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CHAPTER XXIII.

A VISIT TO LAWNFIELD.

I

T is essential that the reader should take a

quick glance at President Garfield's home

for the White House is but his visiting place -and to do that I must beg him to come with me to Lawnfield on a visit that the author paid to General Garfield during the summer of 1880. In this way the reader can obtain an essentially necessary knowledge of the President as a man; on that side of his life, the domestic, which reveals him one of the noblest of the people.

The station at which I got out was Mentor, twenty-six miles from Cleveland, on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. The drive to the house was over a flat country, which had evidently once been overflowed, and a part of the botttom of the lake-distant about two miles. It was Mentor all along, not a regular town but a thickly settled neighborhood. There were houses every hundred rods or so, and little farms, orchards and gardens around them. The General, as Garfield was called, was the big man of the place, and owned one hundred and sixty acres of land. While driving along the Mentor road one day in 1877, he observed the quiet country

beauty of the place, and thought he would like to live there. He bought one hundred and twenty acres, and afterward added forty. There was a cottage on the ground, and it made a very comfortable home for the family until the general went to Washington, when he ordered it removed and a better building put in its place.

Such a home at best is but a slight affair when viewed from the palatial magnificence of a Fifth Avenue, and probably many a politician would consider General Garfield's house no house at all. But it was and is all sufficient for the needs of the first Republican of his time, who, I venture to say, is far more at home at Mentor than ever he will be in the White House.

We soon arrived at Lawnfield, and I went to a little office just behind the house, though in view, and inquired for the general.

"He's out on the farm," replied one of the two secretaries busy at work writing, "I will go and find him."

During the minute the secretary was absent I examined the house with my eyes. It was two and a half stories high and in an unfinished state. The walls were painted white and relieved by a roof of a dark Turkish red. The lawn about was liberally dotted with fruit trees, in the spreading branches of one of which-a cherry-a boy was busy plucking the luscious fruit. Several girls clustered beneath sharing the work and the re

freshment.

A double row of noble elms was in front of the house Not far off I noticed gooseberry and currant bushes, betokening a garden, and just back of the house beyond the office a commodious-looking barn.

Subsequently I learned other particulars.

The cottage that stood upon the place when the general purchased it proved altogether too small and too barren of conveniences. A Cleveland architect was employed for the metamorphosis. He decided that the walls could be raised and the building enlarged without pulling it down. It was then rebuilt from plans prepared by Mrs. Garfield, that is, in this way: A sketch was first drawn by the architect; this Mrs. Garfield filled out and then the general marked in various direc tions with a bold pen. When the ideas of Mrs. Garfield had been put upon paper the general indorsed them in the following gentle hint to the builders:

"These plans must stand as above, unless otherwise ordered hereafter. If any part of them is impracticable, inform me soon and suggest change.

"Washington, March 6th, 1880."

"J. A. GARFIeld.

The house stands upon a crest or ridge and cannot be called grand in any sense of the word, but certainly deserves the name of a very pleasant, comfortable-looking country home. The ar