before he was twelve, so familiar was he with the Indian
history of the country, that he had named every tree in the orchard,
which his father planted as he was born, with the name of some Indian
chief, and even debated in societies, religion, and other topics with
men. One favorite tree of his he named Tecumseh, and the branches of
many of these old trees have been cut since his promotion to the
Presidency by relic-hunters, and carried away.

"Gen. Garfield was a remarkable boy as well as man. It is not possible
to tell you the fight he made amid poverty for a place in life, and how
gradually he obtained it. When he was a boy he would rather read than
work. But he became a great student. He had to work after he was twelve
years of age. In those days we were all poor, and it took hard knocks to
get on. He worked clearing the fields yonder with his brother, and then
cut cord-wood, and did other farm labor to get the necessities of life
for his mother and sisters.

"I remember when he was fourteen years of age, he went away to work at
Daniel Morse's, not four miles down the road from here, and after the
labors of the day he sat down to listen to the conversation of a teacher
in one of the schools of Cleveland, when it was yet a village, who had
called. The talk of the educated man pleased the boy, and, while intent
upon his story, a daughter of the man for whom he was working informed
the future President with great dignity that it was time that _servants_
were in bed, and that she preferred his absence to his presence.

"Nothing that ever happened to him so severely stung him as this
affront. In his youth he could never refer to it without indignation,
and almost immediately he left Mr. Morse's employ and went on the canal.
He said to me then that those people should live to see the day when
they would not care to insult him.

"His experience on the canal was a severe one, but perhaps useful. I can
remember the winter when he came home after the summer's service there.
He had the chills all that fall and winter, yet he would shake and get
his lessons at home; go over to the school and recite, and thus keep up
with his class. The next spring found him weak from constant ague. Yet
he intended to return to the canal.

"Here came the turning-point in his life. Mr. Bates, who taught the
school, pleaded with him not to do so, and said that if he would
continue in school till the next fall he could get a certificate. I
re