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 carnest, 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 Jamcs 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, applebutter 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? 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! Ale. 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. S O 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 any thing, 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. But now a great event in the family took place. Thomas, who had just attained his majority, had returned from a trip to Mich igan 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 |
