The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-06-25

Gen. Garfield's nomination tlift " rs DIFF
ficult to add anything which has not d.
ready been said. The ground has been
pretty fully covered. What can now be
cleaned in addition thereto forms the few
final pieces that fit into the grand mosaic
of his life. His early love for books has
often been referred TO. In speaking on
this topic the other day, the general re-
ming of sea-tales, and said that if any
body had offered him cadetship he was
sure it would have killed him; lie would
have exploded with joy.
A good deal has been said about the
wOOd.chopping episode at Independence,
o., and when one reflects that the job
tho boy undertook was to cut up 100
cords Of four. foot wood, it does seem
rather an extensive layout OF work. 1t
was while looking up from his work, be-
tween successive blows of the axe, that
hts eye rested on the blue waters of the
lake, and his ambition to 60 to sea was
all the more infamed. But the canal,
and not the sea, claimed him. He worked
on to the end Of the season, and, as he
now very freely says, was fortunately
taken sick. Then came the five months
of utter prostration. When in the pur-
gatorial state, as he expresses it, between
health and sickness, his mother was wise
enough to give him the scent for books
again by suggesting that he go to Ches-
ter. This he did, remaining four terms.
At the end of the second, a little before
he was IS, he began to teach school.
While ut Chester the institution at Hiram
was built. The people were Disciples,
and, as Hiram was being built by that
sect, and q number of his friends were
going there, he left Chester and began
studying at Hiram in 1850.
In the midst of his second term one of
the teachers was taken sick, and he was
called in to fill the vacant place. From
that time on he was retained i'll the posi-
ton until he became a regular teacher.
His wife, then Miss Lucretia Rudolph,
was one of his pupils at Hiram, reciting
Latin and Greek to him for two or three
years. Both she and the general keep
up their classical studies yet and derive
great satisfaction from doing so. 1t is
said that Mrs. Garfield, when girl at
Hiram, used to remark that her Latin
and her Greek would be of no use to her
in after life. Two or three years ago,
having grown little "rusty" on the
dead languages, she expressed wish
that she had not forgotten her Latin, as
she would like to teach the boys. One
day when Gen. Garfield was starting for
the capitol, he gave her Caesar, and told
her he would hear her recite page of it
that night. She had not looked ut the
great Commentaries for years, but when
night came she recited the page very
fairly, and from that time on for two
years she took the two older boys and
carried them through their Latin. The
little children have never been to school,
but have been taught at home by their
accomplished mother.
1t is generally understood that when
informed of the nomination both the
generals wife and mother expressed to
their Intimate friends that "now there's
an end of anything like privacy for sew
eral years" The generals mother, from
her newspaper reading, was not surprised
at the outcome, bnt is reported to have
said that she expected it. Mrs. Garfield,
III the course of a conversation with the
correspondent, said she had, of course,
heard the early talk about the generals
name, but had hoped that it meant moth
ing. In fact, she had come to the con-
clusion that it did mean nothing, when
suddenly the news came that he was
nominated. She preferred that it had
not happened, but now that he was NOM
mated she hoped that he would be elect
ed, "because," she added, with great
self-abnegation, ~ should not like to
see the Republican party defeated.