Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1881 — Garfield and Bliss. [ARTICLE]

Garfield and Bliss.

New York special. The New York evening Post contains the following interview with Steward Crump, who nursed ths president Crump paid that be bad all the time .the strongest faith in General Garfield’s recovery. He then spoke of the characteristics of the dead president. “He was always so cheerful,” said Mr. Crump, and had so much nerve. Why he used to astonish me with his jokes, even while he was suffering horribly. Suffer? I should say he did. The first week or ten days it was his feet. He kept saying, “Oh,my God, my. feet feel as though millions of needles were run through them.” I used to squeeze his feet and toes in my hands as bard as I possibly could, and that seemed the only relref he could get. The day he was shot, and on Sunday, he kept talking all the time, but on Monday he was more quiet,and then on Tuesday morning, the doctors shut down on his talking. Bunday morning, just after the big - crowd of doctors had cleared out, I was alone with the President and Dr. Bliss. The doctor eat on one side of the bed, and I was on the other. President Garfield had hold of Dr. Bliss’s hand and turned his head and asked me if I knew where he first saw Dr. Bliss. I told him I did not. He said that he |would tell me. He said that when he was a youngster and started for the college at Hiram he had just sls—a ten-dollar bill which was in the breast pocket of his coat and a five in his trousers pocket. He said 1 e was footing it up the road, and as the day was hot he took off his coat and carried it on his arm, taking good care to feel every moment or two for the pocket-book, for the hard earned fifteen dollars was to pay his entrance fee at the college. After awhile he got to thinking what college life would be like and forgot all about the pocket nook for some time, and when he looked again it way gone. He went back mournfully along the road, hunting on both sides for the book. After awhile he came to a house where a young man leaning over a gate asked him as he came up what he was hunting for. Young Garfield explained his loss and described the property, when the young man handed it over. The president by this time was laughing, and iu conclusion said that the young man was Bliss. “Wasn’t it, doctor?” The doctor laughed and said. “Yes;” and when General Garfield said: “You saved me for college,” the doctor answered “Yes, and may be if I had not found your ten dollars you would not have been president of the United States.” The president laughed at that and said that if he got well, and made any mistakes in his administration, Dr. would have to take all the blame.