CHAPTER I. A FIRE AND ITS RESULT. A BRAM GARFIELD, worn out with a night of bitter toil, bead-drops of perspiration standing upon his forehead and coursing down his heated, cinder-stained cheeks, walked to his home with a weary step. All night long the fires had ravaged the woods surrounding his little homestead, and all night long, assisted by the stout arms of his neighbors, he had valiantly fought the flames that threatened his all, twenty acres of good wheat growing on the land he himself had cleared around his cabin. The fires were now well down, the trunks of unburnt trees stood out against the sky, blackened witnesses of destruction, and the wind was scattering the ashes hither and thither, as the farmers, knowing their scanty crops were saved, turned homeward. Abram Garfield, honest, hard-working farmer that he was, naturally had taken pride in his grain, a pride he could not afford to see humbled by the agency of a vagrant fire in the woods. When it approached the edge of his fields, he had gone forth to the fight, and after hours of exhausting work, succeeded in getting the better of his enemy. Reaching his cabin, he sank wearily on a threelegged stool that stood by the open door and raised his hat, that he might wipe away the per spiration beading his forehead. With no thought but that of rest, he allowed the breezes that blew over his saved wheat fields to cool his face with their grateful breath. In this most natural act he contracted a severe cold and sore throat, the over-tension of his system laying it open to influences, that his otherwise hardy nature would have easily withstood. Chill followed chill, and inflammation set in, becoming rapidly so intense, that his good wife Eliza determined to send for the only doctor the county boasted, a semi-quack, who lived several miles away. The leech responded promptly, came, and with many a profound gesture that illustrated nothing so well as his profound ignorance, ordered a blister for the sick man's throat-it was applied with all the instant virulence of quack practice in an unsettled country. The treatment was in faith so heroic, that Abram Garfield shortly after the blister was applied choked to death. Feeling that the last great act of his life had come, he motioned his wife to his side, and said, with thick, broken utterance: "I am going to leave you, Eliza. I have planted four saplings in these woods, and I rust now leave them to your care." Then, giving a last, long look upon his little farm as it stretched beyond the window toward the rising sun, he called his oxen by name, turned upon his side, and expired. The poor widow was stunned by the suddenness of her great misfortune. It had come upon her so quickly, it was impossible to realize at the moment of her husband's passing away, the full extent of her loss. Gradually, the iron entered her soul, she became aware of her loneliness. Bowing her head, she wept bitterly. "Do not cry, my mother, I will take care of you," said her son Thomas, a mere slip of a boy, who stood by her side, scarce comprehending what he said, or why he said it. "God bless you, my son; I will try to be brave for your sweet sakes," said the stricken woman, as she wound her arms convulsively about the boy. Rising, she called two little girls to her side, and explained to them their loss-the death of their father. Tenderly she lifted them in her arms and bade them kiss the cold, calm face, for the last time. Then from the cradle she lifted the youngest, her baby-boy, James, almost two years old, the pride of her hearth-stone. The boy looked down, wonderingly, out of his great blue eyes at his father's face so still upon the pillow. With a childish, questioning look, he lisped, "Papa sleep?" The mother's tears, flowing rapidly, was the only answer. Two days later, Abram Garfield was laid to rest, and the baby-boy was carried to the funeral in the |