From Canal Boy to President | Page 4

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,