The Life and Work of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States / Embracing an Account of the Scenes and Incidents of His Boyhood; the Struggles of His Youth; the Might of His Early Manhood; His Valor As a Soldier; His Career As a Statesman; His Election to the Presidency; and the Tragic Story of His Death.

by John Clark Ridpath

Alcibiades.—I should call it a thing; some call it a boy.

Soc.—Nay, I call it neither a thing nor a boy, but rather a young man. By Hercules, if I should go further, I should say that that being is a god in embryo!

Alc.—You are my master, Socrates, or I should say that nature would have hard work to hatch a god out of such an object.

Soc.—Most men are fools, Alcibiades, because they are unable to discover in the germ, or even in the growing stalk, the vast possibilities of development. They forget the beauty of growth; and, therefore, they reckon not that nature and discipline are able to make yon boy as one of the immortals.

So the child James Garfield advanced into the golden age of boyhood. This period we will now briefly live over after him. Spring time deepens into early summer; the branches and the leaves are swollen with life’s young sap; what manner of fruit will this growing tree offer the creative sun to work upon?

The young lad, in whom our interest centers, was now, in the autumn of 1843, twelve years old, when something new came into his life, and gave to him his first definite and well-fixed purpose. He had always, and by nature, been industrious. In that little farm home, where poverty strove continually to carry the day against the combined forces of industry and economy, no service was without its value. And, therefore, it had doubtless been a delight to all in that narrow circle to observe in James the qualities of a good worker. He seemed a true child of that wonderful western country which is yet so young, and so able to turn its energies to advantage in every available way. So, while still too young to “make a hand” at anything, James had found his place wherever there was demand for such light duties as he was able to perform. At field, barn or cabin, in garden or in kitchen, place there was none where the little fellow’s powers were not exercised. Instinct with forces larger than his frame, development of them was inevitable.

GARFIELD AT SIXTEEN.

But now a great event in the family took place. Thomas, who had just attained his majority, had returned from a trip to Michigan with a sum of ready money, and wanted to build his mother a new house. Life in the cabin had, in his estimation, been endured long enough. Some of the materials for a frame building were already accumulated, and under the directions of a carpenter the work was begun and rapidly pushed to completion. In all these proceedings James took an intense interest, and developed such a liking for tools and timber as could but signify a member of the Builders’ Guild. He resolved to be a carpenter; and from this day on was never for a moment without an object in life.

The ambition to “be something” took many different turns, but was a force which, once created, could never be put down. The care and skill requisite to putting a house together, fitting the rafters into place, and joining part to part with mathematical precision, gave him an idea that these things were of a higher order than farm labor. Plain digging would no longer do; there must be a better chance to contrive something, to conjure up plans and ways and means in the brain, and show forth ideas by the skill of the hand. Consequently a variety of tools began to accumulate about James Garfield. There was a corner somewhere which, in imitation of the great carpenter who built their house, he called his “shop;” a rough bench, perhaps, with a few planes, and mallets, and chisels, and saws, and the like, to help in mending the gates and doors about the place. No independent farm can get along without such help, and of course these services were in constant demand.