"I have been wonderfully blessed in the discretion of my wife. She is one of the coolest and best-balanced women I ever saw. She is unstampedable. There has not been one solitary instance of my public career where I suffered in the smallest degree for any remark she ever made. It would have been perfectly natural for a woman often to say something that could be misinterpreted; but without any design, and with the intelligence and coolness of her character, she has never made the slightest mistake that I ever heard of. With the competition that has been against me, many times such discretion has been a real blessing." She has borne the general six children. The first, a daughter, who died in infancy. Two boys, Harry Augustus and James R., aged eighteen and sixteen respectively, are students at St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H., under the charge of the Rev. Dr. Coit. They entered the school in September, 1879, and quickly proved themselves sturdy, manly boys, and good, faithful students. At the close of the school year (June 24th, 1880), Harry won the prize for the best English declamation, the qualities for which he has no doubt inherited from his father-the Webster of the West. The boys were both in the fifth form this year, and will be prepared to enter college in the coming September. The third child is Mary, a rosy-cheeked, laughing-eyed girl of thirteen, who is called "Mollie" by everybody. The next is Irvin McDowell-so named as a sort of protest against the unwarranted abuse that General McDowell, Garfield's close friend, received during and after the war. The boy is nine years old. The youngest is aged six, and named Abramafter his grandfather. This is the boy I noticed up in the cherry tree, as I waited for the general on my arrival. "Have you met mother?" asked my host. "No," I replied. "Oh, I want to introduce you then; you must know mother." He spoke of her so often, and so tenderly, I could not but see that she was constantly in his thoughts. I went down-stairs to see her. She is a very small woman, and looked almost diminutive beside her stalwart son. She is eighty, quick in her movements, and in full possession of her mental faculties. She is thin, white-haired, rosycheeked, and has a prominent nose-like many another who has adorned the pages of history. On being introduced I found her rather reticent. She seemed to be most concerned about the children and the work around the house, that it should go on uninterruptedly and in the proper manner. She was evidently a matter-of-fact, common-sense old lady, and I could not but admire her, remembering her sacrifices for her children, and how she had cared for her boy James, laying for him the foundation of his present eminence when she counseled him to "remember his God and study books." She called him "my son," and remarked on the weather, their new place, and asked if I was mar ried and how many children I had. I could not get her to talk about politics in Washington, and I do not believe she is over-well pleased with her son's nomination for President. Of course she is proud of him, and desires his success, but he was already a senator, and I think the old lady would have preferred to have had him go no higher. She knew he would be away from their rural home most of the time, and, pressed by public care and duty, she could have him less to herself. Nor can you wonder at this, for Garfield makes his home so much of a home, as he reveals himself in his life and letters. Here are two to Mr. Hinsdale: "MENTOR, OHIO, May 13th, 1877. "You can hardly imagine how completely I have turned my mind out of its usual channels during the last four weeks. You know I have never been able to do anything moderately, and, to-day, I feel myself lame in every muscle with too much lifting and digging. I shall try to do a little less the coming week." "WASHINGTON, November 2d, 1878. "Last evening I called on Judge Black at the Ebbett House, and found him with a Bible in his hand. He said: 'I don't know any one who has properly appreciated the parables of Jesus. I don't believe that the man ever lived who could have written any one of them, even the least of them. They are unlike anything in literature or philosophy in their spirit, purpose and character. If they were all that Jesus had left us, they would be con. clusive proofs of His divinity.' What do you think of this? The Judge then went on to say that he had that morning asked a lady friend to lend him some books for Sunday reading, and, among others, she had sent him a volume entitled 'Alone with Jesus.' 'And,' said he, 'the title repelled me for two reasons: first, it is a piece of spontaneous egoism for any man to assume that he is of so much consequence in the universe that Christ would shut out all the rest of the world and attend to him; and, second, I |