JAMES LEAVES THE CANAL.
James was not long to fill the humble position of driver. Before the
close of the first trip he was promoted to the more responsible office
of bowman. Whether his wages were increased we are not informed.
It may be well in this place to mention that a canal boat required,
besides the captain, two drivers, two steersmen, a bowman, and a cook,
the last perhaps not the least important of the seven. "The bowman's
business was to stop the boat as it entered the lock, by throwing the
bowline that was attached to the bow of the boat around the snubbing
post." It was to this position that James was promoted, though I have
some doubt whether the place of driver, with the opportunities it
afforded of riding on horse or mule-back, did not suit him better.
Still, promotion is always pleasant, and in this case it showed that
the boy had discharged his humbler duties satisfactorily.
I have said that the time came when James showed that he was not a
coward. Edmund Kirke, in his admirable life of Garfield, has condensed
the captain's account of the occurrence, and I quote it here as likely
to prove interesting to my boy readers:
"The _Evening Star_ was at Beaver, and a steamboat was ready to tow her
up to Pittsburg. The boy was standing on deck with the selting-pole
against his shoulders, and some feet away stood Murphy, one of the boat
hands, a big, burly fellow of thirty-five, when the steamboat threw the
line, and, owing to a sudden lurch of the boat, it whirled over the
boy's head, and flew in the direction of the boatman. 'Look out,
Murphy!' cried the boy; but the rope had anticipated him, and knocked
Murphy's hat off into the river. The boy expressed his regret, but it
was of no avail. In a towering rage the man rushed upon him, with his
head down, like a maddened animal; but, stepping nimbly aside, the boy
dealt him a powerful blow behind the ear, and he tumbled to the bottom
of the boat among the copper ore. Before he could rise the boy was upon
him, one hand upon his throat, the other raised for another blow upon
his frontispiece.
"'Pound the cussed fool, Jim!' cried Captain Letcher, who was looking on
appreciatingly. 'If he haint no more sense'n to get mad at accidents,
giv it ter him! Why don't you strike?'
"But the boy did not strike, for the man was down and in his power.
Murphy expressed regret for his rage, and then Garfield gave him his
hand, and they became better friends than ever before. This victory of a
boy of sixteen over a man of thirty-five obliterated the notion of young
Garfield's character for cowardice, and gave him a great reputation
among his associates. The incident is still well remembered among the
boatmen of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal."
The boy's speedy reconciliation to the man who had made so unprovoked an
assault upon him was characteristic of his nature. He never could
cherish malice, and it was very hard work for him to remain angry with
any one, however great the provocation.
Both as a boy and as a man he possessed great physical strength, as may
be inferred from an incident told by the Boston _Journal_ of his life
when he was no longer the humble canal-boy, but a brigadier-general in
the army:
"At Pittsburg Landing one night in 1862 there was a rush for rations by
some newly-arrived troops. One strong, fine-looking soldier presented a
requisition for a barrel of flour, _and, shouldering it, walked off with
ease_. When the wagon was loaded, this same man stepped up to Colonel
Morton, commanding the commissary steamers there, and remarked, 'I
suppose you require a receipt for these supplies?' 'Yes,' said the
Colonel, as he handed over the usual blank; 'just take this provision
return, and have it signed by your commanding officer.' 'Can't I sign
it?' was the reply. 'Oh, no,' said the affable Colonel Morton; 'it
requires the signature of a commissioned officer.' Then came the remark,
that still remains fresh in the Colonel's memory: 'I am a commissioned
officer--I'm a brigadier-general, and my name is Garfield, of Ohio.'"
For four months James remained connected with the canal-boat. To show
that traveling by canal is not so free from danger as it is supposed to
be, it may be stated that in this short time he fell into the water
fourteen times. Usually he scrambled out without further harm than a
good wetting. One night, however, he was in serious pain.
It was midnight, and rainy, when he was called up to take his turn at
the bow. The boat was leaving one of those long reaches of slack-water
which abound in the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal. He tumbled out of bed
in a hurry, but half awake, and, taking his stand on the narrow platform
below the bow-deck, he began uncoiling a rope to steady the boat through
a lock it was approaching. Finally it knotted, and caught in a narrow
cleft on the edge of the deck. He gave it a strong pull, then another,
till it gave way, sending him over the bow into the water. Down he went
in the dark river, and, rising, was bewildered amid the intense
darkness. It seemed as if the boy's brief career was at its close. But
he was saved as by a miracle. Reaching out his hand in the darkness, it
came in contact with the rope. Holding firmly to it as it tightened in
his grasp, he used his strong arms to draw himself up hand over hand.
His deliverance was due to a knot in the rope catching in a crevice,
thus, as it tightened, sustaining him and enabling him to climb on
deck.
It was a narrow escape, and he felt it to be so. He was a thoughtful
boy, and it impressed him. The chances had been strongly against him,
yet he had been saved.
"God did it," thought James reverently, "He has saved my life against
large odds, and He must have saved it for some purpose. He has some work
for me to do."
Few boys at his age would have taken the matter so seriously, yet in the
light of after events shall we not say that James was right, and that
God did have some work for him to perform?
This work, the boy decided, was not likely to be the one he was at
present engaged in. The work of a driver or a bowman on a canal is
doubtless useful in its way, but James doubted whether he would be
providentially set apart for any such business.
It might have been this deliverance that turned his attention to
religious matters. At any rate, hearing that at Bedford there was a
series of protracted meetings conducted by the Disciples, as they were
called, he made a trip there, and became seriously impressed. There,
too, he met a gentleman who was destined to exert an important influence
over his destiny.
This gentleman was Dr. J.P. Robinson, who may be still living. Dr.
Robinson took a great liking to the boy, and sought to be of service to
him. He employed him, though it may have been at a later period, to chop
wood, and take care of his garden, and do chores about the house, and
years afterward, as we shall see, it was he that enabled James to enter
Williams College, and pursue his studies there until he graduated, and
was ready to do the work of an educated man in the world. But we must
not anticipate.
Though James was strong and healthy he was not proof against the disease
that lurked in the low lands bordering on the canal. He was attacked by
fever and ague, and lay for some months sick at home. It was probably
the only long sickness he had till the fatal wound which laid him on his
bed when in the fullness of his fame he had taken his place among kings
and rulers. It is needless to say that he had every attention that a
tender mother could bestow, and in time he was restored to health.
During his sickness he had many talks with his mother upon his future
prospects, and the course of life upon which it was best for him to
enter. He had not yet given up all thoughts of the sea, he had not
forgotten the charms with which a sailor's life is invested in
Marryatt's fascinating novels. His mother listened anxiously to his
dreams of happiness on the sea, and strove to fix his mind upon higher
things--to inspire him with a nobler ambition.
"What would you have me do, mother?" he asked.
"If you go back to the canal, my son, with the seeds of this disease
lurking in your system, I fear you will be taken down again. I have
thought it over. It seems to me you had better go to school this spring,
and then, with a term in the fall, you may be able to teach in the
winter. If you teach winters, and work on the canal or lake summers, you
will have employment the year round."
Nevertheless Mrs. Garfield was probably not in favor of his spending his
summers in the way indicated. She felt, however, that her son, who was a
boy like other boys, must be gradually weaned from the dreams that had
bewitched his fancy.
Then his mother proposed a practical plan.
"You have been obliged to spend all your money," she said, "but your
brother Thomas and I will be able to raise seventeen dollars for you to
start to school on, and when that is gone perhaps you will be able to
get along on your own resources."