furnished us, and we cooked our own victuals. We lived upon a dollar a
week each. Our diet was strong, but very plain; mush and molasses, pork
and potatoes. Saturdays we took our axes, and went into the woods and
cut cord-wood. During vacations we labored in the harvest-field, or
taught a district school, as we could.

"Yonder," said he, pointing to a beautiful valley, about two miles
distant, "stands the school-house where Garfield first taught school. He
got twelve dollars a month, and boarded round. I also taught school in a
neighboring town. We both went back to Chester to college, and would
probably have finished our education there, but it was a Baptist school,
and they were constantly making flings at the children of the Disciples,
and teaching sectarianism. As the Disciples grew stronger they
determined their children should not be subjected to such influence; the
college of our own Church was established at Hiram, and there Garfield
and I went."

Though the remainder of the reminiscences somewhat anticipate the
course of our story, it is perhaps as well to insert it here.

"We lodged in the basement most of the time, and boarded at the present
Mrs. Garfield's father's house. During our school-days here I nursed the
late President through an attack of the measles which nearly ended his
life. He has often said, that, were it not for my attention, he could
not have lived. So you see that the General and myself were very close
to one another from the time either of us could lisp until he became
President. Here is a picture we had taken together," showing an old
daguerreotype. "It does not resemble either of us much now. And yet they
do say that we bore in our childhood, and still bear, a striking
resemblance. I am still a farmer, while he grew great and powerful. He