After he had concluded he sealed and stamped the letter and carried it out and dropped it in a letter box at the corner of the street. He was about to prepare to go to bed on his return, when his attention was attracted by a modest-looking shelf in one corner of the room. His love for reading caused him to make a closer examination. He found that one shelf contained a copy of the Bible, a set of Shakespeare in one big volume, a history of the United States, a Congressional directory, a condensed history of the nations, and a life of James A. Garfield, the martyred President of the United States. It seemed to Barry, young as he was, that these six volumes might be said to contain a liberal education in themselves.
Every one of them was worth careful perusal, but boy-like, he turned to the life of Garfield and began to skim it over. Before he realized it he was thoroughly absorbed in the volume. He read of the boy who was born in poverty, and who, through his own efforts, had risen to the highest position in the gift of the American people. The story was a reality to Barry Wynn. He could see young Garfield when he was scarcely twelve years of age, driving in the cattle, carrying wood, hoeing potatoes, building fires, and doing whatever else there was for willing hands to do. He could see the future President lying flat on the floor of the barn, reading the life of Napoleon, and he could see that same boy exclaiming to his mother with youthful enthusiasm: "Mother, when I get to be a man, I'm going to be a soldier," and then later on in the book, he read about the boy, after he reached manhood, who became one of the bravest soldiers in the Civil War.
But the most interesting part of the magic volume, so far as Barry was concerned, were the pages that told of the future President of the United States working as a mule driver on the narrow banks of the canal. Young Garfield once thought that he would like to become a pirate, but as his reasoning powers became stronger, he discarded this romantic idea and settled down to the unpoetic work of everyday life, and although he did not become a pirate, he managed to secure employment on a canal boat in his own State, and during his first night's work became involved in a quarrel with a bully of a deck hand, and thrashed the fellow within an inch of his life. After that, James A. Garfield went to school for a while, and finally became a student in Hiram College, Ohio. Later he was promoted to the proud position of a teacher in the institution in which he had started as a pupil. Barry read on and on, following his hero from one position to another, until he reached the Presidency, only to become the victim of an assassin's bullet.
Finally Barry reached the last page of this wonderful book, and he laid it down with a sigh of relief and yet of regret. He happened to glance at the small clock which was ticking on the mantle. It pointed to fifteen minutes of two in the morning. It startled the boy. He had no idea that the time had passed so rapidly. He undressed quickly and put out the light, and was just about to jump into bed when he heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway. He opened his door cautiously and as he did so he saw Joe Hart going into his room on the other side of the corridor. Barry was too sleepy to feel very inquisitive, but in a vague sort of way, he thought that Joe Hart was certainly keeping very bad hours.
After that he threw himself into bed. He lay thinking for some time. The thought of the book he had just read kept running through his mind. One sentence in it came to him as clearly as if it had been committed to memory. It was an extract from an address which Garfield had delivered to the students at Hiram College. The President, on that occasion, had said:
"Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify, but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth saving."
Barry felt, in an incoherent, drowsy way, that he had been tossed overboard. He wondered whether he could sink or swim, but before the answer came he was sound asleep.