tars, or even a hand-mill; so some of the folks spoke to my grandfather Elisha Macy about it, and he thought it over, and finally went to bed and dreamed just how to build it, and next day got up and built it. That's the story of that, my dear."

"A regular case of revelation, wasn't it?" suggested the señor with a twinkle in his eye; to which the hostess rather sharply replied:

"I don't profess to know much about revealation, and I dont surmise you know much more, Sammy; but that's how the windmill was built."

History adds another anecdote of the windmill, worthy to be preserved for its Nantuckety flavor. Eighty-two years from its marvellous inception, the mill had grown so old and infirm that its owners concluded to sell it for lumber if need be. A meeting was called, and Jared Gardner, the man who was supposed to be wisest in mills of any on the island, was invited to attend, and succinctly asked by Sylvanus Macy—

"Jared, what will thee give for the mill without the stones?" "Not one penny, Sylvanus," replied Jared as succinctly; and the

other

"What will thee give for it as it stands, Jared?"

"I don't feel to want it at any price, friend," replied Jared indifferently.

The mill-owners consulted, and presently returned to the charge with

"Jared, thee must make us an offer."

"Well, then, twenty dollars for firewood, Sylvanus."

The offer was accepted immediately; and shrewd Jared did not burn his mill even to roast a sucking pig, but repaired and used it to his own and his neighbors' advantage, until the day of his death.

HIS

James Abram Garfield.

BORN in Orange, Ohio, 1831. DIED at Elberon, N. J., 1881.

GEORGE HENRY THOMAS.

[Works. Edited by Burke A. Hinsdale. 1882.]

IS career was not only great and complete, but, what is more significant, it was in an eminent degree the work of his own hands. It was not the result of accident or happy chance. I do not deny that in all human pursuits, and especially in war, results are often determined

by what men call fortune-"that name for the unknown combinations of infinite power." But this is almost always a modifying rather than an initial force. Only a weak, a vain, or a desperate man will rely upon it for success. Thomas's life is a notable illustration of the virtue and power of hard work; and in the last analysis the power to do hard work is only another name for talent. Professor Church, one of his instructors at West Point, says of his student life, that "he never allowed anything to escape a thorough examination, and left nothing behind that he did not fully comprehend." And so it was in the army. To him a battle was neither an earthquake, nor a volcano, nor a chaos of brave men and frantic horses involved in vast explosions of gunpowder. It was rather a calm, rational concentration of force against force. It was a question of lines and positions-of weight of metal and strength of battalions. He knew that the elements and forces which bring victory are not created on the battle-fieid, but must be patiently elaborated in the quiet of the camp, by the perfect organization and outfit of his army. His remark to a captain of artillery while inspecting a battery is worth remembering, for it exhibits his theory of success: "Keep everything in order, for the fate of a battle may turn on a buckle or a linch-pin." He understood so thoroughly the condition of his army and its equipment that, when the hour of trial came, he knew how great a pressure it could stand, and how hard a blow it could strike.

His character was as grand and as simple as a colossal pillar of chiselled granite. Every step of his career as a soldier was marked by the most loyal and unhesitating obedience to law-to the laws of his government and to the commands of his superiors. The obedience which he rendered to those above him he rigidly required of those under his command. His influence over his troops grew steadily and constantly. He won his ascendency over them neither by artifice nor by any one act of special daring, but he gradually filled them with his own spirit, until their confidence in him knew no bounds. His power as a commander was developed slowly and silently; not like volcanic land lifted from the sea by sudden and violent upheaval, but rather like a coral island, where each increment is a growth-an act of life and work.

A very few of our commanders possessed more force than Thomasmore genius for planning and executing bold and daring enterprises; but, in my judgment, no other was so complete an embodiment and incarnation of strength-the strength that resists, maintains, and endures. His power was not that of the cataract, which leaps in fury down the chasm, but rather that of the river, broad and deep, whose current is steady, silent, irresistible.

His modesty was as real as his courage. When he was in Washington in 1866, his friends with great difficulty persuaded him to allow him

self to be introduced to the House of Representatives. He was escorted to the Speaker's stand, while the great assembly of representatives and citizens arose and greeted him with the most enthusiastic marks of affection and reverence. Mr. Speaker Colfax, in speaking of it afterward, said: "I noticed, as he stood beside me, that his hand trembled like an aspen leaf. He could bear the shock of battle, but he shrank before the storm of applause."

He was not insensible to praise; and he was quick to feel any wrong or injustice. While grateful to his country for the honor it conferred upon him, and while cherishing all expressions of affection on the part of his friends, he would not accept the smallest token of regard in the form of a gift. So frank and guileless was his life, so free from anything that approached intrigue, that when, after his death, his private letters and papers were examined, there was not a scrap among them that his most confidential friends thought best to destroy. When Pheidias was asked why he took so much pains to finish up the parts of his statue that would not be in sight, he said: "These I am finishing for the gods to look at." In the life and character of General Thomas there were no secret places of which his friends will ever be ashamed.

But his career is ended. Struck dead at his post of duty, a bereaved nation bore his honored dust across the continent, and laid it to rest on the banks of the Hudson, amidst the tears and grief of millions. The nation stood at his grave as a mourner. No one knew until he was dead how strong was his hold on the hearts of the American people. Every citizen felt that a pillar of state had fallen-that a great and true and pure man had passed from earth.

Only twice a day

The short tide comes and goes,
Crunching under her toes,

In and out of the bay,
Muttering and coughing;
And, lazily enough,
Around her in the offing
The sun and shadows luff.

Around the great white ships,
The burly tugs and ferries,
The fishing smacks and wherries,
And the thirsty sandy slips.
She sees their shadows clear,
By one and two and three,
Appear and disappear
In the hollow of the sea.

Shall she never salt her
Timbers in old traffic,
Down the coast of Afric,
Sailing from Gibraltar,
Round by Mozambique ?
Shall she never speak
Sampan rafts afloat,

The lean-toothed sloop of war,
Or, home-bound, the pilot-boat,
At the break of the harbor bar?

Or, when the scuds of clouds
Blacken the night with rain,
Feel her canvas strain

From truck to futtock shrouds,

To run the sharp blockade,

With the Federal gun-boats at her,

Bursting a cannonade

In the hiss of the driving water?

Never: the stir is over

Of war and tempest and gain;

No more will the quickening strain

Start in the old sea-rover

To the crack of the cannons' snapping,

The shouts of the men, the souse

Of the salt brine barking and flapping And poppling under her bows.

Never: her rotten brails
Sag down from the yard;
The mildew is in her sails;
The shell-fish crusts a shard

But the moon came out so broad and good,
The barn-fowl woke and crowed;

Then roughed his feathers in drowsy mood,
And the brown owl called to his mate in the wood,
That a dead man lay on the road.

And hark, in the distance, the cattle-bells, how musically they steal,Jo, Red pepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal!

From standing in shadowy pools at noon

With the water udder-deep,

In the sleepy rivers of easy June,

With the skies above asleep,—