While he chopped wood he looked out wistfully upon Lake Erie, recalled the sea stories which he had read, and longed more than ever to become a sailor. The Orange woods were growing too cramped for him. He was restless and eager for a broader life. It was the unrest of ambition, which voiced itself twenty years later in an address at Washington, D. C., to young men. "Occasion cannot make spurs, young men. If you expect to wear spurs, you must win them. If you wish to use them, you must buckle them to your own heels before you go into the fight. Any success you may achieve is not worth the having unless you fight for it. Whatever you win in life you must conquer by your own efforts; and then it is yours--a part of yourself.... Let not poverty stand as an obstacle in your way. Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard, and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known one to be drowned who was worth saving.... To a young man who has in himself the magnificent possibilities of life, it is not fitting that he should be permanently commanded; he should be a commander. You must not continue to be employed; you must be an _employer_. You must be promoted from the ranks to a command. There is something, young men, that you can command; go and find it, and command it. You can at least command a horse and dray, can be generalissimo of them and may carve out a fortune with them." Mrs. Garfield, with her mother's heart, deprecated a life at sea for her boy, and tried to dissuade him. Through the summer he worked in the hay-field, and then, the sea-fever returning, his mother wisely suggested that he seek employment on Lake Erie and see if he liked the life. With his clothing wrapped in a bundle, he walked seventeen miles to Cleveland, with glowing visions of being a sailor. Reaching the wharf, he went on board a schooner, and asked for work. A drunken captain met him with oaths, and ordered him off the boat. The first phase of sea life had been different from what he had read in the books, and he turned away somewhat disheartened.