went to was a new one, as was also the second. He joined the Republican party before that party had ever won a national victory.

In 1851, Garfield thought he had about exhausted the advantages of Geauga, and he began to seek “fresh scenes and pastures new.” We ourselves can not do better than to take leave of that secluded spot, summing up our hero’s life there in these his own words: “I remember with great satisfaction the work which was done for me at Chester. It marked the most decisive change in my life. While there I formed a definite purpose and plan to complete a college course. It is a great point gained, when a young man makes up his mind to devote several years to the accomplishment of a definite work. With the educational facilities now afforded in our country, no young man, who has good health and is master of his own actions, can be excused for not obtaining a good education. Poverty is very inconvenient, but it is a fine spur to activity, and may be made a rich blessing.”

Alexander Campbell was not merely a zealous propagandist of religious opinions; he was an organizer of religious forces. Among these forces, education stands in the first rank. Understanding this fact, Campbell himself founded a college at Bethany, West Virginia,—then Virginia,—of which he was President until he died. Following their leader in this liberal spirit, the Disciples had established schools and colleges wherever they were able. Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, was a settlement where the new sect was numerous, and here, in 1850, was erected the first building of what is now widely known as Hiram College, but was then called the Eclectic Institute. It was toward this place that in the fall of that year James A. Garfield turned. A somewhat advanced course of study was promised, and he resolved to go there and prepare for college. Arriving there in time to begin with the first classes, he looked about as usual for something to do. One evening the trustees were in executive session, when a knock was heard at their door. The intruder was admitted. He was a tall, muscular young man, scarcely twenty years old, unpolished in appearance, and carrying himself awkwardly, but withal in a strikingly straightforward manner.

“Well, sir, what is your business with us?”

In firm, clear tones the answer came: “Gentlemen, I have come here from my home in Orange. I have been two years at Geauga Seminary, and am here to continue my work. Being the son of a widow, who is poor, I must work my way along; and I ask to be made your janitor.” Some hesitation was visible in the faces of the trustees, and he added: “Try me two weeks, and if you are not satisfied I will quit.”

The offer was accepted, and James A. Garfield again found himself a rich man; rich in opportunities, rich in health, rich in having some way, though a humble one, to support himself through another period of magnificent mental growth. His inflexible rule was to do every thing which fell in his way to do, and do all things well. Before the term was far gone, the entire school had become interested in him. With a pleasant word for every one, always more than willing to do a favor, earnest, frank, and a ready laugher, nobody could be more popular than Garfield. In a short time one of the teachers of Science and English, became ill, and Garfield was chosen to fill the temporary vacancy. This duty was so faithfully performed that some of the classes were continued to him, and so he was never without from three to six classes till he went away to college. As a teacher he was singularly successful; the classes never flagged in interest, for the teacher was always either drawing forth ideas on the subject in hand from some one else, or he was giving his own views in a manner which invariably held attention. By these helps, by still working as a carpenter in the village, and in various other ways, making as much and spending as little as he could, Garfield finally left Hiram, free from debt, and possessor of three hundred and fifty dollars on which to start into college.

From the time when he became a member of the church at Geauga, Garfield had continually increased in devotion to religious affairs, and at Hiram quickly became a power. He was constantly present at the social prayer-meetings, where his remarks were frequent, and attracted notice. In a short time he was called on to address the people, and this becoming a habit, rapidly improved, and came to be called “the most eloquent young man in the county.” For a number of years Garfield was known as a first-rate preacher; in regularity of speaking, however, he was very much like that order known among Methodists as “local preachers.”

That Garfield was at this time beginning to have political connections, appears from a story told by Father Bentley, then pastor of the church at Hiram. On one occasion an evening service was about to be held, and the pastor had invited our friend to sit with him on the platform; also expecting him to address the people. Unnoticed by Father Bentley, a young man called Garfield away, and was hastening him off to talk at a political meeting. Discovering his departure, Bentley was about to call him back; when, suddenly, he stopped, and said: “Well, I suppose we must let him go. Very likely he will be President of the United States, some day!”

Garfield’s general progress at Hiram was intimately connected with that of the people about him; and the best possible view of him must come from a knowledge of his friends, and the work they did together. In a late address to the Alumni of Hiram, Garfield has furnished a good sketch of the kind of human material that made up the “Eclectic Institute.”

“In 1850 it was a green field, with a solid, plain brick building in the center of it, and almost all the rest has been done by the institution itself. Without a dollar of endowment, without a powerful friend anywhere, a corps of teachers were told to go on the ground and see what they could make of it, and to find their pay out of the tuitions that should be received; who invited students of their own spirit to come here on the ground and find out by trial what they could make of it. The chief response has been their work, and the chief part of the response I see in the faces gathered before me to-day. It was a simple question of sinking or swimming, and I do not know of any institution that has accomplished more, with little means, than this school on Hiram hill. I know of no place where the doctrine of self-help has had a fuller development. As I said a great many years ago, the theory of Hiram was to throw its young men and women overboard, and let them try for themselves. All that were fit to get ashore got there, and we had few cases of drowning. Now, when I look over these faces, and mark the several geologic ages, I find the geologic analogy does not hold—there are no fossils. Some are dead and glorified in our memories, but those who are alive are ALIVE. I believe there was a stronger pressure of work to the square inch in the boilers that ran this establishment than any other I know of. Young men and women—rough, crude and untutored farmer boys and girls—came here to try themselves, and find out what manner of people they were. They came here to go on a voyage of discovery, to discover themselves, and in many cases I hope the discovery was fortunate.”

Among these brave toilers were two or three of Garfield’s more intimate friends, with whom we must become acquainted before we can come at a thorough knowledge of Garfield himself. Of his introduction to them he has said:

“A few days after the beginning of the term, I saw a class of three reciting in mathematics—geometry, I think. I had never seen a geometry, and, regarding both teacher and class with a feeling of reverential awe for the intellectual height to which they had climbed, I studied their faces so closely that I seem to see them now as distinctly as I saw them then. And it has been my good fortune since that time to claim them all as intimate friends. The teacher was Thomas Munnell, and the members of his class were William B. Hazen, George A. Baker and Almeda A. Booth.”

Afterwards he met here, for the second time, one who had been, known to him in Chester. Lucretia Rudolph was a farmer’s daughter, whose humble home was then not far from Chester. Her father was from Maryland; his uncle had been a brave soldier of the Revolution, and, as the story goes, he afterward went to France, enlisted under the banner of Napoleon, and was soon known to the world as Marshal Ney. Lucretia’s mother came from Vermont, and her name had been Arabella Mason. The Rudolph family was poor, but industrious and ambitious. Their daughter had, therefore, been sent to Geauga. She was a “quiet, thoughtful girl, of singularly sweet and refined disposition,” and a great reader.

“Her heart was gentle as her face was fair,

With grace and love and pity dwelling there.”

In the fall of 1849 this young lady was earnestly pursuing her studies at Geauga Seminary, and, during the hours of recitation, there often sat near her the awkward and bashful youth, Garfield. There these two became acquainted; and, although the boy made but few advances at first, they soon became good friends. Her sweet, attractive ways and sensible demeanor drew his heart out toward her; and, as for James, though he may have been very rough in appearance, yet his countenance was always a good one, and his regularly brilliant leadership of the class in all discussions was well adapted to challenge such a maiden’s admiration. A backwoods idyl, ending in an early marriage, would not be a surprising result in such a case as this. But these two souls were too earnestly bent on high aims in life to trouble their hearts, or bother their heads, with making love. They were merely acquaintances, although tradition hath it, that from the day when, leaving Chester, their paths diverged awhile, a correspondence was regularly kept up. However that may be, the fact we know is, that at this time and place, James A. Garfield first met Lucretia Rudolph, the woman who was one day to become his wife. In 1852 the Rudolphs moved to Hiram, where the young lady studied at the “Eclectic,” and recited to Garfield in some of her classes. The old friendship here ripened into affection; they pursued many studies together, and, about the time he left Hiram for college, they were engaged to marry. Long after they were married, a poet of Hiram referred to her thus:

“Again a Mary? Nay, Lucretia,

The noble, classic name

That well befits our fair ladie,

Our sweet and gentle dame,

With heart as leal and loving

As e’er was sung in lays

Of high-born Roman matron,

In old, heroic days;

Worthy her lord illustrious, whom

Honor and fame attend;

Worthy her soldier’s name to wear,

Worthy the civic wreath to share

That binds her Viking’s tawny hair;

Right proud are we the world should know

As hers, him we long ago

Found truest helper, friend.”

Another woman, however, one of the members of the awe-inspiring geometry class named above, had, in the Hiram days, more influence on Garfield’s intellectual life than any other person. Miss Almeda A. Booth was a woman of wonderful force of mind and character. She was the daughter of New England parents, who had come to Ohio, where her father traveled over an immense circuit of country as an itinerant Methodist preacher. Almeda very early discovered intellectual tastes, and, at twelve, read such works as Rollin’s Ancient History and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. She taught her first school at seventeen. An engagement of marriage was broken by the death of her intended husband, and her life was ever afterward devoted to the business of teaching. Thus the quiet current of life was not wrecked, but went smoothly on, clear and beautiful. She was poor in what people call riches; the office of teacher gave support. She was sad because death had darkened her life; study was a never-failing solace. Her mind gloried in strength, and the opportunity for a career of useful exercise of its powers helped to make her happy. Henceforth she loved knowledge more than ever; and could freely say:

“My mind to me a kingdom is.

Such perfect joy therein I find,

As far exceeds all earthly bliss

That God or Nature hath assigned.”

About the same time with Garfield, Miss Booth came to Hiram, and soon found her time, like his, divided between teaching in some classes and reciting in others. Each at once recognized in the other an intellectual peer, and they soon were pursuing many studies together. Our best idea of her comes from an address made by Garfield, on a memorial occasion, in 1876, the year after Miss Booth died. He compared her to Margaret Fuller, the only American woman whom he thought her equal in ability, in variety of accomplishments, or in influence over other minds. “It is quite possible,” says Garfield, “that John Stuart Mill has exaggerated the extent to which his own mind and works were influenced by Harriet Mills. I should reject his opinion on that subject as a delusion, did I not know from my own experience, as well as that of hundreds of Hiram students, how great a power Miss Booth exercised over the culture and opinions of her friends.”

Again: “In mathematics and the physical sciences I was far behind her; but we were nearly at the same place in Greek and Latin. She had made her home at President Hayden’s almost from the first, and I became a member of his family at the beginning of the Winter Term of 1852–’3. Thereafter, for nearly two years, she and I studied together in the same classes (frequently without other associates) till we had nearly completed the classical course.” In the summer vacation of 1853, with several others, they hired a professor and studied the classics.

“Miss Booth read thoroughly, and for the first time, the Pastorals of Virgil—that is, the Georgics and Bucolics entire—and the first six books of Homer’s Iliad, accompanied by a thorough drill in the Latin or Greek Grammar at each recitation. I am sure that none of those who recited with her would say she was behind the foremost in the thoroughness of her work, or the elegance of her translation.

“During the Fall Term of 1853, she read one hundred pages of Herodotus, and about the same amount of Livy. During that term also, Profs. Dunshee and Hull and Miss Booth and I met, at her room, two evenings of each week, to make a joint translation of the Book of Romans. Prof. Dunshee contributed his studies of the German commentators, De Wette and Tholuck; and each of the translators made some special study for each meeting. How nearly we completed the translation, I do not remember; but I do remember that the contributions and criticisms of Miss Booth were remarkable for suggestiveness and sound judgment. Our work was more thorough than rapid, for I find this entry in my diary for December 15, 1853: ‘Translation Society sat three hours at Miss Booth’s room, and agreed upon the translation of nine verses.’

“During the Winter Term of 1853–’4, she continued to read Livy, and also read the whole of Demosthenes on the Crown. The members of the class in Demosthenes were Miss Booth, A. Hull, C. C. Foot and myself.

“During the Spring Term of 1854, she read the Germania and Agricola of Tacitus, and a portion of Hesiod.”

These were the occupations, these the friends of James A. Garfield at Hiram, when, in the fall of 1854, he found himself ready for college. He was so far advanced that he would easily be able to graduate in two years. The best institution of advanced learning, in the “Disciples’” church, was that of which Alexander Campbell was president, at Bethany, Virginia. But Garfield, much to the surprise of his Hiram friends, made up his mind that he would not go there. The reasons he gave are summed up in a letter written by him at that time, and quoted by Whitelaw Reid in his Ohio in the War. This letter shows not only why he did not go to Bethany, but why he did go to Williams. He wrote:

“There are three reasons why I have decided not to go to Bethany: 1st. The course of study is not so extensive or thorough as in Eastern colleges. 2d. Bethany leans too heavily toward slavery. 3d. I am the son of Disciple parents, am one myself, and have had but little acquaintance with people of other views; and, having always lived in the West, I think it will make me more liberal, both in my religious and general views and sentiments, to go into a new circle, where I shall be under new influences. These considerations led me to conclude to go to some New England college. I therefore wrote to the presidents of Brown University, Yale and Williams, setting forth the amount of study I had done, and asking how long it would take me to finish their course.

“Their answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all brief, business notes, but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence: ‘If you come here, we shall be glad to do what we can for you.’ Other things being so near equal, this sentence, which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall start for Williams next week.”.

The next week he did go to Williams. Boyhood, with its struggles, had vanished. Garfield was now a man of twenty-three years, with much development yet before him, for his possibilities of growth were very large, and the process never stopped while he lived. What he did at Williams let the following pages reveal.

CHAPTER III.
THE MORNING OF POWER.

Measure the girth of this aspiring tree!

Glance upward where the green boughs, spreading wide,

Fling out their foliage, and thou shalt see

The promise of a Nation’s health and pride.

College life, as we have it in this country, is a romance. In the midst of an age in whose thought poetry has found little lodgment; in which love has become a matter of business, and literature a trade, the American college is the home of sentiment, of ideas, and of letters. The old institutions of romance have crumbled into ruins. The armed knight, the amorous lady, the wandering minstrel, the mysterious monastery, the mediæval castle with its ghosts and legends exist only in history. But behind the academic walls there are passages-at-arms as fierce, loves as sweet, songs as stirring, legends as wonderful, secrets as well transmitted to posterity as ever existed in the brain of Walter Scott.

It was to such an enchanted life at Williams College, that Garfield betook himself in the month of June, 1854. To go through college is like passing before a great number of photographic cameras. A man leaves an indelible picture of himself printed on the mind of each student with whom he comes in contact.

When Garfield entered Williams, he was over six feet high, as awkward as he was muscular, and looking every inch a backwoodsman. He had made great progress, however, in his previous studies, and successfully passed his examination for the junior class. A young fellow, named Wilbur, a cripple, came with him from Ohio, and the couple from the first attracted much attention. A classmate writes: “Garfield’s kindness to his lame chum was remarked by every body.”

But many of the college boys were the sons of rich men. The strapping young fellow from Ohio was, in his own language, a “greeny” of the most verdant type. His clothes were homespun, and the idea of fitting him seemed never to have entered their maker’s head. His language was marred by uncouth provincialisms. His face had a kindly and thoughtful expression, on which the struggle of boyhood had left little trace, but this could not save him from many a cut. To a coarser-grained man, the petty indignities, the sly sarcasms, the cool treatment of the Eastern collegians would not have been annoying, but there are traces of a bitter inward anguish in Garfield’s heart at this time. To make it worse, he had not entered a lower class, where he perhaps might have had companions as green as himself, or, at least, comparative obscurity; but, entering an upper class, from whose members rusticity had long since disappeared, he was considered a legitimate target for the entire body of students.

But he had brains, and nowhere in the world, does ability rise to the top, and mediocrity sink to the bottom, so surely and swiftly, as at college. In a short time, his commanding abilities began to assert themselves. In the class-room, he was not only a profound and accurate scholar, but his large brain seemed packed with information of every sort, and all ready for use at a moment’s notice. His first summer before the regular fall term he spent in the college library. Up to that time he had never seen a copy of Shakespeare; he had never read a novel of Walter Scott, of Dickens, or of Thackeray.

The opportunity was a golden one. On the shelves of the Williams’ library were to be found the best books of all the ages. Plunging in at once, he read poetry, history, metaphysics, science, with hardly a pause for meals. He felt that his poverty had made him lose time, and that the loss must be made good. His powerful frame seemed to know no fatigue, and his voracious and devouring mind no satiety. Weaker minds would have been foundered. Not so with this western giant. Note-book in hand, he jotted down memoranda of references, mythologic, historical or literary, which he did not fully understand, for separate investigation. The ground was carefully gleaned, notwithstanding the terrific speed. This outside reading was kept up all through his stay at Williams.

Hon. Clement H. Hill, of Boston, a classmate of Garfield, writing of his studies and reading, says: “I think at that time he was paying great attention to German, and devoted all his leisure time to that language. In his studies, his taste was rather for metaphysical and philosophical studies than for history and biography, which were the studies most to my liking; but he read besides a good deal of poetry and general literature. Tennyson was then, and has ever been since, one of his favorite authors, and I remember, too, when Hiawatha was published, how greatly he admired it, and how he would quote almost pages of it in our walks together. He was also greatly interested in Charles Kingsley’s writings, particularly in Alton Locke and Yeast. I first, I think, introduced him to Dickens, and gave him Oliver Twist to read, and he roared with laughter over Mr. Bumble.”

There are but few stories told of Garfield’s life at Williams, and there is a reason behind the fact. The college “yarn” is generally a tradition of some shrewd trick, some insubordination to discipline, or some famous practical joke. Every college has a constantly growing treasury of such legend lore. There are stories of robbed hen-roosts, pilfered orchards, and plundered watermelon patches; of ice-cream stolen from the back porch just after the guests had assembled in the parlor; of mock processions, of bogus newspapers, of wedding invitations gotten out by some rascally sophomore, for the marriage of some young couple, who were barely whispering the thought in their own imaginations. There are stories of front doors painted red; of masked mobs ranging through town on Halloween, and demanding refreshment; of the wonderful theft of the college bell, right when a watchman with loaded revolver was in the building, of hairbreadth escapes down lightning rods, and of the burning in effigy of unpopular professors. There is a story told in nearly every college in the country, of how a smart fellow, to revenge himself, sprinkled several barrels of salt on the street and sidewalk in front of a professor’s house; how he drove all the wandering cattle in the village to that part of the street, and how no digging, nor sweeping, nor scalding water, nor flourished broom handles did any good toward driving away the meek but persistent kine, who, with monotonous bell and monotonous bellow, for months afterward, day and night, chose that spot for their parlor.

But no such legends hung round the name of Garfield at Williams College. He was there under great pecuniary pressure, and for a high and solemn purpose. He was there for work, not play. Every thing which looked like a turning aside from the straight and narrow way, was indignantly spurned. At one time he caught the fever for playing chess. He was a superior player, and enjoyed the game immensely. But when he found it carried him to late hours, he denied himself the pleasure entirely.

But he stepped at once to the front rank as a debater in his literary society. His power of statement, his grasp of facts, his quick repartee, combined to make him the leading orator of the college. His method of preparation showed the mind of a master. The subject of debate he would divide into branches, and assign a separate topic to each of his allies for investigation, distributing each topic according to their respective qualities of mind. Each man overhauled the college library, gathering and annotating all the facts and authorities upon his particular branch of study, and submitted his notes to Garfield, who would then analyze the mass of facts, draw up the propositions, which were to bear down like Macedonian phalanxes upon the enemy, and redistribute the branches of the question to his debaters for presentation on the rostrum.

His mind never seemed foggy. Odd scraps of information, which ordinary men would have been unable or afraid to use, he wielded like a club about his adversaries’ heads. In a public debate in his junior year, the preceding speaker had used a lengthy and somewhat irrelevant illustration from Don Quixote. When Garfield’s turn for reply came, he brought down the house by saying: “The gentleman is correct in drawing analogies between his side of this question and certain passages in the life of Don Quixote. There is a marked resemblance, which I perceive myself, between his argument and the scene of the knight attacking the windmill; or, rather, it would be more appropriate to say that he resembles the windmill attacking the knight.” At the college supper, which followed the public entertainment, Garfield’s extensive acquaintance with standard literature was being talked about, when he laughingly told his admiring friends that he had never read Don Quixote, and had only heard a mention of the tournament between the crazy knight and the windmill.

His classmates, in writing of the impressions made on them by their college chum, speak much of his warm, social disposition, and his fondness for jokes. He had a sweet, large, wholesome nature, a hearty and cheerful manner, which endeared him most closely to the men among whom he spent the two years of college life. By the poorer and younger students he was almost worshiped for his kindliness and encouragement. He was a warm friend of every boy in the college; but for the weak, or sick, or poverty stricken, his heart overflowed with generous sympathy.

His morals were as spotless as the stars. A classmate, who knew him well, writes: “I never heard an angry word, or a hasty expression, or a sentence which needed to be recalled. He possessed equanimity of temper, self-possession, and self-control in the highest degree. What is more, I never heard a profane or improper word, or an indelicate allusion from his lips. He was in habits, speech, and example, a pure man.”

Williamstown, Massachusetts, where the college is located, is one of the most beautiful spots on the continent, and its magnificent mountain scenery made a deep impression on the mind of the tall Ohioan, who had been reared in a level country. It is only to people who live among them that mountains are unimpressive, and, perhaps, even then they make their impress on the character, giving it a religious loftiness and beauty.

An old institution of Williams College was “Mountain Day”—an annual holiday given for expeditions to some picturesque point in the vicinity. On one of these occasions, an incident revealed the courage and piety of “Old Gar,” as the boys lovingly called their leader. They were on the summit of “Old Greylock,” seven miles from the college. Although it was midsummer, the mountain top was cool; and, as the great glowing sun sank behind the western range, the air became chilly. The group of collegians were gathered about a camp-fire that blazed up briskly in the darkening air. Some were sitting, some standing, but all were silent. The splendor and solemnity of the scene; the dark winding valley; the circling range of mountains; the over-bending sky; the distant villages, with the picturesque old college towers; the faint tinkle of the cowbell; the unspeakable glories of the sunset,—

“As through the West, where sank the crimson day,

Meek twilight slowly sailed, and waved her banners gray,”—

filled every thoughtful heart with religious awe. Just as the silence became oppressive, it was broken by the voice of Garfield: “Boys, it is my habit to read a chapter in the Bible every evening with my absent mother. Shall I read aloud?” The little company assented; and, drawing from his pocket a well-worn Testament, he read, in soft, rich tones, the chapter which the mother in Ohio was reading at the same time, and then called on a classmate to kneel on that mountain top and pray.

The two months’ vacation of Garfield’s first winter at college was spent at North Pownal, Vermont, teaching a writing-school, in a school-house where, the winter before, Chester A. Arthur had been the regular teacher. But, at that time, Garfield only knew his predecessor by name, and the men whose destinies were in the future to become so closely intertwined did not become acquainted.

At the end of his junior year Garfield’s funds were exhausted; but, after a consultation with his mother, he resolved to borrow the money to complete his course, rather than lose more time. His first arrangement for the money failed; but Dr. J. P. Robison, of Bedford, who, five years before, had prophesied so much of the widow’s son, readily assumed the burden, asking no security but his debtor’s word, but receiving a life insurance policy which Garfield, who seemed to inherit an apprehension of sudden calamity, insisted on procuring.

At the beginning of his senior year, he was elected one of the editors of the Williams Quarterly, the college paper. His associates in the work were W. R. Baxter, Henry E. Knox, E. Clarence Smith, and John Tatlock. The pages of this magazine were enriched by a great number of the products of his pen. His originality of thought and pleasant style is nowhere better shown than in the following extract from a brilliant article upon Karl Theodore Korner:

“The greater part of our modern literature bears evident marks of the haste which characterizes all the movements of this age; but, in reading these older authors, we are impressed with the idea that they enjoyed the most comfortable leisure. Many books we can read in a railroad car, and feel a harmony between the rushing of the train and the haste of the author; but to enjoy the older authors, we need the quiet of a winter evening—an easy chair before a cheerful fire, and all the equanimity of spirits we can command. Then the genial good nature, the rich fullness, the persuasive eloquence of those old masters will fall upon us like the warm, glad sunshine, and afford those hours of calm contemplation in which the spirit may expand with generous growth, and gain deep and comprehensive views. The pages of friendly old Goldsmith come to us like a golden autumn day, when every object which meets the eye bears all the impress of the completed year, and the beauties of an autumnal forest.”

Another article, which attracted great attention at the college, was entitled “The Province of History.” The argument was that history has two duties, the one to narrate facts with their relations and significance, the other to show the tendency of the whole to some great end. His idea was that history is to show the unfolding of a great providential plan in the affairs of men and nations. In the course of the article he said:

“For every village, State, and nation there is an aggregate of native talent which God has given, and by which, together with His Providence, He leads that nation on, and thus leads the world. In the light of these truths, we affirm that no man can understand the history of any nation, or of the world, who does not recognize in it the power of God, and behold His stately goings forth as He walks among the nations. It is His hand that is moving the vast superstructure of human history, and, though but one of the windows were unfurnished, like that of the Arabian palace, yet all the powers of earth could never complete it without the aid of the Divine Architect.

“To employ another figure—the world’s history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and of every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and, though there have been mingled the discord of roaring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian—the humble listener—there has been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come. The record of every orphan’s sigh, of every widow’s prayer, of every noble deed, of every honest heart-throb for the right, is swelling that gentle strain; and when, at last, the great end is attained—when the lost image of God is restored to the human soul; when the church anthem can be pealed forth without a discordant note, then will angels join in the chorus, and all the sons of God again ‘shout for joy.’”

This is really an oration. It is not the style of the essayist. It is the style of the orator before his audience. The boldness of the figure which would captivate an audience, is a little palling to the quiet and receptive state of the reader. The mental attitude of Garfield when he wrote that passage was not that of the writer in his study, but of the orator on the platform with a hushed assemblage before him. It will be noticed that this characteristic of style only became more marked with Garfield after he had left the mimic arena of the college.

But the idea embodied in this article is as significant and characteristic as its expression. In some form or other most of the world’s great leaders have believed in some outside and controlling influence, which really shaped and directed events. To this they attributed their own fortune. Napoleon called and believed himself to be “The Child of Destiny.” Mohammed was a fatalist:

“On two days it stood not to run from thy fate—

The appointed and the unappointed day;

On the first, neither balm nor physician can save,

Nor thee, on the second, the universe slay.”

Buddha believed in fatalism. So did Calvin. Julius Cæsar ascribed his own career to an overweening and superimposed destiny. William III. of England, thought men were in the grasp of an iron fate.

The idea expressed in this article of a providential plan in human things, according to which history unfolds itself, and events and men are controlled, is not seen here for the last time. It will reappear at intervals throughout the life of the man, always maintaining a large ascendancy in his mind. It is not a belief in fate, destiny, or predestination, but it is a kindred and corresponding one. Whether such beliefs are false or true, whether superstitious or religious, does not concern the biographer. It is sufficient that Garfield had such a belief, and that it was a controlling influence in his life.

But Garfield’s literary efforts in college also took the form of poetry. The affectionate nature, and lofty imagination, made his heart the home of sentiment, and poetry its proper expression. We reproduce entire a poem entitled “Memory,” written during his senior year. At that time, his intended profession was teaching, and it is possible that the presidency of a Christian college was “the summit where the sunbeams fell,” but in the light of events the last lines seem almost prophetic.

MEMORY.

’Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down

Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow,

No light gleams at the window save my own,

Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me.

And, now, with noiseless step, sweet Memory comes

And leads me gently through her twilight realms.

What poet’s tuneful lyre has ever sung,

Or delicatest pencil e’er portrayed,

The enchanted, shadowy land where Memory dwells?

It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear,

Dark shaded by the mournful cypress tree,

And yet its sunlit mountain-tops are bathed

In heaven’s own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs,