Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. III.djvu/200

 164 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS ing on them a high standard of moral and intellec tual worth, Mrs. Garfield displayed an almost he roic courage. It was a life of struggle and priva tion; but the poverty of her home differed from that of cities or settled communities it was the poverty of the frontier, all shared it, and all were bound closely together in a common struggle, where there were no humiliating contrasts in neighboring wealth. At three years of age James A. Garfield went to school in a log hut, learned to read, and began that habit of omnivorous reading which ended only with his life. At ten years of age he was accus tomed to manual labor, helping out his mother s meager income by work at home or on the farms of the neighbors. Labor was play to the healthy boy; he did it cheerfully, almost with enthusiasm, for his mother was a staunch Campbellite, whose hymns and songs sent her children to their tasks with a feeling that the work was consecrated; but work in winter always yielded its claims to those of the district school, where he made good progress, and was conspicuous for his assiduity. By the time he was fourteen, young Garfield had a fair knowledge of arithmetic and grammar, and was particularly apt in the facts of American history, which he had eagerly gathered from the meager treatise that circulated in that remote section. In deed, he read and re-read every book the scant