From Canal Boy to President

t sometimes his sister Mehetabel, now thirteen years old, carried him on her back. When in winter 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, settl

er, 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 whic

and his wife sold off fifty acres to pay his creditors, leaving thirty, which with

ighbors a site for a new school-house on her own land, and one was built. Here winter after winter came teachers, some of limited

he age of twenty-one Thomas came home from Michigan, where he had been en

said, "you shall h

labor, and that of Jimmy, now fourteen years old, and so the house was built, and the log-cabin became a thing of the

enter, 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

edge of the mysteries of grammar, arithmetic, and geograp

carpenter, and I believe never got so fa

se, and when the job was finished his employer fell into conversation with him, and being a m

to him one day. "If you'll stay with me, keep my 'counts, and 'tend t

olved to do so if his mother would consent. Ten miles he trudged through the woods to ask his mother's consent, which with some

f a saltery of his own, we can not tell; but in time he became dissatisfied with his situa

t employment. He had an active temperament, and would have been happiest when

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 especiall

n a neighbor, entering one day,

wered Jame

in Newburg wants s

t," said Ja

better go

mits of Cleveland, and thither J

s and sturdy frame of his former ancestors,

n homespun, looked up

r. --?" as

es

you wanted som

can do it," answered the farmer

" said James,

y. I'll give you seven

o the work. There proved to be twenty-five cords, and no on

s from his work they rested on the broad bosom of the beautiful lake, almost broad enough as it appeared to be the oc

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 cap

the present, and returned home with the

o 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 ha

s over James made known

aid: "Mother, I want abov

her in dismay. "What has put

," answered the boy quietly. "I have th