of freebooters, seemed to fascinate his mind the most. The air of wild freedom, the nonchalance and absence of care with which pirates lived, was a great attraction to the boy's spirit, already equal in its boldness to the most daring freebooter the sea ever knew. "The Pirate's Own Book" was a treasure-house of stories in which Garfield took an extreme, ever vivified delight. No matter how many times he pored over the book; no matter how often he absorbed its wild life and seemed to breathe the very atmosphere in which his heroes lived and moved, it was ever a well-spring of pleasure to him. He shared in all the dangers of the pirates, he made the bivouac with them on the lonely beach among the shadows, he drank their coffee, he eat their biscuits and fruit, he stole with them on stealthy foot over the difficult paths to where the gold was buried from the last great prize, a Spanish treasure galleon, he boarded the stranger ship, he carried a torch that set her on fire with the best of them, and he joined with all a boy's ardor in the lusty cheer as the prize went down. He lived their lives over again, he was every brave chief in turn, and he loved the salt waves with the most enthusiastic of them all.

It was perhaps fortunate at this juncture that there were no opportunities to gratify the wild fancies thus born within the boy's heart, fancies the black shadows of which he hardly saw. As it was the Pirate's Own Book only fired his ambition

to be something, and so did no harm. He saw too that his ambition could only be gratified with money and upon a larger field of life that opened to him in the Cuyahoga wilderness or was contained within the bounds of Orange.

One day he came to his mother and said,

"Mother, I have engaged to chop a hundred cords of wood for twenty-five dollars."

"But are you sure you are quite strong enough for such an undertaking?" inquired the careful

woman.

"Oh, yes," replied James, laughingly, "I shall get through with it some how."

He went bravely to work, but soon found he had indeed undertaken a formidable task. His pride forbid him to give up. He had said he

could do it and do it he would let it cost what it inight. The task was that of a man, and his boy's strength began to fail him before it was half over, but he toiled on day after day. At every stroke of the axe he could look up and catch the sun's glimmer on the slaty-blue waves of Lake Erie. It prompted all the imaginings of his young heart so deeply stirred by the Pirate's Own Book. He thought the lake to be the sea and already he saw himself a bold rover with a gallant crew, commanding a staunch black ship that proudly carried the black flag at the peak, floating out upon its restless bosom. And when he would lie down at night his day thoughts turned into dreams of the

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sea and its life of wild attractiveness. In his dreams he was ever a sailor.

When his wood-chopping was done and his hundred cords were neatly piled, he went to the Newburg farmer, for whom he had worked, received his twenty-five dollars and carried it straight to his mother. Mrs. Garfield looked at the pale boy, and though proud of his manly achievement, she saw, with some apprehension, that he had overtasked himself. She softly remonstrated with his ardor, urging it as a caution for the future. It was precisely this future that was on the boy's mind, and still strong in his sailor fancies, it was this that he had come to speak about.

"Mother, I want to be a sailor, and I am going to sea," said he, abruptly.

Mrs. Garfield turned pale, for she knew too well, alas! this meant a separation for years, and, perhaps forever, from her son.

Nay, James," she replied, gently; "why not be content with us at home? the sea is a hard life, and I fear I could not part with you just yet. The haying season is at hand, and your brother will need your assistance on the farm. I pray you give up this sea-faring idea for the present.”

James said not a word, but went about the work on the farm. He assisted in the hay-fields and the gathering of the harvest, but when it was all over he came again to his mother, and announced to her that he could no longer restrain his desire

for a life on the wave. He had resolved to immediately depart. Then he packed a few clothes in a bundle, and placing them on a stick across his shoulder, like all the boys in pictures he had ever seen, set out on foot for Cleveland. Amid prayers and forebodings, the poor mother had bidden him good-bye, and he carried with him her kiss and her blessing, as his only fortune

He plodded along cheerfully. His heart never failed him, his courage never sank. He was always hopeful and in good spirits. After a tramp of several days, he reached Cleveland, and at once sought the harbor, that paradise wherein he believed he should find a career of indescribable happiness. There was but one ship in port. This he boarded, and not without some trepidation inquired for the captain.

His idea of a ship's captain had been formed from his reading, and then gilded with the honest goodness of his own nature. He imagined that any man who was good and great enough to command a ship, must, at least, be a dashing, brave and gallant fellow, capable, when occasion required, of performing desperate deeds, but disposed to be, as a general thing, generous to a fault. To his ques tion, where he could see the captain, a deck-hand replied: "The cap'n's below, he'll be up soon." Garfield, somewhat disturbed, waited the fulfillment of the deck-hand's information. In a moment it proved true. The "cap'n" came on deck, an