sistless 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 fire-side has its tragedy. In one short hour this happy, peaceful life was 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

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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 wast 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.

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The highest heroism is not that which manifests itself in some single great and splendid crisis. It is not found on the battlefield 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,

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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.