A Threnody 584 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD CHAPTER I. The "Great Heart of the People."--Bereaved of their Chief.--Universal Mourning.--Wondering Query of Foreign Nations.--Humble Birth in Log Cabin.--The Frontier Settlements in Ohio.--Untimely Death of Father.--Struggles of the Family. "_The great heart of the people will not let the old soldier die!_" So murmured the brave, patient sufferer in his sleep that terrible July night, when the whole nation, stricken down with grief and consternation at the assassin's deed, watched, waited, prayed--as one man--for the life of their beloved President. And all through those weary eighty days that followed, of alternate hope and fear, how truly the great, loving, sympathetic heart of the people did battle, with millions of unseen weapons, for the strong, heroic spirit that never faltered, never gave up "the one chance," even while he whispered: "God's will be done; I am ready to go if my time has come." Party differences were all forgotten; there was no longer any North or South--only one common brotherhood, one great, sorrowing household watching with tender solicitude beside the death-bed of their loved one. How anxiously the varying bulletins were studied! How eagerly the faintest glimmer of hope was seized! And when, on that never-to-be-forgotten anniversary of Chickamauga's battle, the midnight bells tolled out their solemn requiem, "The nation sent Like Egypt, in her tenth and final blow. Through all the land a loud and bitter cry; And felt, like her, as o'er her dead she bent, _There is in every home a present woe_!" And yet, with renewed fervor, we repeat those pathetic words: "_The great heart of the people will not let the old soldier die!_" While bowing reverently, submissively to the decree of the Almighty Disposer of human affairs, the nation feels that "no canon of earth or Heaven can forbid the enshrining of his manly virtues and grand character, so that after-generations may profit by the contemplation of them." A halo of immortal glory already gathers around the name of James A. Garfield. The remembrance of his brave, self-forgetting endurance of pain, his strong, indomitable will, his tender regard for his aged mother, his simple, unaffected piety, his cheerful resignation, will never be effaced from the heart of the people. And when expressions of sympathy and regret came to America from all parts of the world, the wondering query arose: "How is it that republican manners and republican institutions can produce such a king among men as President Garfield?" Let us go back to that humble log cabin in the wilds of Ohio where, fifty years ago, a little fair-haired, blue-eyed boy was born. It is a bleak, bitter day in November, and the whistling of the winds through the crevices, mingles with the howl of hungry wolves in the woods close by.