on one of the vessels navigating Lake Erie.

He was rudely repulsed by the owner of the first vessel to whom he
applied, a brutal, drunken creature, who answered his request for
employment with an oath and a rough "Get off this schooner in
double quick, or I'll throw you into the dock." Garfield turned
away in disgust, his ardor for the sea somewhat dampened by the
man's appearance and behavior. In this mood he met his cousin,
formerly a schoolmaster, then captain of a canal boat, with whom
he at once engaged to drive his horses.

After a few months on the towpath, young Garfield contracted
another kind of fever quite unlike that from which he had been
suffering previously, and went home to be nursed out of it by his
ever faithful mother.

During his convalescence he thought a great deal over his cousin's
words,--"Jim, you've got too good a head on you to be a wood
chopper or a canal driver." "He who wills to do anything will do
it," he had learned from his mother's lips when a mere baby, and
then and there he said in his heart, "I will be a scholar; I will
go to college." And so, out of his sea fever and towpath
experience was born the resolution that made the turning point in
his career.

Action followed hot upon resolve. He lost no time in applying
himself to the work of securing an education. Alternately chopping
wood and carpentering, farming and teaching school, ringing bells
and sweeping floors, he worked his way through seminary and
college. His strong will and resolute purpose to make the most of