Chapter XX—Garfield Becomes A State Senator.
Probably Garfield considered now that he was settled in life. He had married the woman of his choice, set up a pleasant home, and was fully occupied with a class of duties that suited him. Living frugally, he was able to lay by a portion of his salary annually, and saw the way open, if life and health continued, to a moderate prosperity. He seemed to be a born teacher, and his life seemed likely to be passed in that pleasant and tranquil office.
Many years before, while still unmarried, his mother had been a teacher, and one of her experiences when so occupied was so remarkable that I can not forbear quoting it:
"About the year 1820 she and her sister were left alone in the world, without provision, so far as the inheritance or possession of property was concerned. Preferring to live among relatives, one went to reside with an uncle in Northern Ohio, and the other, Eliza, afterward Mrs. Garfield, came to another uncle, the father of Samuel Arnold, who then lived on a farm near Norwich, Muskingum County, Ohio. There Eliza Ballou made her home, cheerfully helping at the house or in the field, as was then sometimes the custom in a pioneer country. Having something more than what at that day was an ordinary education, Eliza procured about twenty pupils, and taught a summer school.
"The school-house was one of the most primitive kind, and stood in the edge of dense and heavily-timbered woods. One day there came up a fearful storm of wind and rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The woods were badly wrecked, but the wind left the old log-house uninjured. Not so the lightning. A bolt struck a tree that projected closely over the roof, and then the roof itself. Some of the pupils were greatly alarmed, and no doubt thought it the crack of doom, or the day of judgment. The teacher, as calm and collected as possible, tried to quiet her pupils and keep them in their places. A man who was one of the pupils, in speaking of the occurrence, says that for a little while he remembered nothing, and then he looked around, and saw, as he thought, the teacher and pupils lying dead on the, floor. Presently the teacher began to move a little. Then, one by one, the pupils got up, with a single exception. Help, medical and otherwise, was obtained as soon as possible for this one, but, though life was saved for a time, reason had forever fled."
This was certainly a fearful experience for a young teacher.
It was while on a visit to her sister, already married, in Northern Ohio, that Eliza made the acquaintance of Abram Garfield, the father of the future President. In this neighborhood, while on a visit to his relatives, at the age of seventeen, James obtained a school and taught for a single term.
Having retraced our steps to record this early experience of James' mother, we take the opportunity to mention an incident in the life of her son, which was omitted in the proper place. The story was told by Garfield himself during his last sickness to Mr. Crump, steward of the White House.
"When I was a youngster," said the President, "and started for college at Hiram, I had just fifteen dollars—a ten-dollar bill in an old, black-leather pocketbook, which was in the breast pocket of my coat, and the other five dollars was in my trowsers' pocket. I was walking along the road, and, as the day was hot, I took off my coat and carried it on my arm, taking good care to feel every moment or two of the pocketbook, for the hard-earned fifteen dollars was to pay my entrance at the college.