252 OCEAN TO OCEAN ON HORSEBACK, 



Ball ITouse, 



Fremont, Ohio, 



July Fifteenth. 



I was awakened at twelve p. m. the previous night 

 at Castalia by two villainous imps, who seemed 

 determined to make an impression. Their evident ob- 

 ject was " more rum/' which to the credit of the land- 

 lord was not furnished them. Exasperated by this 

 temperance measure, they attempted to enter the house, 

 and finding the doors locked began a bombardment 

 with fists and feet. This novel performance was kept 

 up until the object of their wrath and his shot-gun ap- 

 peared. Owing to this my ride of nineteen miles to 

 Fremont was not as refreshing as it might have been. 



As I approached the town I thought of President 

 Hayes, who is so closely identified with it. Here he 

 began the practice of law, and won such popularity, not 

 only among his townsmen, but throughout the State, 

 that in 1864, after a succession of honors, his friends 

 were pushing him for Congress. In answer to a letter 

 written from Cincinnati, suggesting that his presence 

 there would secure his election, he said, " An officer 

 fit for duty, who at this crisis would abandon his post 

 to electioneer for Congress, ought to be scalped. You 

 may feel perfectly sure that I shall do no such thing/' 

 and in a letter to his wife, written after he had heard 

 of Lincoln's assassination, he expressed another sen- 

 timent quite as strong when he said : " Lincoln's 

 success in his great office, his hold upon the confidence 

 and affection of his countrymen, we shall all say are 



