One summer a farmer named Worthy Taylor hired a young man by the name of Jim to work the farm. Jim had many chores to perform each day. He had to milk the cows and chop the wood. Even though he ate with the family in the farmhouse he slept in the hayloft of the barn. During that summer he got to know and fell in love with the farmer's daughter. He eventually worked up enough courage to ask Farmer Taylor if he could marry the farmer's daughter. Worthy Taylor rejected the request because Jim did not have any money or any real future. So Jim decided to pack up his few belongings and leave.

Thirty-five years passed. During those years Worthy Taylor did very well. His net worth had grown considerably. He was doing so well that he decided that he should build a new barn. During the process of tearing down the old barn Farmer Taylor was looking at the rafters of the old barn. There above the place where Jim had slept some 35 years before was carved Jim's full name: "James A. Garfield." That name meant something to Taylor because Jim was now the President of the United States. Unaware, Worthy Taylor had opened his home to a future president.

Adapted from Bruce Larson, My Creator, My Friend (Dallas: Word Publishers), p. 101.