reader should go to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, he could probably find upon
inquiry several barns in the vicinity which Jimmy helped to build.

He still went to school, however, and obtained such knowledge of the
mysteries of grammar, arithmetic, and geography as could be obtained in
the common schools of that day.

But Jimmy Garfield was not born to be a carpenter, and I believe never
got so far along as to assist in building a house.

He was employed to build a wood-shed for a black-salter, ten miles away
from his mother's house, and when the job was finished his employer fell
into conversation with him, and being a man of limited acquirements
himself, was impressed by the boy's surprising stock of knowledge.

"You kin read, you kin write, and you are death on figgers," he said to
him one day. "If you'll stay with me, keep my 'counts, and 'tend to the
saltery, I'll find you, and give you fourteen dollars a month."

Jimmy was dazzled by this brilliant offer. He felt that to accept it
would be to enter upon the high-road to riches, and he resolved to do
so if his mother would consent. Ten miles he trudged through the woods
to ask his mother's consent, which with some difficulty he obtained, for
she did not know to what influences he might be subjected, and so he got
started in a new business.

Whether he would have fulfilled his employer's prediction, and some day
been at the head of a saltery of his own, we can not tell; but in time
he became dissatisfied with his situation, and returning home, waited
for Providence to indicate some new path on which to enter.