The annals of this period of life in the Garfield cabin are simple. But biography, when it has for its theme one of the loftiest men that ever lived, loves to busy itself with the details of his childhood and to try to trace in them the indications of future greatness. The picture of that life has been given by the dauntless woman herself. In the spring of the year, the little corn patch was broken up with an old-fashioned wooden plow with an iron share. At first the ox-team was mostly driven by the widow herself, but Tom, the oldest boy, soon learned to divide the labor. The baby was left with his older sister, while the mother and older son worked at the plow, or dragged a heavy tree branch—a primitive harrow—over the clods. When the seed was to be put in, it was by the same hands. The garden, with its precious store of potatoes, beans, and cabbages, came in for no small share of attention, for these were the luxuries of the frugal table. From the first Tom was able largely to attend to the few head of stock on the little place. When a hog was to be killed for curing, some neighbor was given a share to perform the act of slaughter. The mysteries of smoking and curing the various parts were well understood by Mrs. Garfield. At harvest, also, the neighbors would lend a hand, the men helping in the field, and the women at the cabin preparing dinner. Of butter, milk, and eggs, the children always had a good supply, even if the table was in other respects meager. There was a little orchard, planted by the father, which thrived immensely. In a year or two the trees were laden with rosy fruit. Cherries, plums, and apples peeped out from their leafy homes. The gathering was the children’s job, and they made it a merry one.
From the first the Garfield children performed tasks beyond their years. Corn-planting, weed-pulling, potato-digging, and the countless jobs which have to be performed on every farm, were shared by them. The first winter was one of the bitterest privation. The supplies were so scanty that the mother, unobserved by the four hungry little folks, would often give her share of the meal to them. But after the first winter, the bitter edge of poverty wore off. The executive ability of the little widow began to tell on the family affairs. In the following spring, the mortgage on the place was canceled by selling off fifty of the eighty acres. In the absence of money, the mother made exchanges of work—sewing for groceries, spinning for cotton, and washing for shoes. In time, too, the children came to be a valuable help.
But though this life was busy and a hard one, it was not all that occupied the attention of the family. The Garfield cabin had an inner life; a life of thought and love as well as of economy and work. Mrs. Garfield had a head for books as well as business. Her husband and herself had been members of the Church of the Disciples, followers of Alexander Campbell. In her widowhood, for years she and her children never missed a sabbath in attending the church three miles away. If ever there was an earnest, honest Christian, Eliza Garfield was one. A short, cheerful prayer each morning, no matter how early she and the children rose, a word of thankfulness at the beginning of every meal, no matter how meager, and a thoughtful, quiet Bible-reading and prayer at night, formed part of that cabin life. Feeling keenly the poor advantages of the children in the way of education, she told them much of history and the world, and thus around her knee they learned from the loving teacher lessons not taught in any college. When James was five years old, his older sister for awhile carried him on her back to the log school-house, a mile and a half distant, at a place dignified with the name of a village, though it contained only a store, blacksmith shop, and the school. But the school was too far away. The enterprise of Mrs. Garfield was nowhere better shown than in her offering the land, and securing a school-house on her own farm. She was determined on her children having the best education the wilderness afforded, and they had it.
But the four children were strangely different. They had the same ancestry, and the same surroundings. Who could have foretold the wide difference of their destinies? The girls were cheerful, industrious, and loving. They were fair scholars at the country school, and were much thought of in the neighborhood. At a very early age they took from the tired mother’s shoulders a large share of the work of the little household. They carded, spun, wove, and mended the boys’ clothes when they were but children themselves. They beautified the rough little home, and added a cheery joy to its plain surroundings. They were superior to the little society in which they mingled, but not above it. There were apple-parings, corn-huskings, quilting-bees, apple-butter and maple-sugar boilings, in which they were the ringleaders of mischief—romping, cheerful, healthy girls, happy in spite of adversity, ambitious only to make good wives and mothers.
Thomas, the elder brother, was a Garfield out and out. He was a plodding, self-denying, quiet boy, with the tenderest love for his mother, and without an ambition beyond a farmer’s life. When the other children went to school, he staid at home “to work,” he said, “so that the girls and James might get an education.” For himself he “would do without it.” Wise, thoughtful, and patient, he was the fit successor of the generations of Garfields who had held the plow-handle before he was born. Without a complaint, of his own will he worked year after year, denying himself every thing that could help his brother James to education and an ambitious manhood. For from the first, mother and children felt that in the youngest son lay the hope of the family.
James took precociously to books, learning to read early, and knowing the English reader almost by heart at eight years of age. His first experience at the school built on the home farm is worth noting. The seats were hard, the scene new and exciting, and his stout little frame tingled with restrained energy. He squirmed, twisted, writhed, peeped under the seats and over his shoulder; tied his legs in a knot, then untied them; hung his head backwards till the blood almost burst forth, and in a thousand ways manifested his restlessness. Reproofs did no good. At last the well-meaning teacher told James’s mother that nothing could be made of the boy. With tears in her eyes the fond, ambitious mother talked to the little fellow that night in the fire-light. The victory was a triumph of love. The boy returned to school, still restless, but studious as well. At the end of the term he received a copy of the New Testament as a prize for being the best reader in the school. The restlessness, above mentioned, seems to have followed him through life. Sleeping with his brother he would kick the cover off at night, and then say, “Thomas, cover me up.” A military friend relates that, during the civil war, after a day of terrible bloodshed, lying with a distinguished officer, the cover came off in the old way, and he murmured in his sleep, “Thomas, cover me up.” Wakened by the sound of his own voice, he became aware of what he had said; and then, thinking of the old cabin life, and the obscure but tender-hearted brother, General Garfield burst into tears, and wept himself to sleep.
The influences surrounding the first ten or twelve years of life are apt to be underestimated. But it can not be doubted that the lessons of child-life learned in the cabin and on the little farm had more to do with Garfield’s future greatness than all his subsequent education. Like each of his parents, he was left without a father at the age of two years. If any one class of men have more universally risen to prominence than another it has been widow’s sons. The high sense of responsibility, the habits of economy and toil, are a priceless experience. None is to be pitied more than the child of luxury and fortune, and no one suspects his disadvantages less. Hated poverty is, after all, the nursery of greatness. The discipline which would have crushed a weak soul only served to strengthen the rugged and vigorous nature of this boy.
The stories which come down to us of Garfield’s childhood, though not remarkable, show that he was different from the boys around him. He had a restless, aspiring mind, fond of strong food. Every hint of the outside world fascinated him, and roused the most pertinacious curiosity. Yet to this wide-eyed interest in what lay outside of his life this shock-haired, bare-legged boy added an indomitable zeal for work. From dawn to dark he toiled; but whether chopping wood, working in the field or at the barn, it was always with the idea and inspiration that he was “helping mother.” Glorious loyalty of boyhood!
CHAPTER II.
THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.
Socrates.—Alcibiades, what sayest thou that is, passing between us and yon wall?