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.

"After a while I got to thinking over what college life would be like,
and forgot all about the pocketbook for some time,