"The school-house was one of the most primitive kind, and stood in the edge of dense and heavily-timbered woods. One day there came up a fearful storm of wind and rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The woods were badly wrecked, but the wind left the old log-house uninjured. Not so the lightning. A bolt struck a tree that projected closely over the roof, and then the roof itself. Some of the pupils were greatly alarmed, and no doubt thought it the crack of doom, or the day of judgment. The teacher, as calm and collected as possible, tried to quiet her pupils and keep them in their places. A man who was one of the pupils, in speaking of the occurrence, says that for a little while he remembered nothing, and then he looked around, and saw, as he thought, the teacher and pupils lying dead on the, floor. Presently the teacher began to move a little. Then, one by one, the pupils got up, with a single exception. Help, medical and otherwise, was obtained as soon as possible for this one, but, though life was saved for a time, reason had forever fled." This was certainly a fearful experience for a young teacher. It was while on a visit to her sister, already married, in Northern Ohio, that Eliza made the acquaintance of Abram Garfield, the father of the future President. In this neighborhood, while on a visit to his relatives, at the age of seventeen, James obtained a school and taught for a single term. Having retraced our steps to record this early experience of James' mother, we take the opportunity to mention an incident in the life of her son, which was omitted in the proper place. The story was told by Garfield himself during his last sickness to Mr. Crump, steward of the White House. "When I was a youngster," said the President, "and started for college at Hiram, I had just fifteen dollars--a ten-dollar bill in an old, black-leather pocketbook, which was in the breast pocket of my coat, and the other five dollars was in my trowsers' pocket. I was walking along the road, and, as the day was hot, I took off my coat and carried it on my arm, taking good care to feel every moment or two of the pocketbook, for the hard-earned fifteen dollars was to pay my entrance at the college. "After a while I got to thinking over what college life would be like, and forgot all about the pocketbook for some time, and when I looked again it was gone! I went back mournfully along the road, hunting on both sides for the pocketbook. Presently I came to a house where a young man was leaning over a gate, and he asked me when I came up what I was hunting for. Upon my explaining my loss, and describing the pocketbook, the young man handed it over. That young man," the President added, turning to his devoted physician, "was Dr. Bliss. He saved me for college." "Yes," said the doctor, "and if I hadn't found your ten dollars you wouldn't have become President of the United States."