GROWING IN WISDOM AND STATURE.
The school was in the village a mile and a half away. It was a long walk
for a little boy of four, but sometimes his sister Mehetabel, now
thirteen years old, carried him on her back. When in winter the snow lay
deep on the ground Jimmy's books were brought home, and he recited his
lessons to his mother.
This may be a good time to say something of the family whose name in
after years was to become a household word throughout the republic. They
had been long in the country. They were literally one of the first
families, for in 1636, only sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed on
Plymouth rock, and the same year that Harvard College was founded,
Edward Garfield, who had come from the edge of Wales, settled in
Watertown, Massachusetts, less than four miles from the infant college,
and there for more than a century was the family home, as several
moss-grown headstones in the ancient graveyard still testify.
They did their part in the Revolutionary war, and it was not till the
war was over that Solomon Garfield, the great grandfather of the future
President, removed to the town of Worcester, Otsego County, N.Y. Here
lived the Garfields for two generations. Then Abram Garfield, the father
of James, moved to Northeastern Ohio, and bought a tract of eighty
acres, on which stood the log-cabin, built by himself, in which our
story opens. His wife belonged to a distinguished family of New
England--the Ballous--and possessed the strong traits of her kindred.
But the little farm of eighty acres was smaller now. Abram Garfield died
in debt, and his wife sold off fifty acres to pay his creditors, leaving
thirty, which with her own industry and that of her oldest son served to
maintain her little family.
The school-house was so far away that Mrs. Garfield, who appreciated the
importance of education for her children, offered her neighbors a site
for a new school-house on her own land, and one was built. Here winter
after winter came teachers, some of limited qualifications, to instruct
the children of the neighborhood, and here Jimmy enlarged his stock of
book-learning by slow degrees.
The years passed, and still they lived in the humble log-cabin, till at
the age of twenty-one Thomas came home from Michigan, where he had been
engaged in clearing land for a farmer, bringing seventy-five dollars in
gold.
"Now, mother," he said, "you shall have a framed house."
Seventy-five dollars would not pay for a framed house, but he cut timber
himself, got out the boards, and added his own labor, and that of Jimmy,
now fourteen years old, and so the house was built, and the log-cabin
became a thing of the past. But it had been their home for a long time,
and doubtless many happy days had been spent beneath its humble roof.
While the house was being built, Jimmy learned one thing--that he was
handy with tools, and was well fitted to become a carpenter. When the
joiner told him that he was born to be a carpenter, he thought with joy
that this unexpected talent would enable him to help his mother, and
earn something toward the family expenses. So, for the next two years
he worked at this new business when opportunity offered, and if my
reader should go to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, he could probably find upon
inquiry several barns in the vicinity which Jimmy helped to build.
He still went to school, however, and obtained such knowledge of the
mysteries of grammar, arithmetic, and geography as could be obtained in
the common schools of that day.
But Jimmy Garfield was not born to be a carpenter, and I believe never
got so far along as to assist in building a house.
He was employed to build a wood-shed for a black-salter, ten miles away
from his mother's house, and when the job was finished his employer fell
into conversation with him, and being a man of limited acquirements
himself, was impressed by the boy's surprising stock of knowledge.
"You kin read, you kin write, and you are death on figgers," he said to
him one day. "If you'll stay with me, keep my 'counts, and 'tend to the
saltery, I'll find you, and give you fourteen dollars a month."
Jimmy was dazzled by this brilliant offer. He felt that to accept it
would be to enter upon the high-road to riches, and he resolved to do
so if his mother would consent. Ten miles he trudged through the woods
to ask his mother's consent, which with some difficulty he obtained, for
she did not know to what influences he might be subjected, and so he got
started in a new business.
Whether he would have fulfilled his employer's prediction, and some day
been at the head of a saltery of his own, we can not tell; but in time
he became dissatisfied with his situation, and returning home, waited
for Providence to indicate some new path on which to enter.
One thing, however, was certain: he would not be content to remain long
without employment. He had an active temperament, and would have been
happiest when busy, even if he had not known that his mother needed the
fruits of his labor.
He had one source of enjoyment while employed by the black-salter, which
he fully appreciated. Strange to say, his employer had a library, that
is, he had a small collection of books, gathered by his daughter,
prominent among which were Marryatt's novels, and "Sinbad the Sailor."
They opened a new world to his young accountant, and gave him an
intense desire to see the world, and especially to cross the great sea,
even in the capacity of a sailor. At home there was no library, not from
the lack of literary taste, but because there was no money to spend for
anything but necessaries.
He had not been long at home when a neighbor, entering one day, said,
"James, do you want a job?"
"Yes," answered James, eagerly.
"There's a farmer in Newburg wants some wood chopped."
"I can do it," said James, quietly.
"Then you'd better go and see him."
Newburg is within the present limits of Cleveland, and thither James
betook himself the next day.
He was a stout boy, with the broad shoulders and sturdy frame of his
former ancestors, and he was sure he could give satisfaction.
The farmer, dressed in homespun, looked up as the boy approached.
"Are you Mr. ----?" asked James.
"Yes."
"I heard that you wanted some wood chopped."
"Yes, but I am not sure if you can do it," answered the farmer,
surveying the boy critically.
"I can do it," said James, confidently.
"Very well, you can try. I'll give you seven dollars for the job."
The price was probably satisfactory, for James engaged to do the work.
There proved to be twenty-five cords, and no one, I think, will consider
that he was overpaid for his labor.
He was fortunate, at least, in the scene of his labor, for it was on the
shore of Lake Erie, and as he lifted his eyes from his work they rested
on the broad bosom of the beautiful lake, almost broad enough as it
appeared to be the ocean itself, which he had a strange desire to
traverse in search of the unknown lands of which he had read or dreamed.
I suppose there are few boys who have not at some time fancied that they
should like "a life on the ocean wave, and a home on the rolling deep."
I have in mind a friend, now a physician, who at the age of fifteen left
a luxurious home, with the reluctant permission of his parents, for a
voyage before the mast to Liverpool, beguiled by one of the fascinating
narratives of Herman Melville. But the romance very soon wore off, and
by the time the boy reached Halifax, where the ship put in, he was so
seasick, and so sick of the sea, that he begged to be left on shore to
return home as he might. The captain had received secret instructions
from the parents to accede to such a wish, and the boy was landed, and
in due time returned home as a passenger. So it is said that George
Washington had an early passion for the sea, and would have become a
sailor but for the pain he knew it would give his mother.
James kept his longings to himself for the present, and returned home
with the seven dollars he had so hardly earned.
There was more work for him to do. A Mr. Treat wanted help during the
haying and harvesting season, and offered employment to the boy, who was
already strong enough to do almost as much as a man; for James already
had a good reputation as a faithful worker. "Whatever his hands found to
do, he did it with his might," and he was by no means fastidious as to
the kind of work, provided it was honest and honorable.
When the harvest work was over James made known his passion for the
sea.
Going to his mother, he said: "Mother, I want above all things to go to
sea."
"Go to sea!" replied his mother in dismay. "What has put such an idea
into your head?"
"It has been in my head for a long time," answered the boy quietly. "I
have thought of nothing else for the last year."