From Canal Boy to President Part 10

It was a jocose remark, and the good lady little dreamed that, in after years, the young man with but one pair of pantaloons, and those more than half worn, would occupy the proud position she referred to.

CHAPTER X.

A COUSIN'S REMINISCENCES.

During his school-life at Geauga Seminary James enjoyed the companions.h.i.+p of a cousin, Henry B. Boynton, who still lives on the farm adjoining the one on which our hero was born. The relations.h.i.+p between the two boys was much closer than is common between cousins; for while their mothers were sisters, their fathers were half-brothers. Henry was two years older than James, and they were more like brothers than cousins. I am sure my young readers will be glad to read what Henry has to say of their joint school-life. I quote from the account of an interview held with a correspondent of the Boston _Herald_, bearing the date of September 23, 1881:

When General Garfield was nominated to the Presidency his old neighbors in Orange erected a flag-staff where the house stood which Garfield and his brother erected for their mother and sisters with their own hands, after the log hut, a little farther out in the field nearer the wood, had become unfit for habitation. Thomas Garfield, the uncle of the President, who not long since was killed by a railroad accident, directed the manual labor of rearing the shaft, and was proud of his work.

There is nothing except this hole left to mark his birth-place, and the old well, not two rods off, which he and his brother dug to furnish water for the family. In the little maple grove to the left, children played about the school-house where the dead President first gathered the rudiments upon which he built to such purpose. The old orchard in its sere and yellow leaf, the dying gra.s.s, and the turning maple leaves seemed to join in the great mourning.

Adjoining the field where the flag floats is an unpretentious home, almost as much identified with Gen. Garfield's early history as the one he helped to clear of the forest timber while he was yet but a child. It is the home of Henry B. Boynton, cousin of the dead President, and a brother of Dr. Boynton, whose name has become so well known from recent events.

"While rambling over this place the correspondent came upon this near relative of Garfield, smaller in stature than he was, but in features bearing a striking resemblance to him.

"General Garfield and I were like brothers," he said, as he turned from giving some directions to his farm hands, now sowing the fall grain upon ground which his cousin had first helped to break. "His father died yonder, within a stone's throw of us, when the son was but a year and a half old. He knew no other father than mine, who watched over the family as if it had been his own. This very house in which I live was as much his home as it was mine.

"Over there," said he, pointing to the brick school-house in the grove of maples, around which the happy children were playing, "is where he and I both started for school. I have read a statement that he could not read or write until he was nineteen. He could do both before he was nine, and before he was twelve, so familiar was he with the Indian history of the country, that he had named every tree in the orchard, which his father planted as he was born, with the name of some Indian chief, and even debated in societies, religion, and other topics with men. One favorite tree of his he named Tec.u.mseh, and the branches of many of these old trees have been cut since his promotion to the Presidency by relic-hunters, and carried away.

"Gen. Garfield was a remarkable boy as well as man. It is not possible to tell you the fight he made amid poverty for a place in life, and how gradually he obtained it. When he was a boy he would rather read than work. But he became a great student. He had to work after he was twelve years of age. In those days we were all poor, and it took hard knocks to get on. He worked clearing the fields yonder with his brother, and then cut cord-wood, and did other farm labor to get the necessities of life for his mother and sisters.

"I remember when he was fourteen years of age, he went away to work at Daniel Morse's, not four miles down the road from here, and after the labors of the day he sat down to listen to the conversation of a teacher in one of the schools of Cleveland, when it was yet a village, who had called. The talk of the educated man pleased the boy, and, while intent upon his story, a daughter of the man for whom he was working informed the future President with great dignity that it was time that _servants_ were in bed, and that she preferred his absence to his presence.

"Nothing that ever happened to him so severely stung him as this affront. In his youth he could never refer to it without indignation, and almost immediately he left Mr. Morse's employ and went on the ca.n.a.l.

He said to me then that those people should live to see the day when they would not care to insult him.

"His experience on the ca.n.a.l was a severe one, but perhaps useful. I can remember the winter when he came home after the summer's service there.

He had the chills all that fall and winter, yet he would shake and get his lessons at home; go over to the school and recite, and thus keep up with his cla.s.s. The next spring found him weak from constant ague. Yet he intended to return to the ca.n.a.l.

"Here came the turning-point in his life. Mr. Bates, who taught the school, pleaded with him not to do so, and said that if he would continue in school till the next fall he could get a certificate. I received a certificate about the same time The next year we went to the seminary at Chester, only twelve miles distant. Here our books were furnished us, and we cooked our own victuals. We lived upon a dollar a week each. Our diet was strong, but very plain; mush and mola.s.ses, pork and potatoes. Sat.u.r.days we took our axes, and went into the woods and cut cord-wood. During vacations we labored in the harvest-field, or taught a district school, as we could.

"Yonder," said he, pointing to a beautiful valley, about two miles distant, "stands the school-house where Garfield first taught school. He got twelve dollars a month, and boarded round. I also taught school in a neighboring town. We both went back to Chester to college, and would probably have finished our education there, but it was a Baptist school, and they were constantly making flings at the children of the Disciples, and teaching sectarianism. As the Disciples grew stronger they determined their children should not be subjected to such influence; the college of our own Church was established at Hiram, and there Garfield and I went."

Though the remainder of the reminiscences somewhat antic.i.p.ate the course of our story, it is perhaps as well to insert it here.

"We lodged in the bas.e.m.e.nt most of the time, and boarded at the present Mrs. Garfield's father's house. During our school-days here I nursed the late President through an attack of the measles which nearly ended his life. He has often said, that, were it not for my attention, he could not have lived. So you see that the General and myself were very close to one another from the time either of us could lisp until he became President. Here is a picture we had taken together," showing an old daguerreotype. "It does not resemble either of us much now. And yet they do say that we bore in our childhood, and still bear, a striking resemblance. I am still a farmer, while he grew great and powerful. He never permitted a suggestion, however, to be made in, my presence as to the difference in our paths of life. He visited me here before election, and looked with gratification upon that pole yonder, and its flag, erected by his neighbors and kinsmen. He wandered over the fields he had himself helped clear and pointed out to me trees from the limbs of which he had shot squirrel after squirrel, and beneath the branches of which he had played and worked in the years of his infancy and boyhood.

"I forgot to say that one of Gen. Garfield's striking characteristics while he was growing up, was, that when he saw a boy in the cla.s.s excel him in anything, he never gave up till he reached the same standard, and even went beyond it. It got to be known that no scholar could be ahead of him. Our a.s.sociation as men has been almost as close as that of our boyhood, though not as constant. The General never forgot his neighbors or less fortunate kinsmen, and often visited us as we did him."

More vivid than any picture I could draw is this description, by the most intimate friend of his boyhood, of James Garfield's way of life, his struggles for an education, his constant desire to excel, and his devotion to duty. We have already pictured the rustic boy in his humble room, cooking his own food, and living, as his cousin testifies, on a dollar a week. Is there any other country where such humble beginnings could lead to such influence and power? Is there any other land where such a lad could make such rapid strides toward the goal which crowns the highest ambition? It is the career of such men that most commends our Government and inst.i.tutions, proving as it does that by the humblest and poorest the highest dignities may be attained. James was content to live on mush and mola.s.ses, pork and potatoes, since they came within his narrow means, and gave him sufficient strength to pursue his cherished studies. Nor is his an exceptional case. I have myself known college and professional students who have lived on sixty cents a week (how, it is difficult to tell), while their minds were busy with the loftiest problems that have ever engaged the human intellect. Such boys and young men are the promise of the republic. They toil upwards while others sleep, and many such have written their names high on the tablets in the Temple of Fame.

CHAPTER XI.

LEDGE HILL SCHOOL

Ever since he began to study at Geauga Seminary James had looked forward to earning a little money by keeping school himself; not an advanced school, of course, but an ordinary school, such as was kept in the country districts in the winter. He felt no hesitation as to his competence. The qualifications required by the school committees were by no means large, and so far there was no difficulty.

There was one obstacle, however: James was still a boy himself--a large boy, to be sure, but he had a youthful face, and the chances were that he would have a number of pupils older than himself. Could he keep order? Would the rough country boys submit to the authority of one like themselves, whatever might be his reputation as a scholar? This was a point to consider anxiously. However, James had pluck, and he was ready to try the experiment.

He would have been glad to secure a school so far away that he could go there as a stranger, and be received as a young man. But no such opportunity offered. There was another opening nearer home.

A teacher was wanted for the Ledge Hill district in Orange, and the committee-man bethought himself of James Garfield.

So one day he knocked at Mrs. Garfield's door.

"Is James at home?" he asked.

James heard the question, and came forward to meet his visitor.

"Good-morning," he said, pleasantly; "did you want to see me?"

"Are you calculating to keep school this winter" asked his visitor.

"If I can get a school to keep," was the reply.

"That's the business I came about. We want a schoolmaster for the Ledge Hill School. How would you like to try it?"

"The Ledge Hill School!" repeated James, in some dismay. "Why, all the boys know me there."

"Of course they do. Then they won't need to be introduced."

"Will they obey me? That's what I was thinking of. There are some pretty hard cases in that school."

"That's where you are right."

"I wouldn't like to try it and fail," said James, doubtfully.

"You won't if you'll follow my advice," said the committee-man.

"What's that?"

"Thrash the first boy that gives you any trouble. Don't half do it; but give him a sound flogging, so that he will understand who's master.

You're strong enough; you can do it."

James extended his muscular arm with a smile. He knew he was strong. He was a large boy, and his training had been such as to develop his muscles.

"You know the boys that will go to school. Is there any one that can master you?" asked his visitor.

"No, I don't think there is," answered James, with a smile.

"Then you'll do. Let 'em know you are not afraid of them the first day.