- 
 
 ~ 
 
 " HE WOULD NOT TAKE AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE." 
 
 See page 24. 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 CALLED THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY 
 
 BY 
 
 ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS 
 
 H 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OUR WAR WITH SPAIN," "THE AMERICAN SOLDIER," 
 
 "THE AMERICAN SAILOR," "THE TRUE STORY OF THE UNITED STATES," 
 
 "THB TRUE STORY OF COLUMBUS," " LINCOLN," "GRANT," 
 
 "FRANKLIN," "LAFAYETTE," AND MANY OTHEKS. 
 
 BOSTON 
 LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
 
 BY 
 LOTHKOP PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 As the second in the series of " Children s Lives of Great Men," 
 following the life of Columbus, the discoverer, comes the true story of 
 George Washington, the founder of the country which to-day calls 
 him its father. 
 
 America has had no greater, no nobler, no truer man. Every land 
 has honored him, every race has sung his praise. As the years go by, 
 his real worth becomes more apparent and needs none of the over 
 wrought little stories that have so long been told to boys and girls, to 
 strengthen his character or give point to his<record. The true story 
 of his life is fine enough and full enough to interest, to inspire and to 
 help, without adding the things that would make a prig of the boy 
 and a god of the man who was always a truth-teller, truth-liver, and 
 truth-doer, both as boy and man. 
 
 One of the best of modern Americans, James Russell Lowell, who 
 was born on the same day of the month as Washington, February 
 twenty-second, wrote, shortly before his death, to a schoolgirl whose 
 class proposed noticing his own birthday : " Whatever else you do 
 on the twenty-second of February, recollect, first of all, that on that 
 day a really great man was born, and do not fail to warm your hearts 
 with the memory of his service, and to brace your minds with the 
 contemplation of his character. The rest of us must wait uncovered 
 till he be served." 
 
 Which is a good text for those boys and girls who may be led to 
 read this true story of George Washington. The name of Washing 
 ton is one which America will ever reverence, and one, before which, 
 American boys and girls may well stand, hats off, " uncovered " in 
 memory, respect and love. E. S. B. 
 
 338008 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP II 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHY THE BOY WHO WISHED TO BE A SAILOR BECAME A SURVEYOR . . 2J 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER ....... 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON ...... 54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW JOHN ADAMS OF MASSACHUSETTS SAVED THE COUNTRY ... 70 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON ...... 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW ONE MAN DID IT ALL ......... 95 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. ....... Io8 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER AND COULDN T . . . I2O 
 
CONTENTS. 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT ......, 133 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW WASHINGTON SERVED AS PRESIDENT THE SECOND TIME ... 146 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE ....... l6l 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS ...... 174 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE STORY WITHOUT AN END ....... c Ip2 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 " He would not take an unfair advantage" Frontis. 
 
 A Dutchman 12 
 
 The Sandstone Cottage at Little Brington 13 
 
 Monument on the site of Washington s Birthplace ......... 15 
 
 Children of Washington s time 16 
 
 Washington s Boyhood Home 17 
 
 A good deal of a boy 18 
 
 In the Tobacco Shop 20 
 
 Going to the " Field School " ............. 21 
 
 Preparing for a " rassle " 22 
 
 Mary, the Mother of Washington .............24 
 
 " He tamed the unbroken colt, killing it rather than let it master him " 25 
 
 " He even tried on a sailor suit and posed before his friends" ....... 27 
 
 Real Estate Dealers of the olden times 29 
 
 Longing for home ................31 
 
 Dreaming of going to sea ..............32 
 
 The boy George s handwriting at 13 33 
 
 Riding off to Belvoir 34 
 
 " Land surveying has its risks " 35 
 
 Washington s handwriting at 17 37 
 
 "They faced dangers and risks and hardships" ..........40 
 
 " Better than medicine " 42 
 
 Young Washington at Barbadoes 43 
 
 France in possession 44 
 
 Through the wilderness 46 
 
 Washington and the French Commander 48 
 
 Washington in Indian dress .49 
 
 George Washington and Christopher Gist 51 
 
 At Great Meadows 53 
 
 Bits of old Williamsburg S 6 
 
 Braddock S 8 
 
 Braddock s Headquarters in West Virginia 59 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 On the march ...60 
 
 The Indian allies of the French returning home after Braddock s defeat . . * . . 61 
 
 Mrs. Martha Washington of Mount Vernon 64 
 
 The old capitol at Williamsburg 65 
 
 Colonel and Mrs. George Washington of Mount Vernon 67 
 
 The first martyrs for liberty 72 
 
 Carpenter s Hall 73 
 
 The Flag on Bunker Hill 75 
 
 " Did they stand the fire ? " Washington asked 78 
 
 " That they did," the post-rider cried 
 
 Under the Elm on Cambridge Common 
 
 The Old Elm at Cambridge 
 
 Medal presented to Washington by Congress after the evacuation of Boston .... 
 
 The British evacuating Boston 
 
 A Hessian 
 
 The Comming of the Hessians 
 
 The Last Boat 
 
 Independence Hall exterior and interior 89 
 
 Washington Crossing the Delaware 92 
 
 George Washington Peale s portrait 93 
 
 Washington at Princeton .......96 
 
 In Camp Washington and the Fifer 97 
 
 At Valley Forge 100 
 
 A Dash at Monmouth 102 
 
 Carving the ham at Valley Forge 103 
 
 Bartholdi s Statue of Lafayette 104 
 
 Surrender of Cornvvallis .............. 105 
 
 One of the French soldiers 107 
 
 "Mad Anthony" Wayne no 
 
 The General loses his temper 113 
 
 " He changed their passion into patience " .116 
 
 Washington s farewell to his officers .117 
 
 Building a palisaded town 122 
 
 " If Gin ral Washington says it is best, it is best 1 " 1 24 
 
 A group of great Americans 125 
 
 " Washington s the only man to be President " 129 
 
 Inkstand from which Washington signed the Constitution ........ I3[ 
 
 Washington s Inauguration Journey 135 
 
 Federal Hall in Wall Street 138 
 
 The Inauguration of President George Washington 139 
 
 In Washington s Day . 144 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 " The world sneered or applauded " 45 
 
 George Washington Stuart s portrait 47 
 
 Martha Washington Stuart s portrait 
 
 General Arthur St. Clair X 54 
 
 The Post-office in Washington s Day 
 
 Traveling in the Western Country J 59 
 
 Washington, the farmer 
 
 Mount Vernon in 1800 3 
 
 George Washington the Rush statue l6 4 
 
 Drilling recruits for the war with France l6 7 
 
 One of Washington s recommendations (West Point) ! 9 
 
 " A resolution of sympathy and sorrow " J 7 
 
 The tribute of the Nations ! 73 
 
 Some of the ladies of Washington s " presidential circle " 1 7S 
 
 The College of William and Mary ! 77 
 
 Jacky " and " Patty " Custis J 79 
 
 " Nellie " Custis l82 
 
 Nellie Custis s room at Mount Vernon l8 3 
 
 Nellie s piano 
 
 George Washington Parke Custis l8 5 
 
 The portico at Mount Vernon 
 
 The Washington Family at Mount Vernon l8 7 
 
 President Washington 
 
 Washington and the little cockade maker I 9 
 
 The great white Dome 
 
 The Tomb of Washington 
 
 General George Washington Faed s painting X 95 
 
 Washington s handwriting as a man 
 
 A pen portrait of Washington 
 
 The Washington monument 
 
 Washington City 2or 
 
 Ths Seal of the State of Washington 20 3 
 
THE TRUE STORY OF 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 CALLED THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 t 
 
 T WISH to write for young 
 -* Americans the story of their 
 noblest man. His name was 
 George Washington. OH^g-mTfr 
 
 dnexL_and sixty years and more 
 
 ago he was a helpless baby in a 
 pleasant Virginia home. That home was a lo\v-roofed, big- 
 beamed, comfortable-looking old farmhouse on a hill that 
 sloped down to the Potomac, the beautiful river that sep 
 arates the present States of Virginia and Maryland. One ""* 7"* 
 hunckod and srsty ye*ps ago there were no States in America. 
 All the land, from Maine to Georgia, belonged to England. 
 King George the Second was its owner and master, and the 
 thirteen colonies into which it was divided were ruled by men 
 
12 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 sent over from England by King George, and called royal 
 governors. 
 
 The people who lived in these colonies were mostly En 
 glishmen or the sons and daughters of Englishmen, except 
 a few thousand Dutchmen in the colony of New York, who 
 had been conquered by the English many years before, and 
 were gradually becoming English in manners 
 and speech. 
 
 The old farmhouse of which I speak over 
 looked the Potomac River, and the plantation 
 to which it belonged was called Bridge s Creek, 
 because, there, a little stream of that name 
 flowed into the Potomac. All about it was 
 farm-land or forest. There were then but few A CUTCHMAN - 
 cities in America. New York and Boston and Philadelphia 
 were the largest and almost the only real cities, and they 
 
 were small enough when compared with the cities of to-day. 
 Y " 
 -/, The colony of Virginia, however, was the richest and 
 
 most populous of all the thirteen English colonies along the 
 Atlantic. Its people were farmers ; the richer ones owned 
 great farms or plantations upon which they raised tobacco 
 for the English market. The plantation of Augustine 
 Washington at Bridge s Creek on the Potomac, was one of 
 the large ones; it was in Westmoreland County, on the 
 Virginia side of the Potomac, and not many miles from where 
 the river empties into the Chesapeake Bay; [the Washington 
 plantation contained a thousand acres, and stretched along 
 
A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 13 
 
 I 
 
 the Potomac for fully a mile.; The old house in which 
 Augustine Washington and his wife Mary lived was built 
 years before by his grandfather, the first of the Washingtons 
 who came to Americay It is said that the Washingtons 
 came originally from a thatch- roofed sandstone house in the 
 
 \ -^ 
 
 THE SANDSTONE COTTAGE AT LITTLE BRINGTON. 
 (Said to have been the English home of Washington s grandfather. ) 
 
 English village of Little Brington ; but this is not clearly 
 proved. It is enough to know that Grandfather John 
 Washington came to Virginia in 1657 an ^ built the house 
 on Bridge s Creek. It was not a mansion. It was a plain, 
 old-style Southern farmhouse, with steep, sloping roof and 
 
i 4 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREM UP. 
 
 projecting eaves, with a broad piazza in front, a great chim 
 ney at either end, and just such a big, delightful attic as boys 
 and girls love to play in, on days when the wind blows and 
 whistles without, or the rain pours and patters on the roof. 
 It was to this old Virginia farm-house that Augustine 
 
 o o 
 
 Washington, in the year 1730, brought home his second wife, 
 Mary Ball, of Lancaster County, Virginia; but whom, so it is 
 said, he met and married in England. In the old house 
 were two boys of seven and nine years ; they were Lawrence 
 and Augustine ; their mother, their father s first wife, had 
 been dead nearly two years, but their new mother became al 
 most like an own mother to them. 
 
 In this old farmhouse at Bridge s Creek, the eldest son of 
 Augustine and Mary Washington was born on the twenty- 
 second of February, 1732. They named him George. 
 What with his two half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, 
 and his own brothers and sisters who were born after him, 
 George Washington had plenty of company in his home. 
 He never remembered the house in which he was born, how 
 ever; for in 1735 some sparks from a bonfire set it in flames 
 and it was burned to the ground. 
 
 Not a stick nor a stone of that old house remains to-day; 
 but it has been a famous spot for many a year. In 1815, 
 a memorial stone was placed on the spot where the house 
 once stood, and on the stone were these w r ords : 
 
 Here, on tJie eleventh of February, 1732, George Wash 
 ington was born. 
 
A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 What is called the " old style " of reckoning time was 
 used in those days, and the eleventh of February was in 
 1 732, the same as the twenty-second of February to us ; 
 therefore, under our modern way of reckoning time the 
 birthday of George Washington 
 was the twenty-second of Febru 
 ary - - the day that we celebrate 
 as a National holiday. 
 
 When his house at Bridge s 
 Creek was thus destroyed, Au 
 gustine Washington moved into 
 another farmhouse that belonged 
 to him on another plantation, fur 
 ther up the Potomac. This plan 
 tation was in Stafford County, 
 and did not border on the Poto 
 mac River, but was on the banks 
 of the Rappahannock, nearly op 
 posite the little town of Freder- 
 icksburg. 
 
 This house was very much 
 like the one that was burned. It 
 
 MONUMENT ON THE SITE OF WASHING 
 
 stood back from the river, on a TON S KIRTHPLACE. 
 
 (By permission of John Crawford &* Son, 
 
 ridge or bluff that overlooked the 
 
 Designers. ) 
 
 Rappahannock, and between the house and the river was 
 a stretch of meadow that was the playground of the 
 Washington children. For in this pleasant old Virginia 
 
i6 
 
 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 country home George Washington lived until he was sixteen 
 years old. As with the birthplace of Washington, so it 
 was with the home of his boyhood. , It was long since 
 destroyed, and nothing marks the spot where, as a boy, he 
 who was to be the " Father of his Country "lived and played 
 and dreamed and thought and grew. It would Jpe pleasant 
 to know more about his boyhood 
 days, for it is always interesting 
 to know what sort of a " bringing 
 up " a great man had when a 
 boy. But there is, really, very 
 little known about the boy 
 hood of George 
 
 T A 7 1 
 
 Washington. 
 
 His father 
 was what we 
 should call a 
 " well-to-do " far 
 mer. He owned 
 several large 
 
 farms, or plantations, as they were then called, in the colony 
 of Virginia, along the Potomac River. He never had much 
 money, for money was not plentiful in those " old colony 
 days." Planters and farmers were rich in land and in the 
 crops they raised, but these crops were not always sold for 
 money; they were exchanged for the things that were 
 needed on the farm or in the home. The Virginia farmers, 
 
 CHILDREN OF WASHINGTON S TIME. 
 
A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 17 
 
 as I have told you, raised more tobacco than anything 
 else; for a great many folks in Europe had learned to 
 smoke tobacco since the time when Sir Walter Raleigh (who 
 introduced into England the practice of smoking tobacco) was 
 drenched from head to foot by his terrified servant who, see 
 ing the tobacco smoke, thought his master was on fire. So 
 the rich Virginia farmlands were planted with tobacco, and 
 the ships that came from England took away the tobacco, 
 
 WASHINGTON S BOYHOOD HOME. 
 
 and left in exchange things to eat and things to wear, and 
 things to make home comfortable. 
 
 / And a very comfortaWe home the son of this Virginia 
 planter had. It was not a great nor a grand house, as were 
 a few of the houses of the very richest Virginians ; it was 
 not, perhaps, what the boys and girls of to-day, with to-day s 
 idea of comfort, would call comfortable. It was a story and 
 a half house, with a low sloping roof, with great chimneys 
 and fireplaces at either end, and with half a dozen " roomy 
 rooms, one of which had its fireplace bordered with the 
 
i8 
 
 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HO IV HE GREW UP. 
 
 funny Dutch tiles and was called the " best room." There 
 were no carpets on the floors, no gas, nor oil, nor coal, nor 
 stoves for light and heat; the furniture was neither elabo 
 rate nor plenty ; the books were but few, and the household 
 games and toys made for girls and boys to-day were then 
 unknown. No bicycles, no postage stamp 
 albums, no tennis nor croquet, nor baseball 
 -what could the "sons of gentlemen" find 
 to do when Washington was a boy ? 
 
 Well they had plenty to eat and drink ; 
 there were horses to ride and guns to shoot 
 with and dogs to hunt with ; there were fish 
 to be caught and out-of-door games to be 
 played, and the boys were just as full of fun 
 and just as ready to play as they are to-day^J 
 
 The Washingtons, as I have told you, 
 were considered " well off," although they had 
 not much money to spend and did not live in 
 a grand house ; so the sons of the smaller 
 planters, the boy who belonged to what was known as the 
 " poor white families," and the little black and w r hite servant- 
 boys for there were both kinds in Virginia then --looked 
 upon George Washington as a good deal of a boy, and fol 
 lowed him as their leader in their out-of-door sports and 
 games. 
 
 When he was a little fellow, eight or nine years old, he 
 had a pony named Hero, that " Uncle Ben," one of his 
 
 A GOOD DEAL OF A 
 BOY. 
 
A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 19 
 
 father s slaves, taught him to ride; and he owned a "whip- 
 top," something rare in those days. And this he considered 
 so fine a possession that he wrote about it to his friend 
 Dickey Lee (afterwards a famous American), and generously 
 told him, " You may see it and whip it." But, best of all, 
 he liked the free life out of doors, the rough-and-ready boy 
 play that gives health and strength and vigor and muscle to 
 boys, and fits them to become robust and active men. 
 
 When he was eleven years old, in April, 174^. his father 
 died suddenly, and Mary Washington had the management 
 of the great plantation and the houseful of children. How 
 well she succeeded we all know ; for, to-day, George Washing 
 ton s mother is almost as famous as her son. One of the 
 older boys -- George s half-brother Lawrence -- had been 
 sent to England to school; but, when his father died, there 
 was scarcely money enough to do this for the other boys ; so 
 George got what small schooling he obtained in the simple 
 country schools about his home, where he learned little more 
 than what was called " the three R s " -reading, riting and 
 rithmetic. 
 
 So he grew up at home a brave, generous, quiet, manly 
 boy. He loved to roam the fields and row and swim in the 
 rivers, and talk with the other boys as to what he should like 
 to do or be when he gre\v up. For the Virginia boy of one 
 hundred and fifty years ago, there were great attractions - 
 dangers are always attractive-- the sea and the forest. 
 [George Washington, going down to the tobacco sheds on 
 
20 
 
 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 the wharf which was a part of every plantation, would talk 
 with the men who had sailed across the sea from England, 
 and listen to their hair-breadth escapes from wreck and 
 pirates (for there were fierce pirates sailing the seas in those 
 days) and he would think he would like to be a sailor} then 
 
 IN THE TOBACCO SHED. 
 
 at other times he would talk with the hunters who came in 
 with the "peltry," about the great forests that stretched 
 away, no one knew how far to the westward, and that were 
 believed by the boys to be full of all kinds of dangers and 
 all sorts of ferocious monsters, and then he would think he 
 would like to be a hunter. 
 
A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 t 
 
 21 
 
 But after all I imagine he was ready, just then, to agree 
 that it was not a bad thing to be a boy on a big Virginia 
 plantation with plenty of servants and horses and dogs and 
 boy comrades, and with a watchful mother whom, if he had 
 to obey strictly, he loved dearly. 
 
 I He was strong, he was active, he was healthy, he was 
 
 GOING TO THE "FIELD SCHOOL 
 
 happy big for his years, strong, for a boy, the best wrestler 
 (" rassler," they all called it then), the best runner, the best 
 rider among all the boys of his section. He grew to be 
 what are called in these days an athlete. Not a boy could 
 " stump him " successfully or unsuccessfully, or " dare him " 
 to any feat of boyish strength or skill. He studied faith 
 fully -- he always did everything thoroughly -- but he did 
 
22 
 
 A BOY OF VIRGINIA, AND HOW HE GREW UP. 
 
 not really enjoy his schools. What he did enjoy when he 
 went to the little log school-house (called a " field school ") 
 near his home, was his corn-stalk brigade. For William 
 Bustle and some of the schoolboys played they were French 
 while George Washington and other of the 
 schoolboys played they were Americans, 
 and with cornstalks for guns and gourds for 
 drums, the rival soldiers played at charge and 
 skirmish and furious battle, and the Ameri 
 cans, led by Captain Washington, were 
 always victorious.] 
 
 With such a father and mother George 
 Washington could not have been other than 
 a good boy. And he was. He was big and 
 strong, and sometimes mischievous and care 
 less - -fearing nothing and daring much, as 
 such big, good-natured, quiet and determined 
 boys are apt to ; but he hated a lie ; he was 
 never mean, nor low ; he never did an under 
 hand action ; and he knew that the first lesson a boy needs to 
 learn is obedience to parents, respect toward older people, 
 and kindness to all. 
 
 Some folks will tell you that Washington had no boy 
 hood; that is to say, he was not one of those fun-loving, fun- 
 making boys we all like to know. But I wish you to believe 
 otherwise. I wish you to feel that George Washington, 
 as a boy, though quiet and thoughtful, was just as fond of 
 
 PREPARING FOR A 
 " RASSLE. " 
 
WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 23 
 
 fun and of sport, just as careless, reckless, and boisterous, 
 just as high-strung and as boyish a boy as are any of you 
 who read his story, and who, in the schools and homes of 
 America to-day are, because of this Virginia boy of long 
 ago, learning, hoping and meaning to be loyal, true and 
 helpful American men and women when you grow up. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 W HY THE BOY WHO WISHED TO BE A SAILOR 
 BECAME A SURVEYOR. 
 
 VERYBODY likes a boy who is strong and manly, 
 and that was what George Washington was. The 
 boy who, while in his early teens, could tame an 
 unbroken colt, firmly keeping his seat until he had mastered 
 the wild and plunging thoroughbred, the boy who could 
 " down " the best wrestlers in the county, who could throw a 
 stone clear across the Rappahannock, toss bars and pitch 
 quoits better than any man or boy about him, and sight 
 and fire a rifle held with one hand only ; the boy who could 
 always be trusted to keep his promises, tell the truth, and 
 do as he was bid without asking why, was a boy who could 
 be at once bold and brave, good and gentle, sturdy and 
 strong, wise and cautious. 
 
WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 
 
 If he tamed the unbroken colt, killing it rather than let 
 it master him, he did not excuse himself nor lie about it to 
 his mother when the trial of will was past. And, if he mas 
 tered the thoroughbred, (as he once did in a wager of his 
 head against the horse) he would not take an unfair advan 
 tage, nor accept the horse as his because he had neither kept 
 
 his seat nor fully kept his claim 
 of ability. 
 
 He would get dreadfully 
 "mad" with other boys some 
 times, and he was so strong that 
 if he had been at all bad, he 
 might have been what is called 
 a bully. But, even when he was 
 a small boy, he had learned to 
 control his temper ; and this he 
 always did throughout his useful 
 life, losing it so seldom and only 
 when there was every excuse for 
 his getting " mad," that we can 
 set this splendid habit of self- 
 control as one of the things that 
 made him great and noble. 
 
 But as he got into his teens and began to think for 
 himself, he felt that he must soon decide upon what he was 
 to do for himself so as to take some of the burden from 
 his mother s shoulders. Mary Washington had a great 
 
 MARY THE MOTHER OF GEORGE 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
"HE TAMEU THE UNBROKEN COLT, KILLING IT RATHER THEN LET IT MASTER HIM. 
 
WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURTEYOR. 
 
 27 
 
 plantation to look after and not enough money to do the 
 things she wished. She saw this big, spirited, ambitious, de 
 termined son of hers growing up in her home, and she won 
 dered what she could do for him and with him, to make him. 
 a capable and successful man, who, by helping himself, 
 should help her. 
 
 The boy thought of the same thing, too. He really could 
 
 " HE EVEN TRtED ON A SAILOR SUIT AND POSED BEFORE HIS FRIENDS." 
 
 not tell what he wanted to do, for not many boys of four 
 teen are ready to know what they are best fitted for. From 
 being much along the river, however, when the busy to 
 bacco ships sailed into the harbors and along from wharf to 
 
28 WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 
 
 wharf, or slipped down with the current to the broad bay 
 and the wide ocean beyondFGeorge Washington soon grew 
 to have that desire for travel and adventure that comes to 
 many a brave boy, and so he concluded that he should like 
 to be a sailor, even if he had to go " before the mast," on 
 one of the tobacco ships. / He talked with his older brothers 
 and with his big-boy friends about it. He even tried on a 
 " sailor suit " and posed before his friends. They all thought 
 it might be a good thing for him, and said that some day he 
 might rise to be a mate or perhaps a captain. ([There is lots 
 of risk about going to sea, they said. ( Vessels get wrecked 
 and pirates sometimes capture them, and there is a chance 
 that the bold sailor boy may be drowned or have to walk the 
 plank. But then, too, there is plenty of promise in a sailor s 
 life for so plucky a young fellow as George Washington, 
 and even if he does start in as a sailor on a tobacco ship, he 
 may some day get a berth in a man-of-war and wear the 
 king s uniform in the king s navy. 
 
 All this only made George Washington the more anx 
 ious to go to sea. He talked it over with his mother and, 
 although she greatly disliked the idea of her son being a 
 sailor, still she was so impressed with the boy s desire to do 
 something, and to be somebody, and to go somewhere " on 
 his own hook," that she was just on the point of saying yes 
 to his pleadings when something happened to make her 
 say no.?^ 
 
 This was the receipt of a letter from her brother in 
 
<s 
 
 Jii^ *>fiF@*^sa&al 
 
WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 
 
 r-r>V 
 
 LONGING FOR HOME. 
 
 England, to whom she had written about her son George 
 and his desire to ship as a sailor on one of the tobacco-carry 
 ing vessels that sailed between the Potomac wharves and 
 English ports. " Do not let him go to sea," the letter said. 
 " Make a tinker or a tailor of him, or anything that will keep 
 him on shore, rather than see him sail away from you as a /? 
 
 sailor before the mast. A sailor 
 on one of these trading vessels 
 is worse off than one of your 
 negro slaves. He has not a mo 
 ment he can call his own ; he is 
 kicked and cuffed and robbed 
 and beaten ; not a dog but has 
 an easier life. If he hopes to 
 
 get into the king s navy, the chances are small for he 
 knows no one who could get him a berth, and there are 
 hundreds of boys waiting to get in who have a better 
 chance than he. And suppose he should stick to his trad 
 ing life and get to be captain of a tobacco ship --why, any 
 small planter in Virginia is better off than one of these ship 
 masters. Tell the boy not to be in too great a hurry to get 
 rich. Tell him to take things easily, to be patient and care 
 ful, and he will be much better off in the end than if he 
 should go to sea." 
 
 This letter settled the question. Mrs. Washington de 
 cided against the sea-fever, and though she knew her son 
 was a manly and adventurous boy, she felt that there were 
 
 
32 WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 
 
 just as good chances for him to get a footing and make his 
 way on shore as on sea. 
 
 So the lad gave up his dream of the free life on blue 
 water that had so long filled his thoughts. It was enough 
 for him that his mother said no, even though he wished so 
 much for her yes. He never thought of acting contrary to 
 her decision or counsel ; and when he grew to be a man and 
 
 was making a name 
 for himself, Mary 
 Washington s opin 
 ion of her son was 
 more to him than 
 all the big words of 
 the world. " George 
 has been a good boy," she said, " and I am sure he will do 
 his duty." 
 
 Back to school went the boy who had longed to be a 
 sajjjor. Near his birthplace~~at B*44ge s Cieek, where his 
 half-brother Augustine had built himself a house, there was 
 a fairly good school kept by a Mr. Williams ; and to him the 
 boy was sent. 
 
 / George Washington was always good at figures. He 
 was correct and careful over them , and promised to became 
 what is called a good mathematician. Mr. Williams taught 
 him surveying. That, you know 7 , is the science of measur 
 ing land so that the owner can know just how much he 
 owns, just how it lies, and just where its boundary lines run. 
 
 DREAMING OF GOING TO SEA. 
 
WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 33 
 
 For when he knows that, he can cut it up into tracts or lots 
 of given sizes, and set all the measurements down on paper 
 in lines and figures. 
 
 This is a very important work, especially in a new coun 
 try, where people own large tracts of land, and other people, 
 coming there to live, wish to buy new tracts or purchase parts 
 of old ones. It requires a clear head, a good eye, and quick 
 ness and correctness at figures. All these, George Wash 
 ington had. / He was fourteen years old when he gave up 
 going to sea and went to study mathematics and surveying 
 
 under Mr. Williams. 
 
 ^ "i i >WL 1 J J *i*t igW^rfTr^ 
 
 M/ /imX^ivf + s When he was nearly 
 
 *//ba.icn> & V^L.-^/^ 
 
 sixteen, in the autumn 
 
 of 1747, he left school 
 A / and went to visit his 
 
 half-brother, Lawrence 
 
 THE BOY GEORGE S HANDWRITING AT 13. 
 
 Washington, at his new 
 home on the Potomac, which he called Mount Vernon. 
 
 Lawrence Washington was nearly twelve years older than 
 his half-brother George, but he loved the boy and was always 
 trying to help him along. Lawrence, as I told you, was sent 
 to school in England; he had gone to the wars with the 
 squadron of the gallant admiral Vernon, and had fought 
 under that brave leader at Porto Bello and Carthagena, where 
 the Spaniards were whipped, but where so many brave 
 American soldiers and sailors died of fever and pestilence. 
 After the wars were over, Lawrence Washington came back 
 
34 
 
 WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR- 
 
 to Virginia, married Miss Fairfax, and settling on the Poto 
 mac plantation his father had left him, built a house and 
 called his place Mount Vernon, naming it for the gallant ad 
 miral with whom he had gone to the West Indies to fight 
 the Spaniards. 
 
 Near to Mount Vernon was a plantation of the Fairfaxes 
 
 called Belvoir. George 
 Washington used to ride 
 over to Belvoir to see 
 George Fairfax, who was 
 a few years older than 
 himself, and there he met 
 a man who had much to 
 do with starting him out 
 in life.. This was a queer 
 and odd old English 
 nobleman, Thomas, the 
 sixth Lord Fairfax. He 
 was a descendant of that 
 great Lord Fairfax who 
 had foueht with Crom- 
 
 RIDING OFF TO BELVOIR. 
 
 well against the first King 
 Charles, and helped the second King Charles to get his 
 crown again. This Lord Fairfax whom George Washington 
 knew had, at one time, lived in the highest society in En 
 gland. He was a scholar, a writer, a soldier and a fine 
 gentleman; he was very rich and very high and mighty 
 
m^??w$m% 
 
 I , \ ~! - \ : I - \ : -1 - , - - */- t ^ .-"- 
 
 ;V.--.\.. -..:; Nffij^/^.----::; 
 
 "LAND SURVEYING HAS ITS RISKS." 
 
WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 37 
 
 at home, but, because the girl he was to marry suddenly 
 decided to marry some one else, Lord Fairfax "got mad" 
 (as great Lords and small boys will some times, you know). 
 He left England forever and sailed across the sea to America, 
 where he owned acres upon acres of land among the Virginia 
 mountains. This great tract of country had been given by 
 King Charles the second to Lord Fairfax s grandfather. 
 And when this Lord Fairfax found out what a fine country 
 Virginia was, and how rich the land was, he determined to 
 live there and improve his property. 
 
 People had been going upon his lands without leave and 
 settling upon it --" squatters," they were called --and Lord 
 Fairfax found that he needed some one who was bright and 
 bold and strong, who could go all over his great possessions 
 (which included nearly one-fifth of the present State of Vir 
 ginia), determine their boundaries, mark down the pieces 
 that the squatters had taken possession of, and get every 
 thing ready toward what ^, 
 
 VO^?2W7 
 
 we call, to-day, " develop- / / 
 ing " the property. 
 
 Lord Fairfax met / 
 
 WASHINGTON S HANDWRITING AT 17. 
 
 George Washington at 
 
 Belvoirand Mount Vernon. He talked with the young man, 
 rode with him, hunted with him, took a fancy to him, and, dis 
 covering that he was a correct and reliable land-surveyor, 
 asked him to " take the job " of going all over the Fairfax 
 possessions in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley and among 
 
3 8 WHY THE BOY BECAME A SURVEYOR. 
 
 the Virginia Mountains. " Locate the land," he said, " survey 
 it, settle its boundaries, note down the roads and highways and 
 report to me about the people who have settled themselves 
 on my land without leave, and who must be either driven 
 off, or satisfactorily arranged with. And you may have 
 plenty of adventures, too. Land surveying has quite as 
 many risks as a sailor s life." 
 
 It was a splendid opportunity for the sixteen-year-old 
 boy. It was just the start in life he needed, for it was just 
 what he understood, just what he could do, and just what 
 he liked. It would make a man of him. And it did. 
 
 So, at sixteen, he became a land-surveyor. He was a 
 handsome young fellow, almost six feet tall, well-shaped 
 though a little lean, long-armed, strong and muscular. He 
 had light-brown hair, grayish-blue eyes, a firm mouth, a 
 frank and manly face and he had a way about him that 
 made people like him, though he was so quiet and retiring, 
 while there was a look on his face that made them obey him 
 if he was in a position to counsel or direct. 
 
 Even as a boy, you see, George Washington had what 
 \ve call the qualities of mind and brain, the courage, the cau 
 tion and the determination to succeed that made him, in 
 after years, a leader of men and the chieftain of America. 
 
HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 39 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 I 
 
 S there any boy who does not enjoy life 
 out-of-doors, especially if he is strong, 
 healthy, active, adventurous and observing? 
 
 George Washington and George Fairfax 
 started out on their surveying expedition in 
 high spirits, ready to face the hard work and 
 the rough life they knew lay before them, 
 prepared to take things as they came and make the best of 
 everything. That is the only way for any boy to " tackle " a 
 piece of work successfully ; for fretting makes work all the 
 harder and brings no enjoyment out of life. And George 
 Washington never fretted. 
 
 The boys were out among the hills with the compass 
 and the chain for five weeks, during the months of March and 
 April, 1748. That is the time of year when Virginia streams 
 are swollen and Virginia mud is plenty. The young fellows 
 were often hungry, often wet, often cold and uncomfortable ; 
 they slept in flapping tents and smoky cabins ; they faced 
 dangers and risks and hardships ; but none of these things 
 worried them. They met with trappers and tramps and In- 
 
40 HO IV THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 dians ; they worked and hunted and fished ; they climbed 
 mountains, forded rivers and .made their way along roads 
 that were " execrable " and trails that were uncertain. But 
 they were healthy, hearty, manly boys and they had " such 
 a good time " that, when they returned to the settlements, 
 George Washington was quite ready to try it gain. 
 
 "THEY FACED DANGERS AND RISKS AND HARDSHIPS." 
 
 He did his work as a surveyor so well and brought back 
 such excellent results of his five weeks trip that Lord Fair 
 fax felt that the boy-surveyor had been a credit to him. He 
 not only gave the lad more work of the same sort, but he so 
 influenced the royal governor of Virginia, who had the " say " 
 
HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 41 
 
 in. all such matters, that young George Washington was ap 
 pointed as one of the " public surveyors " of the colony. 
 
 This gave him plenty to do. For the next three years 
 he was kept busy laying out tracts of land in the Shenan- 
 doah Valley and along the Potomac. Whenever a person 
 buys a piece of land they either have it surveyed again or 
 they accept the figures of the last survey as correct; and so 
 good -a surveyor did George Washington make, so correct 
 were his measurements and so reliable his figures that, to 
 this "day, his surveys have stood unquestioned ; and, long 
 after his death, the lawyers whose duty it was to look up 
 such matters, when land was passed from one owner to 
 another, declared that the only old-time surveys in Virginia 
 that could be depended upon as correct were those of George 
 Washington. A pretty good record for a boy-surveyor, is 
 it not? 
 
 And in all this hard, out-of-door life and work, Washing 
 ton was laying the foundation for that future of health and 
 strength, of decision and determination that helped him so 
 much when he grew to be a man and had the affairs of an 
 army and a nation to look after. His rough life in the for 
 est and on the hills made him watchful and cautious ; his 
 mixing with all sorts of people made him study the ways of 
 men and taught him how to act toward them ; the keen air 
 and the bright sunshine were better than medicine; he 
 grew stronger and sturdier, his frame filled out and his 
 muscles hardened, so that when he was nineteen, after three 
 
HO IV THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 years experience as a surveyor, he was one of the manliest 
 and one of the stoutest and one of the handsomest young 
 men in the whole colony of Virginia. 
 
 And now came a new experience. P or the first and only 
 time in his life, George Washington left his native land. 
 His older brother, Lawrence Washington, to whom he was 
 
 indebted for help and counsel and 
 kindness, had never really recovered 
 from the fever that had attacked 
 him when he was fighting the 
 Spaniards at Carthagena. In 1751 
 his health broke down completely 
 and he had to seek a warmer cli 
 mate. So he went to Barbadoes, 
 in the West Indies, and he had 
 George go with him as helper and 
 companion. But for a time he was 
 obliged to do without his brother s 
 help, for George, who had never 
 been vaccinated, caught the small-pox in Barbadoes and was 
 very sick. His strong constitution helped him through, 
 however, and when he was well again he sailed back to Vir 
 ginia to bring Lawrence s wife to join her sick husband 
 at Barbadoes. But before he could return the invalid himself 
 came home to die. 
 
 Lawrence Washington s death was a great blow to his 
 brother George. For young George loved Lawrence dearly 
 
 BETTER THAN MEDICINE. 
 
HO IV THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 43 
 
 and was joined with him in numerous plans and enterprises, 
 such as are always undertaken in a new country. Chief 
 among these was a great land speculation known as the Ohio 
 Company. 
 
 The Ohio Company was an association of rich men in 
 England and in Virginia who bought great tracts of land be 
 yond the Virginia mountains. They offered fine opportunities 
 to people who would make their homes on these lands. For 
 this would render the 
 land so valuable that 
 the owners would 
 be able to get a great 
 deal of money for the 
 
 J 
 
 tracts left for sale 
 after the new coun 
 try had been thus 
 " opened up " for set 
 tlement. The lands 
 of the Ohio company 
 were mostly in West 
 ern Pennsylvania. This region, it was claimed, was within 
 the boundary of Virginia, as was also the vast stretch of 
 western country which is now occupied by the great States 
 of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. 
 
 But England was not the only nation that held posses 
 sions in North America. Canada belonged to France, and the 
 French also had land in the South, so that they claimed all 
 
 YOUNG WASHINGTON AT BARBADOE5. 
 
44 
 
 HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 the Western part of America on a line running from Mont 
 real to New Orleans. To enable them to hold and occupy 
 this country, the Frenchmen had built a chain of sixty forts. 
 If you look on the map and pick out the cities of Montreal, 
 Ogdensburg, Detroit, Toledo, Fort Wayne, Vincennes, 
 
 Natchez and New Orleans, 
 which have grown up 
 where once certain of 
 these French forts stood, 
 you can see what a vast 
 tract of country France 
 said she owned and was 
 ready to defend, in North 
 America. 
 
 So when the Ohio 
 Company began to send 
 out surveyors and road- 
 builders into their lands 
 in the West, the French 
 men grew excited and said 
 that the Englishmen were 
 trying to steal their land. 
 They prepared to defend 
 
 what they claimed to own, and made ready to build a new chain 
 of forts, from a spot where the city of Erie now stands on 
 Lake Erie, southward to the Ohio River. 
 V Now Lawrence Washington had been the American 
 
 FRANCE IN POSSESSION. 
 
HO W THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 45 
 
 manager of the Ohio Company. When, therefore, the French 
 men began to grow warlike and Virginia talked of fighting 
 back, Lawrence had secured from the royal governor of the 
 colony of Virginia, whose name was Dinwiddie, an appoint 
 ment for his brother George, then a boy of nineteen. This 
 position gave George Washington charge of the militia 
 men who might be called upon, in the country about Mount 
 Vernon, to fight against the French\ 
 
 After Lawrence Washington s death in 1752, and while 
 George, who had charge of his affairs, was looking after 
 matters at the saddened home at Mount Vernon, Dinwiddie, 
 the royal governor of Virginia, was getting ready to deal 
 with the Frenchmen who were becoming more and more 
 troublesome in the Ohio country. It was necessary to do 
 something at once to stop their insolence, for they were 
 annoying the English settlers and stirring up the Indians 
 who had been friendly to the English. Indeed, unless some 
 thing was done at once, the Frenchmen would own the whole 
 western land. 
 
 " We must send some one into the Ohio Country to see and 
 talk with these Frenchmen," Governor Dinwiddie said ; " we 
 must find out what they mean by coming into our king s 
 dominion, building forts on English land, interfering with 
 our settlers and stirring up the friendly Indians. Whom 
 shall we send ?" 
 
 And Lord Fairfax, the wise but odd old nobleman who 
 had been George Washington s friend, said to the -Governor : 
 
HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 11 I know just the man. You need a messenger who is young 
 and strong and brave ; one who knows the country ; who is 
 clear-headed, can deal with the Indians, and will not be afraid 
 to tell the Frenchmen just what is right. Send George 
 Washington." 
 
 \J3Q< George Washington was appointed Commissioner to 
 the French Posts in the Ohio Company. He was provided 
 
 with the paper that 
 showed to all people 
 that he was Com 
 missioner. Then, 
 supplied with letters 
 to the French Com- 
 m a n d e r , Major 
 George Washing 
 ton, as he was 
 called, aged twenty- 
 two, set out from 
 Williamsburg, the 
 capital of the colony 
 of Virginia, on the 
 thirtieth of October, 
 
 1753. He was to undertake a perilous journey of over a 
 thousand miles ; he was to ask the Frenchmen what they 
 meant by their fort-building and their loud talk, and to tell 
 them, in the name of the King of England and the Governor 
 of Virginia, to leave the Ohio Country at once. 1 
 
HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 47 
 
 He went to say good- by to his mother, who was living in 
 the old house at Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock. 
 Then he engaged an old Dutch soldier named Van Braam, 
 from whom he had learned how to fence, to go with him and 
 talk French to the Frenchmen (for Washington could not 
 speak French) ; he hired, also, a good guide named Chris 
 topher Gist, and a man named Davidson who could talk 
 with the Indians in their own language; besides these, he 
 took four frontiersmen, who knew all about traveling and 
 camping in the forests, and could take care of the tents, the 
 horses and the supplies. And, when all was ready, he set 
 out from Will s Creek on the Potomac (now Cumberland in 
 Western Maryland), on the fifteenth of November and at 
 once pushed straight into the wilderness. 
 
 It was a hard and dangerous journey. Over the mountains 
 and through the wilderness, across rivers and along narrow 
 trails the young Commissioner and his men traveled westward, 
 winning back some of the leading Indian chiefs who had 
 gone over to the French, until, on the twelfth of December, 
 he stood before the French commander, the Chevalier de St. 
 Pierre, and delivered his letters. 
 
 Of course__the Frenchmen refused to leave the land they 
 claimed__as__-thir own. The French commander was very 
 polite and pleasant to the young Virginia commissioner; but 
 that was all. He gave Washington a letter to Governor 
 Dinwiddie, and after staying in the French fort a few days, 
 Washington and his men turned their faces toward home. 
 
48 HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 It was on Christmas Day that they started to return, and 
 it was anything but a merry Christmas. The weather was 
 very cold, the roads were terrible, the rivers were swollen 
 and full of floating ice, the Indians were treacherous and 
 
 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH COMMANDER. 
 
 unfriendly. Anxious to get back as quickly as possible, 
 Washington set out on foot, dressed like an Indian, and 
 accompanied only by Christopher Gist, leaving the other 
 men and the horses to come on as well as they could. 
 
 The two men had a journey filled with peril and advent- 
 
HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER, 
 
 49 
 
 ure; but when at last, on the sixteenth of January, he reached 
 Williamsburg, alone, and delivered to Governor Dinwiddie 
 the answer of the French commandant, all men praised him 
 for his courage, his persistence, his firmness, his self-posses 
 sion, and said: "Well done, George Washington ! " 
 
 No one had expected that he would get rid of the 
 Frenchmen. He had not been sent with that purpose. He 
 had simply gone as the mes 
 senger of the king to bid 
 them begone and to bring 
 back their reply. 
 
 Orders were at once 
 issued to build a fort upon 
 a point reported on by 
 Washington as the best 
 spot in the Ohio country 
 from which the English 
 could defend their rights. 
 
 TV U fU 
 
 I his spot is where the im 
 portant city of Pittsburg 
 now stands. Men were 
 sent out to build it, and 
 
 soldiers were to be raised at once in Virginia to hold the 
 fort against the French. 
 
 The fort was built, the soldiers were enlisted and Major 
 George Washington was appointed to drill them and get 
 
 them ready to march against the French in the spring.) He \(y^ 
 
 I f 
 
 ii rf*4 
 
 WASHINGTON IN INDIAN DRESS. 
 
50 HOW THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 had hard work ; but, by spring, two companies of soldiers 
 were ready. Joshua Fry was made colonel of the Virginia 
 forces ; George Washington was appointed lieutenant-colonel 
 and dispatched to the Ohio country. With one hundred and 
 fifty men, on the second day of April, 1754, he set his face 
 westward again, and, going over the road he had travelled 
 the year before, marched westward toward the French. 
 
 It was a poor enough showing with which to face the 
 warlike and soldierly Frenchmen, who might object to the 
 building of the English fort. But it was the best he could 
 do, and he hoped when he was safely within the new fort to 
 be a match for any force the Frenchmen might march 
 against him. But alas I when he came near the place, he 
 heard strange and most unpleasant news. |The men who 
 had been sent to build the fort had been driven away by a 
 large force of Frenchmen who had surprised them at their 
 work. The half-finished fort had been pulled down and a new 
 one built in its place by the Frenchmen, who were now 
 marching eastward to meet Washington and his Virginians, 
 and capture them or drive them away. 
 
 Thus, you see, France struck the first blow. For to 
 take a fort from another nation in time of peace, is what is 
 called " an act of war." 1 Washington was greatly disturbed 
 at the news, for he hacKonly a part of the soldiers who were 
 to be sent forward and the Frenchmen were a thousand 
 strong. But he was not the man to turn back. He sent a 
 messenger to Governor Dinwiddie and to the governors of 
 
HO IV THE SURVEYOR BECAME A SOLDIER. 
 
 53 
 
 Pennsylvania and Maryland asking for more soldiers ; then 
 he marched on to a spot he had in view where he hoped to 
 be able to build a good enough fort to hold the Frenchmen 
 at bay until help came to him. 
 
 At a place called Great Meadows he came upon a French 
 force led by Ensign 
 Jumonville, and a 
 sharp fight took place. 
 Jumonville was 
 killed, some of the 
 Frenchmen were 
 taken prisoners and 
 the war had really 
 begun, jit was a war 
 
 that was not to end 
 for seven years ; it 
 was to drive France 
 out of America and 
 was to set France and 
 England fighting each other, in Europe as well as America. 
 It was to train Americans for the great conflict for liberty 
 which they were to wage against the king and parliament 
 of England, and to bring to renown this young Virginian 
 surveyor w r ho fired the first shot of the war in this little 
 battle at Great Meadows, and who on that day, the twenty- 
 eighth of May, 1754, became a soldier and a conqueror. 7 
 
 ^ MwMfib rm /frr <^ ( 1 <^c-$*x> w 
 
 AT GREAT MEADOWS. 
 
54 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 * 
 
 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 I "HE brave man like the boy who is really brave does 
 not rush blindly into danger; but, if he is brought face 
 to face with it, he acts boldly and quickly. This was Wash 
 ington s way. He had been victorious in the little fight 
 which he had been forced to make, but he knew that, if more 
 fighting were to follow, as he felt sure it would, he must 
 stand his ground firmly and try to hold his own. 
 
 " I will not be surprised," he wrote to the Governor of 
 Virginia, begging for the soldiers that had been promised 
 him; "and you may hear that I am beaten. But you will 
 hear at the same time that we have done our duty, in fight 
 ing as long as there was a shadow of hope." These were 
 brave words for a young leader in the strait in which he 
 found himself, but it was George Washington s way of 
 doing things all through his life. 
 
 A few more soldiers were sent to him and with these 
 troops and his Indian helpers he marched on to meet the 
 French. With the new men came the news that Colonel 
 Fry who was to lead them on, was dead. Washington was 
 therefore in chief command of his little army. He was 
 Colonel Washington now. 
 
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 55 
 
 After he had marched through the mountains, he heard 
 that the Frenchmen, a thousand strong, were moving 
 towards him. He was in no safe place to give them battle, 
 so he fell back to Great Meadows and finished a hastily- 
 made fort of logs and dirt, which he well named Fort Neces 
 sity. Here on the third of July, 1754, the French found 
 him. 
 
 At once the dauntless courage of Washington asserted 
 itself. If they wish a battle, let them have it now, he said; 
 and, throwing open the door of his flimsy little fort, he 
 marched with his men out into the open meadow, daring the 
 Frenchmen to a fight. 
 
 But they did not accept his " double dare." Instead, 
 they staid in the woods and fired at the Americans, not 
 showing themselves where they could be fought openly. 
 So Washington marched back into the fort again, and for 
 nine hours the Frenchmen battered and besieged it. 
 
 Then they sent word to Washington that it was of no 
 use for him to hope to whip them, as they had four times as 
 many men as he had and everything was in their favor. 
 " Give us up the fort," they said ; " return the prisoners you 
 have taken ; promise not to build any more forts around here 
 for a year, and we ll call it square and let you go home with 
 out any more fighting." 
 
 Washington hated to agree to this ; but when he came to 
 look things over and see how useless it was for him to try 
 to beat the French, with his men half-starved, his powder 
 
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 gone and his Indian helpers running away, he remembered 
 the old proverb that says, "the better part of valor is dis 
 cretion." So he agreed to the French terms and, on the 
 
 fourth of July, 
 gave up his crazy 
 little fort and 
 marched back to 
 ward home. He 
 had been defeated, 
 
 but he was by 
 no means con 
 quered. 
 
 Still, he felt 
 very badly over 
 the way things 
 had turned out. 
 If the help that 
 had been prom 
 ised him had 
 
 BITS OF OLD WILLIAMSBURG. 
 
 only been given, 
 
 he would perhaps have told quite another story. But when he 
 got back to Williamsburg he found that people looked upon 
 him as a hero and praised his brave and gallant attempt ; he 
 was publicly thanked for what he had done and told to fill 
 up his regiment and march once more against the French. 
 
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 57 
 
 But he knew that such a plan was foolish. " We must 
 not try to fight the French until we are all ready," he said. 
 " When enough men have been raised to make such an expe 
 dition wise, you can depend upon me ; but there is no sense 
 in marching to certain defeat. And that is what an attempt 
 now would mean." 
 
 So the Virginians set about raising a thousand men ; 
 but when the English officer who was to have charge of the 
 troops said that Washington, not being a regular soldier in 
 the British army, but only an American militiaman, could 
 not be a colonel but only a captain, Washington refused to 
 accept such a command. It was no way, he declared, to 
 treat a man who had been asked to lead ; and rather than be so 
 used, he said, he would give up his commission. And he 
 did, retiring to Mount Vernon, which had been given to him 
 by Lawrence Washington when he died. 
 
 The next year things were different. The King of En 
 gland and his advisers determined to make a stand in Amer 
 ica against the French. So they sent over two regiments 
 of British troops, under command of a brave soldier whose 
 name was Major General Braddock, and told him to get what 
 help he could in Virginia and drive out the French at once. 
 
 General Braddock came to Virginia with his splendid- 
 looking fighting men. When he had studied the situation 
 there, one of the first things he did was to ask Colonel 
 George Washington of Mount Vernon to come with him as 
 one of his chief assistants, called an aid-de-camp. 
 
58 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 Washington at once accepted. He saw that, now, the 
 King of England " meant business," and that, if General 
 Braddock were as wise as he was brave, the trouble in the 
 Ohio country might be speedily ended and the French 
 driven out. 
 
 But when he had joined General Braddock he discovered 
 that that brave but obstinate leader thought 
 that battles were to be fought in America just 
 the same as in Europe, and that soldiers could 
 be marched against such forest-fighters as the 
 French and Indians as if they were going on 
 a parade. This made Washington feel very 
 badly and he did all he could to advise caution. 
 
 BRADDOCK. 
 
 It was no use however. General Braddock said 
 he was a soldier and knew how to fight, and he didn t wish 
 for any advice from these Americans who had never seen a 
 real battle. 
 
 At last everything was ready, and in July, 1755, the army, 
 led by General Braddock, marched off to attack the fort 
 which the French had built at Pittsburg and had named 
 Fort Duquesne. 
 
 Washington had worked so hard to get things ready that 
 he was sick in bed with fever when the soldiers started ; but, 
 without waiting to get well, he hurried after them and 
 caught up with them on the ninth of July, at a ford on the 
 Monongahela, fifteen miles from Fort Duquesne. 
 
 The British troops, in full uniform, and in regular order 
 
COT.OVEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 59 
 
 as if they were to drill before the king, marched straight on 
 in splendid array. Washington thought it the most beauti 
 ful show he had ever seen ; but he said to the general : " Do not 
 let the soldiers march into the woods like that. The 
 Frenchmen and the Indians may even now be hiding behind 
 the trees ready to shoot us down. Let me send some men 
 ahead to see where they are and let some of our Virginians 
 who are used to fighting in the forest go before to clear 
 them away." But Gen 
 eral Braddock told him 
 to mind his own busi 
 ness, and marched on as 
 gallantly as ever. 
 
 Suddenly, just as they 
 reached a narrow part of 
 the road, where the woods 
 were all about them, the 
 Frenchmen and Indians 
 who were waiting for 
 
 them behind the reat BRADDOCK S HEADQUARTERS IN WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 * (From a recent sketch.) 
 
 trees and underbrush, opened fire upon the British troops, and 
 there came just such a dreadful time as Washington had 
 feared. But, even now, Braddock would not give in. His 
 soldiers must fight as they had been drilled to fight in 
 Europe, and, when the Virginians who were with him tried 
 to fight as they had been accustomed to, he called them 
 cowards and ordered them to form in line. 
 
6o 
 
 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 It was all over very soon. The British soldiers, fired 
 upon from all sides and scarcely able to see where their ene 
 mies were, became frightened, huddled together and made 
 all the better marks for the bullets of the French and 
 Indians hiding among the trees and bushes. Then, General 
 Braddock fell from his horse, mortally wounded ; his splen 
 didly-drilled red-coats broke into 
 panic, turned and run awav. 
 and only the coolness of 
 Washington and the 
 
 Virginian forest-fighters who 
 were with him, saved the entire army 
 from being cut to pieces. 
 
 Washington fought like a hero. Two horses 
 that he rode were killed while he kept in the saddle ; his 
 coat was shot through and through, and it seemed as if he 
 would be killed any moment. But he kept on fighting, caring 
 nothing for danger. He tried to turn back the fleeing British 
 troops ; he tried to bring back the cannons, and, when the gun 
 ners ran away, he leaped from his horse and aimed and fired 
 the cannons himself. Then with his Virginians, that Brad- 
 
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 63 
 
 dock had so despised as soldiers, he protected the rear of the 
 retreating army, carried off the dying general and, cool and 
 collected in the midst of all the terrible things that were 
 
 o 
 
 happening, saved the British army from slaughter, buried 
 poor General Braddock in the Virginia woods and finally 
 brought back to the settlements what was left of that splen 
 did army of the king. He was the only man, in all that 
 time of disaster, who came out of the fight with glory and 
 renown. 
 
 After that, you may be sure his advice was followed. 
 When another army was raised, and, after three years of wait 
 ing and preparation, the soldiers, at last, were ready to go 
 once more against the French, Washington s plans were 
 adopted ; his way of doing things was followed out, and he 
 was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in 
 Virginia. 
 
 He did not seek the command ; he did not want it. But 
 it was Washington s way never to say no to what seemed to 
 be his duty. " If it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio 
 again," he wrote to his mother, " I shall. But if the com 
 mand is pressed upon me by the voice of the country, it 
 would be dishonorable in me to refuse it." That is the 
 way that office should be accepted and duty looked at by 
 every man and by every boy, and, as I have told you once 
 before, that was Washington s way. 
 
 Once more British soldiers were sent to Virginia, and 
 with them, marching westward, went Washington and his 
 
64 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 Virginians. But the English government had learned wis 
 dom through defeat, and things were better done this time. 
 Soldiers were sent to fight the French in Canada, too, and 
 the gallant Frenchmen found their hands so full that they 
 had to give up some of the things they hoped to keep. So 
 when the British and Virginians, in the Ohio country, came 
 to the fort they had been so long trying to capture, the 
 French had gone away, and Washington and his men marched 
 into the ruined and smouldering fort, where, not many years 
 after, the town of Pittsburg was built. 
 
 ^Then he went home again. He was now the leading 
 man in Virginia and, though only twenty-six, he was famous 
 throughout all the Colonies as a brave and daring leader, a 
 wise and safe adviser, a cautious and clear-headed man. 
 
 Soon after his return to Mount 
 Vernon he married a wife. This was 
 Mrs. Martha Custis of White House. 
 She was a wealthy, charming, brown- 
 eyed widow of twenty-six. To her Wash 
 ington had become engaged, just before 
 OF his last march against the French. 
 
 MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 They were married on the sixth of 
 January, 1759, and if any boy or girl wishes to know what 
 a fitting wife to a great man this Virginian woman proved, 
 let them read, when they are older, Washington Irving s long 
 life of George Washington and his wife, Martha. ~) 
 
 Three months after his marriage, Colonel Washington 
 
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 took his seat in the Virginia legislature, then called "The 
 House of Burgesses." He had been elected a member while 
 with the troops at Fort Duquesne, and when he took his seat, 
 the speaker, or presiding officer of the House of Burgesses, 
 publicly thanked him for his honorable record in the war. 
 Washington was surprised, but feeling that he ought to 
 
 THE OLD CAPITOL AT WILLIAMSBURG TN VIRGINIA. 
 ( Where the House of Burgesses met. ) 
 
 say something, he rose to reply. He was never a ready or 
 what is called " extemporaneous " speaker ; so he hesitated, 
 and blushed and did not know what to say; whereupon the 
 speaker said: " Sit down, Mr. Washington. Your modesty 
 equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any Ian- 
 
66 COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 guage I possess;" which was a very pretty and very just 
 compliment, was it not? 
 
 \ Washington and his wife, and the two little children of 
 Mrs. Custis, Martha and John Parke Custis, began life at 
 Mount Vernon. The property had grown very valuable. 
 Mrs. Washington was wealthy, and the farmer s son of the 
 Rappahannock plantation was now Colonel Washington of 
 Mount Vernon, and one of the richest men in Virginia. 
 
 Mount Vernon was a real Virginia mansion. It was a 
 large, two-story house with four rooms on each floor; a high 
 and broad piazza, ran along the front and looked down upon 
 the beautiful Potomac, flowing past the estate. Across the 
 river were the fields and forests of Maryland, and all about 
 the house stretched the broad acres of the Mount Vernon 
 plantation. Here with his dearly-loved wife and her chil 
 dren, with a large estate to look after and care for, with 
 health and wealth and friends and the respect of his neigh 
 bors and fellow-citizens, George Washington settled down, 
 as he thought, to the life of a country gentleman, of which 
 he wrote, " I hope to find more happiness in retirement than 
 I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world, f 
 
 And, for a time, he did find much happiness there. He 
 loved the busy life indoors and out. He was fond of riding 
 and hunting, and we hear of his splendid horses - - Magnolia, 
 the Arabian, and Blueskin, his favorite iron-gray, and his 
 hunting-horses, Chinkling, and Valiant and Ajax; we hear 
 of his dogs Vulcan and Ringwood and Music, Sweetlips and 
 
WASHINGTON S SEAL AND COAT OF 
 ARMS. 
 
 COLONEL GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 OF MOUNT VERNON 
 
 MRS. MARTHA CUSTIS 
 OF V^HITE HOUSE, 
 
 Married at St. Paul s Church, near 
 White House, Virginia, on the 
 Seventeenth of January, 1759. 
 
 COLONEL AND MRS. GEORGE WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 
 
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON. 69 
 
 Singer and Truelove, Forrester and Rockvvood and the rest; 
 we read of his riding " after the hounds," as it was called, to 
 hunt the black fox or the gray, and how, with his huntsman, 
 " Billy Lee," he took the field at sunrise, dressed in a short 
 blue hunting jacket, a scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, 
 top-boots, velvet cap and carrying his long-thonged whip. 
 
 Mount Vernon welcomed many visitors, for one of the 
 chief rules of a Virginia home in those days was : Welcome ! 
 and How d ye do ! to all. This open hospitality was always 
 part of Washington s nature, and even in his early days, the 
 young colonel and his wife had a host of friends. In fact, 
 to be without company was so rare an event, that Washing 
 ton would write down the fact in his diary, and he said that, 
 though he owned more than a hundred cows, he had to buy 
 butter. 
 
 He was as strong and healthy as ever. When he was 
 forty years old he could throw the heavy hammer farther 
 than anyone else ; no man could ride better, none could walk 
 further, none was of a more noble and commanding presence 
 than Colonel George Washington. He kept note of every 
 thing that was going on in the colonies and in England; he 
 was a leader in politics and church work, in generous and 
 helpful deeds, and in all that makes a man a good citizen, a 
 kind neighbor and a faithful friend. 
 
 So he grew on from young manhood to middle age, and, 
 for over fifteen years, lived as a well-to-do country gentleman 
 at Mount Vernon. 
 
7 o HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Then came the events that made America free and made 
 Washington famous; but, before that glorious end was 
 reached, there were many dark and bitter days, and many a 
 time that tried the courage, the temper and faith of this 
 great and noble man. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW JOHN ADAMS OF MASSACHUSETTS SAVED THE 
 
 COUNTRY. 
 
 *\ 1[ THEN a boy or girl has tried to do a hard sum in 
 * ^ arithmetic and has succeeded, something is obtained 
 besides the answer; it is confidence. The French and Indian 
 war was the hard sum set for the American colonies, and, when 
 it was over, when Canada was conquered and the French sol 
 diers were driven out of America, the thirteen colonies cried 
 out : " We helped to do it ; we got the answer to the sum our 
 selves ! " They begun to see how strong they were, if they 
 joined together to do anything, and when England attempted 
 to make them pay out money without the right to say for 
 what that money should be spent, the colonies said : " See here ! 
 that is not fair. The money is ours ; you have no right to 
 take -sit. from us nor to use it without our having anything 
 to say about it." 
 
HO IV JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 71 
 
 But England was just like General Braddock. She was 
 obstinate and determined to have her own way, and she said 
 to the colonies, as Braddock did to Washington : "You mind 
 your own business ! You haven t anything to say in this 
 matter, but must just do as I tell you to." 
 
 There were now two millions of people in the thirteen 
 colonies ; they were no longer separate sections, caring noth 
 ing about any colony except their own ; they had sent men 
 to the army who side by side had fought the French and 
 Indians. Thus the people of Massachusetts and of Virginia, 
 the men of New York and of South Carolina, had been 
 broueht to know each other better and to believe that the 
 
 o 
 
 one way for the colonies to be prosperous and successful 
 was to be united and friendly, to form a partnership to 
 govern themselves, and to be, not English colonists, but 
 Americans. 
 
 ) So when the British government tried to force money 
 
 L. 
 
 from them by unjust taxes, the colonies objected; then they 
 " talked back " ; then they resisted, and dared the King of En 
 gland to " come and get it." For twelve years the quarrel 
 went on. [ England said America should or ; America said 
 she wouldn t, unless ; then she dropped the "unless " and 
 said she wouldn t anyhow, and, when the British government 
 attempted to back up its threats, the men of the colonies 
 stood up with guns in their hands ; there was a sharp fight 
 between the American Minute Men and Lord Percy s red 
 coats on Lexington Common and another by the old North 
 
7 2 
 
 HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 Bridge at Concord, and the war of the Revolution had 
 begun. 
 
 Like a great many other thoughtful men in America, 
 George Washington had feared trouble from the first. He 
 saw that England would never consent to allow her Ameri 
 can colonies to have anything to say in this matter of tax 
 ing and spending; he knew that America was growing so 
 strong and united that she would not long be willing to be 
 England s " good little girl," to do as she was told and ask 
 
 no questions, and he knew 
 that it meant more than 
 simply talking back to one 
 another ; he knew that it 
 meant, if neither side would 
 give in, a war between the 
 colonies and the king; and 
 " if that comes to pass," he 
 said, " more blood will be 
 shed than history has ever 
 yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America." 
 \n September, 1774, the thirteen colonies sent their best 
 men to Philadelphia to meet and talk things over in the 
 building known as Carpenters Hall. This convention is 
 now known as the First Continental Congress. George 
 Washington was one of the men sent by Virginia, and 
 although he did not make any speeches he was always 
 a silent man, you know he worked quietly and left the 
 
 THE FIRST MARTYRS FOR LIBERTY. 
 
HO l\ JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 73 
 
 talking to others. The wisdom of his advice and the way 
 in which he tried to bring all the members of the Con 
 gress into friendship and harmony were so noticeable that, 
 when one of the members was asked whom he considered 
 the greatest man in the Congress, he answered at once : " If 
 you mean the man who knows the most and has the best 
 judgment, Colonel Washington of 
 Virginia is unquestionably the 
 greatest man on that floor." 
 
 The First Continental Con 
 gress told King George some 
 plain truths. "You must not 
 treat your American colonies so 
 meanly," they said. " We will 
 not stand it. If we can have 
 nothing to say in your parliament, 
 
 then we will not do as you say. If we are to be taxed, 
 then we must say how the money we pay shall be spent." 
 
 But such talk only made King George and his ministers 
 angry and they went on the same as before. So when Wash 
 ington returned to his home at Mount Vernon, he told the 
 people: "We must get ready to do something." The man 
 who had said : " If necessary, I will raise a thousand men, 
 subsist them at my own expense and march to the relief of 
 Boston," was now ready to make good his word. He began to 
 drill soldiers, and wrote to his brother that, if need be, he 
 would accept the command of the soldiers from Virginia and 
 
74 HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 that it was his full intention to devote his life and fonune to 
 the cause. 
 
 In May, 1775, the second Continental Congress met at 
 Philadelphia. Its members had heard the news from Lex- 
 ington and Concord, and now had come together for seri 
 ous business. The royal governors had run away as soon 
 as the trouble began ; the colonies had to look after them 
 selves and they said they could do this much better without 
 the royal governors. So they told the Congress to govern 
 the united colonies and to make laws for that purpose. 
 
 Congress also took charge of the soldiers that hurried to 
 Boston after the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, ready 
 to fight the red-coated soldiers of the king. But these sol 
 diers must have a leader. Whom should he be ? 
 
 There were, in this Congress, certain men who wished to 
 "go slow " and try to " patch things up " with King George 
 and his ministers. There were others who felt that they 
 were great men and ought to be in the highest position. 
 There were still others who were not yet Americans, but 
 thought only about the good that could come to his own 
 colony. It is so with all new movements, about which 
 there is any uncertainty, but all these men, in time, came to 
 be patriotic and splendid Americans. 
 
 So, when the question arose as to who should be the 
 commander-in-chief of the American army at Boston, there 
 was at first some hesitation. The soldiers facing the Brit 
 ish there were mostly New England " minute men " and 
 
HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 7B 
 
 militia men, and some of the members of Congress thought 
 a New England general should be their leader. The South 
 ern members wanted an American army made up from all 
 the colonies, with a general appointed from the South. Foi 
 several days nothing was done. Time was precious. The. 
 
 THE FLAG ON BUNKER HILL. 
 
 (" Come over tf you dare" it said to the British in Boston.} 
 
 army must be gathered at once if a bold stand was to be 
 taken ; and if Congress was to take charge of the soldiers at 
 Boston, Congress must give its army a leader. 
 
 Then John Adams of Massachusetts stood up in Con 
 gress. He was an active and able man, who saw that some- 
 
76 HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 thing must be done at once, and, having looked the ground 
 over knew there was but one man in America to be selected 
 for this high command. " I have but one gentleman in my 
 mind," he said, addressing the Congress. " He is a certain 
 gentleman from Virginia who is among us and is well 
 known to us all. He is a gentleman of skill and experience 
 as an officer; his independent fortune, great talents and 
 y> excellent universal character would command the approba- 
 j/tion of all the colonies better than any other person in the 
 Union." Everyone knew whom John Adams meant ; every- 
 body looked in the same direction, and a modest gentleman, 
 dressed in a colonel s uniform of blue and buff, hurriedly 
 rose and slipped out of the room. I^tljohn Adams s words 
 decided the question. The result of the debate was that, 
 on the fifteenth of June, 1775, his proposition was accepted 
 and George Washington of Virginia was unanimously elected 
 commander-in-chief of the Continental Army?j Thereupon 
 the new leader, now General Washington, rose in his place to 
 thank the Congress for the honor conferred upon him ; and, 
 to his words of acceptance, he added these : " I beg it to be 
 remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day 
 declare with the utmost sincerity I do not think myself 
 equal to the command I am honored with." Then, adding 
 to his modesty a patriotic generosity, he refused to accept 
 any of the salary set apart for his services and promised an 
 exact account of all his expenses. 
 
 It was a great honor, but it was a great responsibility. 
 
HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 77 
 
 As such Washington looked upon it when he accepted the 
 command. "It is a trust too great for my capacity," he 
 wrote to his wife ; " but it has been a kind of destiny that 
 has thrown me upon it, and it was utterly out of my power 
 to refuse it." 
 
 Did you ever make a promise that you felt was what the 
 boys call " a big contract ? " But, if you were a plucky J}oy 
 or a conscientious girl, you tried hard to carry out your 
 promise, did you not? It was just so with Washington. 
 He had said, " I will command your army." And yet none 
 knew better than did he, how little the fighting men of the 
 colonies were like the trained troops of England that they 
 must face in battle. They were patriotic, brave and deter 
 mined ; this he knew, but they were untrained, undisciplined 
 and unprepared for war; there was but little money to meet 
 the expenses of a struggle with a great and wealthy nation ; 
 they had no one to help them, no friends to lend them 
 money and every man felt that he had something to say 
 about how things should be done. 
 
 So he rode on toward Boston. And as he rode, escorted 
 by a troop of horsemen, tidings came of the Battle of 
 Bunker Hill. There had been a fight, people said, in which 
 the British had stormed the fortifications of the Americans 
 and finally driven them out. It looked like a defeat. 
 
 "Why did they retreat?" General Washington asked 
 the hard-riding messenger whom he met on the road to 
 New York, galloping to Congress with the news. 
 
HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 " For want of 
 ammunition/ the 
 messenger replied. 
 
 " And did they 
 stand the fire of 
 the British re^u- 
 
 o 
 
 lars as long as they 
 had ammunition?" 
 Washington asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 "That they 
 did," the post-rider 
 cried enthusiastic 
 ally, " and held their 
 own fire in reserve until the enemy were within eight rods." 
 A look of relief and satisfaction came to Washington s 
 face. " Then the liberties 
 of the country are safe, gen 
 tlemen," he said to Generals 
 Schuyler and Lee who ac 
 companied him. And he 
 rode forward, feeling that 
 a defeat which proved the 
 pluck and fighting qualities 
 of the Continentals was 
 really no defeat but a vic 
 tory. "THAT THEY DID," THE POST-RIDER CRIED. 
 
 "DID THEY STAND THE FIRE?" WASHINGTON ASKED 
 
 ANXIOUSLY. 
 
HO W JOHN ADA MS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 81 
 
 led the band ? 
 a boy named 
 
 If Washington had imagined that his fame was known 
 only to Virginia the greetings that he met on his long ride 
 from Philadelphia to Boston opened his eyes to quite the 
 opposite. He was the commander-in-chief ; upon him all 
 the hopes of" the people rested ; and, as he rode from town to 
 town, men and women, boys and girls came out to meet and 
 welcome him and bid him God speed. At New Haven the 
 boys from Yale College met him with a band of music, and 
 who do you suppose 
 Why, 
 Noah 
 
 Webster, who after 
 wards made the two 
 books that we use in 
 our schools to-day 
 Webster s spelling- 
 book and Webster s 
 dictionary. 
 
 ^Y^o ne r de on to 
 his duty, the foremost 
 man in America. And, 
 on the morning of 
 
 Monday, the third day of July, 1775, General George Wash 
 ington rode into the broad pastures known as Cambridge 
 common, and, beneath the spreading branches of an elm 
 tree, which still stands --an old tree now, carefully preserved 
 and famous through all the land - - he drew his sword and 
 
82 HOW JOHN ADAMS SAVED THE COUNTRY. 
 
 in presence of the assembled army and a crowd of curious 
 and enthusiastic people, he took command of the Continental 
 Army as General. 
 
 He was forty-three years old --just as old as Julius 
 Caesar when he took command of the army in Gaul and 
 made himself great. Just as old as Napoleon when he 
 made the great mistake of his life and declared war against 
 Russia. But how different from these two conquerors was 
 George Washington. What they did for love of power he 
 did for love of liberty sacrificing comfort, ease, the pleasures 
 of home and the quiet life he loved, because he felt it to be 
 his duty. 
 
 As he sat his horse, like the gallant soldier he was, under 
 the Cambridge elm that warm July morning, he was what 
 we call an imposing figure. He was tall, stalwart and erect, 
 with thick brown hair drawn back into a queue, as all gentle 
 men then wore it, with a rosy face and a clear, bright eye - 
 a strong, a healthy, a splendid-looking man in his uniform 
 of blue and buff, an epaulet on each shoulder, and, in his 
 three-cornered hat, the cockade of liberty. And the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Continental Army looked upon the 
 army of which he had assumed command and determined to 
 make soldiers of them and lead them on to final victory. 
 
HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 MEDAL PRESENTED BY CONGRESS TO WASHINGTON AFTER THE EVACUATION OF 
 BOSTON BY THE BRITISH. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 A LTHOUGH General Washington may have felt what is 
 *"* called a pardonable pride as he sat upon his horse, 
 under the spreading branches of the Cambridge elm, and drew 
 his sword as " General and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces 
 of the Thirteen United Colonies," he knew that he had no 
 easy task before him. But he went to work at once, as he 
 always did when he had anything to do, and tried to make 
 real soldiers of the farmers and fishermen and store keepers 
 and working-men who made up the Continental Army. So 
 well did he work, and so closely did he keep the British 
 
8 4 
 
 HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON, 
 
 Army shut up in Boston, that King George s red-coats were 
 obliged to leave the city - - evacuate it, is the military word 
 -and, in March, 1776, Washington was in possession of 
 the town in which the British had declared they would 
 crush the rebellion and conquer the rebels. 
 
 This was Washington s first success, and it showed the 
 world that the Americans " meant business," that they were 
 not to be easily overcome by the trained soldiers and gener 
 als of King George, and that the Commander of the Conti 
 nental Army was a born leader of men, and knew how to go 
 to work to win. 
 
 But none knew better than did that Commander how 
 
 THE BRITISH EVACUATING BOSTON. 
 
 hard the winning would be. His troops had yet to meet 
 the British soldiers in the open field and, after the evacua 
 tion of Boston, England began to find out that if America 
 
HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 was to be whipped into obedience, there must be plenty of 
 men sent over to do the whipping. But England could 
 not spare enough of her own soldiers, and so she tried to 
 hire fighters from other nations. She tried to hire twenty 
 thousand Russian soldiers, but failed; then she tried to get 
 some from Holland, and failed. But, at last, she hired from 
 certain states of Germany called the Hesses, first eighteen 
 thousand men, and then more and more, until, before the 
 Revolution was over, nearly thirty thousand of these hired 
 soldiers, or mercenary troops, called 
 " Hessians," were brought over the 
 sea to fight, in the armies of En 
 gland, the freemen of America. 
 Many Englishmen were indignant 
 at this hiring of foreign soldiers to 
 shoot down their relations in Amer 
 ica, and you may be sure it did 
 not increase America s love for 
 England. 
 
 The first lot of Hessians sailed into New York harbor in 
 August, 1776, and joined the army of Sir William Howe, who 
 thus had a force of nearly thirty thousand men to face Wash 
 ington s poor little army of scarcely ten thousand men. The 
 battle that had to follow took place at Brooklyn on Long 
 Island, on the twenty-seventh of August, 1776. It was, of 
 course, a total defeat for the Americans. It could not be 
 otherwise. And when Lord Howe, the British general, had 
 
 A HESSIAN. 
 
86 
 
 HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 defeated the Americans, killed a great many, taken a great 
 many prisoners, and driven the rest within their entrench 
 ments at Brooklyn, he said : " To-morrow evening will bring 
 the fleet up the river and, with an army on one side of the 
 
 THE COMING OF THE HESSIANS. 
 
 rebels and our ships on the other, we will bag the whole 
 army and crush the rebellion." 
 
 <^But the trouble with Lord Howe, as with the other Brit 
 ish generals, was that he did not understand Washington. 
 The American leader expected to be defeated. He knew 
 that his troops must be drilled into an army before they 
 
HO IV GEOJtGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 87 
 
 could successfully face the soldiers of King George, and it 
 was this patient courage that George Washington showed, 
 in the midst of defeat and danger, all through the Revolution, 
 that was one of the things that made him great? So, while 
 he gathered his defeated army within the lines at Brooklyn, 
 he saw through Lord Howe s plan to capture him, and with 
 out waiting for the too-confident British general to try his 
 plan, he determined to save his army by a retreat to New 
 York. It was a dangerous experiment. If the British 
 knew that he was trying to escape them, they would swarm 
 down upon his little army and capture or destroy it. So he 
 went to work carefully. He got together all the boats he 
 could, marched his men about, as if he meant to get them 
 ready for a battle the next day, and then, silently and swiftly, 
 got them down to the river. Here the boats, w 7 ith the fish 
 ermen soldiers of a Marblehead regiment at the oars, were 
 rowed over and over again ; the fog shut them out from view, 
 and before morning the soldiers were all ferried over, Wash 
 ington crossing in the last boat. He had saved his army 
 and showed the thing that makes a great general - - know 
 ing how to retreat as well as how to fight. For a successful 
 retreat is sometimes quite as much a victory as is a suc 
 cessful battle. 
 
 It was much the same with what follows. By this time 
 America had spoken. The thirteen colonies, through their 
 representatives in Congress, had declared that they would 
 no longer acknowledge King George as their ruler, nor En- 
 
88 
 
 HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 gland as their governing power, but that they were, " and of 
 right ought to be, free and independent states." This was 
 done in a paper called the Declaration of Independence, 
 drawn up in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, when Con 
 gress was in session, and issued on the fourth of July, 1776, 
 
 THE LAST BOAT. 
 
 ( Washington at the retreat from Brooklyn. ) 
 
 a little over a month before the disastrous battle of Brooklyn. 
 | I think most American boys and girls are dissatisfied 
 because George Washington did not sign the Declaration 
 of Independence. He was the greatest American; that was 
 America s greatest deed. Why should he not have signed it ? 
 
HO W GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 89 
 
 Of course, you know that he 
 was with the army. His duty 
 was there and not in the Con- 
 
 INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADEL 
 PHIA. 
 
 (Where the Congress met.} 
 
 gress ; for when 
 oftheContinen- 
 his seat in Con- 
 knows just how 
 bringing Con- 
 that resulted in 
 dependence. He 
 argued to show 
 could not longer 
 be independent, 
 
 he became the general 
 tal army he gave up 
 press. But no one 
 
 o 
 
 much he did toward 
 gress to the action 
 the Declaration of In- 
 \vrote and talked and 
 the men in Congress that the colonies 
 remain subject to England. They must 
 he said. And though George Washing- 
 
 HALLWAY. 
 
90 JJOIV GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 ton s name is not signed to the famous Declaration, he had 
 as much to do with it as had many men who really did 
 sign it. 
 
 But when the Declaration of Independence had been 
 signed, it meant that it must be backed up by deeds. So. 
 though the battle of Brooklyn was a defeat followed by a 
 retreat, and though the world said that the colonies could 
 never secure their independence, Washington never weak 
 ened, but kept on struggling and striving, though defeats 
 and retreats followed one another until any but the most 
 determined leader would have been discouraged and felt like 
 giving in. 
 
 Washington retreated from Brooklyn to New York, and 
 when the British followed him there, he retreated across the 
 Harlem into Westchester County. Still pressed by Howe, 
 he retreated across the Hudson into New Jersey, and finally 
 across the Delaware into Pennsylvania, with Howe still fol 
 lowing him up. It was almost like a game of checkers, was 
 it not? 
 
 His army now consisted of but three thousand men. 
 His soldiers were ragged, his equipment poor, his situation 
 desperate. The winter was a hard one, and so nearly lost 
 seemed the cause of the colonies, that new soldiers could 
 not be induced to serve in the army ; all this time, too, the 
 enemies of Washington --for there were leading men in 
 Congress and out of it who said all kinds of hard things 
 about him, and tried to have him set aside in favor of some 
 
HO IV GE OR GE WASHING TON L OST AND WON. 9 1 
 
 general whom, they declared, was more of a fighter were 
 active against him. 
 
 And still Washington kept silent. He was biding his 
 time. In New York, Lord Howe said that the end was near 
 at hand, and that the rebels would give up the fight before 
 New Year s Day, if he did not capture them before that time. 
 
 And then, when no one expected it, Washington acted. 
 He had determined upon a bold move. This was nothing 
 more nor less than an attack upon the Hessian lines at 
 Trenton. ffo. ^A^O JLc^J^f &< "&*** 
 
 \He made all his preparations secretly, cautiously and 
 carefully. He was to cross the Delaware from the Pennsyl 
 vania side and, if possible, take the Hessians by surprise. 
 Other soldiers were to march to his assistance from Phila 
 delphia and from Bristol, and cut off all hope of escape. 
 And the river was to be crossed on Christmas night. "1 
 
 It was anything but a merry Christmas wheri, with 
 twenty-five hundred picked men, Washington came to the 
 banks of the Delaware and tried to set his small army 
 across. The river was filled with great cakes of floating ice; 
 it was so coid that two of the soldiers were frozen to death, 
 and, before morning came, the air was filled with icy and 
 cutting sleet. It seemed the very worst time to attempt 
 such an enterprise as Washington had determined upon. 
 So bitter was the night, indeed, that the other generals who 
 had been ordered to march to his support gave it up, because 
 they did not see how they could cross the icy Delaware. 
 
9 2 
 
 HO W GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 \ But Washington crossed the Delaware. And at eight 
 o clock the next morning his ragged, half-frozen soldiers 
 attacked the village of Trenton, in which the Hessians were 
 stationed. He drove in their pickets, surrounded their camp, 
 
 WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE. 
 
 fought them through the town, killed their commanding offi 
 cer, and captured nearly all of them, though some five hun 
 dred or so managed to get away. \ 
 
 Then with his thousand prisoners, Washington re-crossed 
 the Delaware, and the long spell of failure was broken. 
 The brilliant deed he had done paralyzed the over-confident 
 British, put new life into the suffering cause of liberty and 
 so inspired the colonies that, where men had been unwilling 
 
HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 93 
 
 to risk their lives for a failing cause, they were now ready to cj 
 join one which seemed to promise success. Washington -7) 
 had saved the Revolution. From the fight at Trenton dated ^ ^. 
 the steady march toward victory.) 
 
 That sharp and successful fight, too, showed how great a 
 general was Washing 
 ton. The retreat from 
 Brooklyn had been one 
 proof of this ; but that 
 was a retreat. The cap 
 ture of the Hessians at 
 Trenton showed him to 
 be a leader who could at 
 tempt the most daring 
 move, and, once at- 
 
 tempted, could push it 
 through to the end, 
 though everything 
 seemed against him. 
 
 AThe great German 
 solaier-kin whom his- 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 (Painted by James Peale, ivken \l~ashington was Commander-in- 
 Chief of the army : now in Independence Hall. 
 
 tory calls Frederick the 
 Great, when he heard 
 how, with a few ragged regiments (so footsore, indeed, that 
 their march could be tracked in the snow by the blood from 
 their unprotected feet), Washington had defeated and cap 
 tured the European soldiers whose business was fighting 
 
94 HOW GEORGE WASHINGTON LOST AND WON. 
 
 and whose equipment was perfect, declared that Washington 
 was a born soldier and that the attack at Trenton was the 
 most brilliant campaign of the century. 
 
 Washington knew when to strike, and then he struck. 
 In the darkest hour of the Revolution he took the chance of 
 defeat and death, and by a movement that gave his name 
 strength and showed the world his ability, he secured a vic 
 tory which, because of its daring, its brilliancy and its com 
 pleteness, set the world to thinking and created friends and 
 helpers for the struggling thirteen colonies along the Atlan 
 tic coast of North America. 
 
HOW ONE MAN DID Jl ALL. 
 
 9S 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 
 
 _ OU may be sure that when the 
 British found that Washington 
 
 o 
 
 had been too smart for them 
 and, just when they thought him 
 weakest, had made the sudden 
 and successful dash on the Hes 
 sian camp at Trenton, they rubbed their 
 eyes in a bewildered sort of way and 
 set their red-coats charging" after him. 
 But just when they thought him 
 hemmed in between them and the 
 Delaware river, all of a sudden he dis 
 appeared. In the morning the British 
 found the burning camp-fires of the 
 Americans, but no Americans. Washington had slipped 
 away in the night by cross-roads and by-paths; and, before 
 the British knew what he was about, he had fallen upon 
 what was called their reserves" -three fine regiments at 
 Princeton and had driven them away with considerable 
 loss. 
 
9 6 
 
 HOW ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 
 
 You see what a perplexing sort of a foeman this George 
 Washington was. The British never knew just how to take 
 him. When 
 they expected 
 him to fight, 
 he didn t; 
 when they ex 
 pected him to 
 run away, he 
 didn t; and, 
 when they 
 thought they 
 had him safe 
 and fast, that 
 was just the 
 time he would 
 slip from their 
 grasp or fall 
 upon them at 
 some unex 
 pected point 
 and, as the 
 saying is, 
 
 "whip them out of their boots." It was all wrong; it 
 wasn t at all the thing they expected. But it was war, and 
 it proved, what England finally found out, that George 
 Washington was a great general. 
 
 WASHINGTON AT PRINCETON. 
 
IN CAMP. WASHINGTON LISTENING TO THE BUY lltER. 
 
HO W ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 99 
 
 As a great general is a great leader, and as the leader, 
 \vhether in statesmanship or in sport, in business or in school, 
 as boy or as man, is the one whom all finally look to when 
 anything is to be done that requires judgment, courage, cool 
 ness and decision, so George Washington, growing stronger 
 and greater as time went on and the things he had to decide 
 upon or to do, tried and developed him, became the one man 
 in America to whom all America looked for suggestion, guid 
 ance and decision. In other words, he was the one man who 
 did it all. 
 
 He planned the campaigns that gradually led to victory ; 
 he insisted on having an army, instead of Continental militia 
 men who only joined to serve as soldiers for what is called a 
 brief term of enlistment; he borrowed money himself or got 
 rich men to lend it to the feeble colonies, to pay the expenses 
 of their army ; he saw ahead the plans of the British, felt 
 certain they would try to weaken him by sending armies to 
 attack the colonies at the North and South, and he so 
 planned things that the enemy was whipped, and Burgoyne 
 and his army captured at Saratoga in New York, and would 
 have been beaten back at Charleston in South Carolina if 
 the general in command had but done as Washington told 
 him. He tried to have Congress do something more than 
 talk and run away from the British; he held the people 
 together by his firmness and his courage when things seemed 
 all going the wrong way ; he kept the army from breaking 
 up altogether when Congress would not send the soldiers 
 
HOW ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 
 
 money to pay for their work or to save them from starving. 
 It was his advice that brought about the " alliance " with 
 France, as it was called ; it was his letters to Congress that 
 kept that body from doing many unwise things, and things 
 that would have spoiled all that he had undertaken or had 
 done. 
 
 All this would have turned the heads of smaller men, as 
 it turned the head of Napoleon and made him a usurper when 
 
 he should have 
 been a patriot. But 
 George Washing 
 
 ton was great in 
 every way, and 
 thought nothing of 
 personal benefit or 
 what he could make 
 out of anything for 
 himself. And yet 
 he had his enemies. 
 All through the 
 dark days of the 
 war, when things 
 seemed to go so slowly, when the British still held the cities 
 of Philadelphia and New York, when the American army 
 was shivering in Valley Forge or changing their camps in 
 New York and New Jersey, there were ambitious men in 
 Congress, and jealous men in the army who tried to push 
 
 AT VALLEY FORGK. 
 
HO IV ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 101 
 
 Washington from his position of command, saying that he 
 was slow and did not know how to do things, and that they 
 or their favorite generals, if they could but have the chance, 
 would end the war in a short time. 
 
 But Washington cared no more for them and their doings 
 than if they had been flies buzzing about him. His purpose 
 was to defeat the British and establish in the land the liberty 
 that had been declared for America on that famous fourth 
 of July in 1776. Nothing could turn him from his purpose; 
 he had the people behind him ; they honored, trusted and 
 loved him and, with enough men in Congress to back him 
 up and try to give him what he must have --men, money 
 and guns he set his face toward success, and worked stead 
 ily ahead. 
 
 Through danger and defeat, through suffering and loss, 
 through jealousy and treason and discouragements on every 
 side, Washington kept on retreating, advancing, fighting. 
 He proved to the world, by the battle of Germantown, that 
 his raw fighters were becoming real soldiers. He showed 
 that he knew when not to fight, as at White Marsh, and 
 how to turn a rout into a victory as at Monmouth. He 
 kept a lost cause alive in the log huts of the winter quarters 
 at Valley Forge ; he bothered the British and kept them so 
 uncertain as to just what he meant to do, that they could not 
 send troops to help their soldiers who had marched into the 
 northern and southern country; and thus he made the battle 
 of Saratoga, and the storming of Stony Point, and the fight 
 
102 
 
 HO IV ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 
 
 at Bennington, and the engagements at the Cowpens and 
 and Guilford Court House and Eutaw Springs, in none of 
 which Washington took part, victories that hastened the 
 end. 
 
 The end came at Yorktown in Virginia on the nineteenth 
 of October, 1781. What that end was, and how it came 
 
 about, every boy and girl 
 in America who reads or 
 studies the history of the 
 land knows. Through the 
 efforts of Benjamin Frank 
 lin, another great American, 
 the French king who hated 
 the English because En 
 gland had taken Canada 
 from France, sent over men 
 and ships to help the Ameri 
 cans, and declared that, so 
 far as France was concerned, 
 it recognized the rebellious 
 colonists of America as a 
 
 new nation in the world. Sixteen war-vessels and four 
 thousand men came across the water; but, as Washington 
 feared, their help did not amount to so much, except that 
 it frightened the British and made them think that all 
 Europe was going to join to help free their American 
 " rebels," as they kept calling the revolted colonies what 
 
 A DASH AT MONMOUTH. 
 
HOW ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 103 
 
 boy or girl knows the difference between a revolution and 
 a rebellion ? 
 
 jl^ ranee did help the United States very much, however, 
 in the way of lending money and supplies for carrying on 
 the war; and, surely no one in America, now or ever, will 
 
 CARVING THE HAM. HOW MONEY WAS SMUGGLED THROUGH THE BRITISH LINES TO THE 
 
 CAMP AT VALLEY FORGE. 
 
 forget the name of that gallant young French nobleman, the 
 Marquis de La Fayette, who, when scarcely more than a 
 boy, hired a vessel and ran away to America to help fight 
 for its freedom, becoming a dear friend to Washington, a 
 ready helper, a cautious leader and a daring soldier of 
 liberty. 
 
IO4 
 
 HO IV ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 
 
 But in the summer of 1780, the French help began to 
 amount to something. Rochambeau with six thousand 
 
 Frenchmen landed at New 
 port in Rhode Island, and 
 joined Washington and his 
 soldiers at Peekskill in New 
 York. In 1781, the Count 
 de Grasse sailed into Chesa 
 peake Bay with more ships 
 and soldiers ; Washington 
 and Rochambeau hurried to 
 Virginia and, almost before 
 the British knew what was 
 happening, Lord Cornwallis 
 and a British army of nine 
 thousand men were penned 
 up in Yorktown in Virginia. 
 The British general was 
 brave and able ; he tried to 
 get away, but could not ; 
 Washington set his soldiers 
 to digging earthworks, and 
 soon had the British camp 
 surrounded, and after three weeks of firing and fighting, the 
 British general gave in, and on the ninteenth of October, 
 1781, he surrendered to General Washington. 
 
 This ended the Revolution. The king of England could 
 
 BARTHOLDl S STATUE OF LAFAYETTE. 
 
 (In Madison Square, New York.) 
 
v 
 
HO IV ONE MAN DID IT ALL, 107 
 
 not get men to serve in America ; the people and parliament 
 were tired of war ; the Americans were really taking care of 
 themselves and had done so for five years ; they were deter 
 mined not to give in ; France and other nations had helped, or 
 were ready to help them, and so, on the thirtieth of November, 
 1782, Great Britain acknowledged the in 
 dependence of the United States; on the 
 third of September, 1783, the paper that 
 did this, and was called a treaty of peace 
 between Great Britain and the United 
 States of America, was signed at Versail 
 les in France, and on the twenty-fifth of 
 November, 1783, the last red-coated soldiers of the king left 
 the country they had failed to conquer, and America was 
 free. 
 
 And who do you think could have felt more thankful or 
 more joyful over the way things had turned out than George 
 Washington ? Although many things had not gone as he 
 desired, still the end he had worked for had come about, and 
 America was free. He thanked the French who had helped 
 him, he wrote to Congress congratulating the country on 
 the success that had come at the ending of seven years of 
 war, and set about trying to so finish things up as to avoid 
 the troubles that he felt must come if everything was not 
 done " decently and in order." To get the very thing we 
 want is sometimes the worst thing for us, and the results of 
 victory have often been the most serious problem for men to 
 
io8 
 
 HO IV ONE MAN DID IT ALL. 
 
 face. For it is hard to be modest and patient and obliging 
 when we have, at last, obtained what we have worked and 
 fought for. America s most serious problem was now to come, 
 and none knew this better than did George Washington 
 the man whose hand and head had made his country free. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 
 
 HAVE said that although the war ended with 
 the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 
 none knew better than did Washington, that 
 the trouble was by no means over. He un 
 derstood, indeed, what many could not see, 
 that one struggle could only lead to another, 
 and that peace with England did not mean 
 peace in America, so long as things remained 
 unsettled and uncertain. 
 
 You remember, of course, the fable of the frogs who over 
 threw King Log only to get in his place King Stork, a 
 much worse tyrant. America had achieved independence; 
 she was a free nation; but you must remember she was made 
 up of thirteen states, which, -as- colonies,- we re selfish, and 
 
WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 109 
 
 which, as states, were also selfish. To be sure, the common 
 danger of war, and a common dislike of England, had bound 
 them together, so that they were not so entirely wrapt up in 
 their own affairs or so jealous of one another as they had 
 been when they were simply English colonies, but they were 
 all of them, as we say, " looking out for number one; " they 
 were governing themselves as separate states, without re 
 gard to Congress and, in fact, all that Congress could do was 
 just to carry on the war and look after the matters that the 
 war created for all the states. 
 
 This looking out for " number one " made the states 
 careless as to the matters which they thought belonged to 
 Congress to attend to, while it made Congress careless and 
 " touchy," according as they were left alone or interfered with 
 by the several state governments. 
 
 In no way was this carelessness more unfortunately 
 shown than in the treatment of the soldiers. They were the 
 men who had struggled and suffered and starved that Amer 
 ica might be free. You would think that Congress would 
 look after them with especial care, and see that they had good 
 food and warm clothes, and money to send home to their 
 wives and children. But Congress did not, and almost one 
 half of Washington s time seems to have been spent in writ 
 ing to Congress, pleading the cause of the neglected soldiers 
 whom, from raw and undisciplined recruits, he had drilled 
 and made into victorious fighters. 
 ^ Well, Yorktown came, and the war was over. Congress 
 
no 
 
 WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 
 
 and the people threw up their hats and hurrahed and 
 shouted Victory ! and Hallelujah ! But that did not pay the 
 soldiers. 
 
 Of course^you may ask L _wh^how could Congress pay 
 soldiers if it had no money and no power to make the 
 states pay up. That is true, but it 
 should have so worked as to compel the 
 states to pay their shares of money due 
 the soldiers, or borrowed enough from 
 foreign nations or wealthy men to keep 
 its promises to Washington and his 
 men. But it did not, and the soldiers 
 grew r more and more angry, and begun 
 at last to say that if Congress had not 
 power enough nor strength enough to 
 keep its promises to the soldiers who had fought its bat 
 tles, then Congress was " no good," and the best thing for 
 America was to have a government in which one man 
 should have the " say," and see to it that what the soldiers 
 had done they should be paid for. 
 
 Now, here was just where one of the things that made 
 up the greatness of Washington was shown. He knew just 
 how the soldiers felt; he could not blame them for being 
 angry ; he, himself, was angry over the delay and indifference 
 of Congress and the state governments. The soldiers loved 
 him ; they looked up to him, and were always ready to obey 
 him, going where he sent them and doing what he told them. 
 
 " MAL. ANTHONY " WAYNE. 
 
 (One of Washington s bravest 
 Generals. ) 
 
WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. in 
 
 The army was a power in the land. Had it wished, it could 
 have said to Congress : " Get out ; go home ! we have con 
 quered England; we have freed America; we will put some 
 one in to run this country better than you can do," and 
 Congress could not have stopped them. All they needed 
 was a leader. Had George Washington been the kind of 
 man of whom you may read in Roman history, of whom the 
 soldiers made emperors and the people first obeyed and then 
 murdered, he need only have said to the soldiers : " You are 
 right. I will lead you, and we will soon settle things ; " and 
 he could have been, as was Caesar, as was Cromwell, as was 
 Napoleon, under almost the same circumstances, first, leader, 
 then dictator, then king./ ^ ^J^^ 
 
 But George Washington was not that kind of a man. ^ 
 He was truly great. As a result of all this murmuring and 
 fault-finding and grumbling and threatening, the soldiers did 
 try to do something desperate. Through one of their gener 
 al s trusted officers, they sent him a letter saying just what 
 I have told you they thought that Congress was a failure; 
 that the army had whipped England and won independence 
 for America ; that England s government was, after all, more 
 strong and safe than could be this jumble of thirteen sepa 
 rate states ; that some such government, like that of England, 
 would be best for America; that such a government needed 
 a head, who might be called a protector, dictator or king; 
 that there was only one man in America worthy to fill such a 
 position ; and they hinted (though the letter did not say this 
 
ii2 WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 
 
 in so many words, it meant it all the same) would General 
 Washington take control of the government of America by 
 the help of the army, and be crowned king of America? 
 
 Then, for once in his life, George Washington was angry. 
 There had been other times when he let his " angry passions 
 rise," but they were not numerous. Washington was natur 
 ally a quick-tempered man, one who, if he did not watch over 
 himself, would " get mad " easy. But, in his early days, he 
 had learned the first step toward greatness ; he had learned 
 to conquer himself, and no man ever tried harder and suc 
 ceeded better than he to live up to the old saying we read in 
 the Bible : " He that is slow to anger is better than the 
 mighty ; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a 
 city." But he would get angry sometimes, and there were 
 two things he could never stand treachery and cowardice. 
 He was always enraged if men turned and ran in battle. 
 That was what made him swear at General Lee at Mon- 
 mouth, and beat the cowards with his sword at Kip s Bay. 
 He never could understand how a man could be a coward, 
 and it was the one thing with which he had no patience. 
 
 And treachery, as I have said, was another. He never 
 could understand how a man who had sworn to be true to 
 the cause he had joined, could do or say anything that 
 should be disloyal to that cause. That is why he was so 
 broken by Arnold s treason and why he was so stern with 
 Andre and determined that he should die. 
 
 So when this letter from the soldiers came to him, asking 
 
THE GKNERAL LOSES HIS TEMPER. 
 
 ( Washington refuses a crown. ) 
 
WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 115 
 
 him to be king, he was very angry. Even to think of such 
 a thing was treachery to the cause of liberty ; to say it, was 
 open treason. He had pledged his life for the freedom of 
 America, and now to be asked to himself be the tyrant he 
 had overthrown, and rule as king, made him very angry. 
 "Be assured, sir," he wrote in reply, "no occurrence in the 
 course of the war has given me more painful sensations 
 than your information of there being such ideas existing in 
 the army as you have expressed, and which I must view 
 with abhorrence and reprimand with severity. ... I am at 
 a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given 
 encouragement to an address which to me seems big with 
 the greatest mischief that can befall any country. . . . Let 
 me conjure you, if you have any regard for your country, 
 concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to ban 
 ish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, 
 as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like 
 nature." 
 
 To me, boys and girls, this is one of the noblest moments 
 in the life of George Washington. People who have writ 
 ten all about him do not seem to give it much attention; but, 
 when I read the history of the world, and see how many 
 great men have fallen into temptation at just such moments 
 as this that Washington faced, when I see how they were 
 unable to put aside the dream of power, the chance of glory, 
 the opportunity to wear the crown and be king of the land 
 in which they lived, I believe that no mightier, nobler, or 
 
n6 
 
 WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 
 
 grander man ever lived than George Washington. For he, 
 who had the power to say yes, was strong enough to say no ; 
 he was true enough and noble enough to be angry that any 
 thing of the sort should have been said to him. You may be 
 sure no one ever again suggested to Washington the idea of 
 being king of America. 
 
 And when, a little later, the soldiers still called loudly for 
 their pay, and threatened to march against Congress and force 
 it to pay what was due, Washington saw that here was a real 
 danger, and quieted it as no other man could. Instead of 
 scolding, as he might, or of heading his discontented sol 
 diers, he asked them to meet him ; and then he read to them 
 
 a speech that calmed 
 them, and changed their 
 passion into patience. 
 
 At last the day came 
 
 
 for the breaking up of 
 
 TU 
 the army. 1 he war was 
 
 over, the British had gone, 
 the trouble between the 
 army and Congress, thanks to Washington s exertions, 
 had been fixed up, and now the general must say good 
 bye to the brave men who had fought by his side, and been 
 his faithful officers through all the years of war. 
 
 It was in New York City, and in a famous hotel called 
 Fraunces Tavern, that he bade them good bye, giving to 
 one a kiss, to another an embrace, and to all, the warm hand- 
 
 " HE CHANGED THEIR PASSION INTO PATIENCE." 
 
WHY THE GENERAL LOST HIS TEMPER. 119 
 
 shake that told of love and loyalty and tender feeling. Not 
 a word was spoken. Then, still silent and sorrowful, his 
 soldiers conducted him to the water-side. Washington step 
 ped into the boat to be rowed across to the New Jersey shore ; 
 he waved his hat in farewell to his companions of so many 
 fields, and the general they so loved left them forever. 
 
 Then he went to Annapolis where Congress was in ses 
 sion. Before the assembled body which represented the 
 newly-made United States of America he stood, while all 
 men looked upon him in reverence and respect, and in a 
 short address resigned his commission as Commander-in- 
 Chief of the American army. 
 
 ( Then he went to his dearly loved home at Mount Ver- 
 non. He was a simple, private citizen now. He reached 
 home on Christmas eve, and you may be sure that he had, 
 
HO W WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER 
 AND COULDN T. 
 
 \\ WASHINGTON was like a boy just going into vaca- 
 * * tion time when he got back to Mount Vernon. A 
 great load had been lifted from his shoulders. For seven 
 years he had borne a strain that few men could have stood 
 so long, and that few could have stood at all. Now the 
 burden was removed and he could think of his farm and his 
 servants and his home matters, without feeling that he must 
 sit down to plan a battle, or wrestle with Congress, or con 
 sult with his generals over some important scheme. 
 
 For a while he would wake up each morning, almost 
 with a feeling of surprise that he had no grave or important 
 business to attend to that day and that, as he expressed it, 
 he was " no longer a public man, nor had anything to do 
 with public transactions." 
 
 When he first returned to Mount Vernon at Christmas 
 time he was almost " snowed under," so severe was the 
 winter. But as the roads became clear, visitors flocked to 
 Mount Vernon to see and talk with the man who had rode 
 away from it one fine morning as just Colonel Washington, 
 and had returned to it seven years later General George 
 
HOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 121 
 
 Washington, one of the most famous of the world s great 
 men. 
 
 For, try as hard as he might, he could not help being 
 what he said he was not --"a public man." He was the 
 best-known American. He was the one whose advice was 
 most widely sought and most, generally followed. Letters 
 came to him from all over the world and were about all 
 sorts of things, from an invitation to visit the king and 
 queen of France, and a plan for civilizing the Indians, to a 
 request to sit for his portrait and permission to call a child 
 after his name. To all these letters, to the management of 
 his large plantation and to the development of his western 
 lands, Washington tried to give his attention ; so, what with 
 these things and receiving his visitors, he did not have much 
 spare time. 
 
 Mingled with these was his interest in even greater mat 
 ters. George Washington had gone to the wars a Vir 
 ginian ; he had come home an American. Do you realize 
 what that meant ? It meant that he loved his own State, 
 but that he loved his country still more. He was almost 
 the first American to have this broader understanding of 
 
 o 
 
 things and to foresee the wonderful future of the new 
 nation. But, to be a nation, he knew that two things were 
 necessary for these United States-- union and protection. 
 The first could never come about if the thirteen states kept 
 on being selfish, thinking only of their own interests, " pull 
 ing and hauling " in different directions ; the second could 
 
122 
 
 HOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 
 
 only be secured by a system of forts and military organiza 
 tion in charge of Congress, and by a watchful care over the 
 Western border-land. 
 
 You must remember that when the Revolution closed, 
 
 BUILDING A PALISADED TOWN ON THE WESTERN BORDER. 
 
 two foreign powers claimed possession of vast sections of 
 what is now the United States. These were England and 
 Spain. Washington knew that these two great nations 
 could keep the United States from making the most of its 
 
HOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 123 
 
 Western country and could control the navigation of the 
 Mississippi River, unless the States were united in protect 
 ing and enlarging the western border. So, before he had 
 been many days at home, " farming" at Mount Vernon, he 
 began writing to prominent men in different sections of the 
 country telling them how he felt about these things and 
 what he thought the States should do. " But they cannot do 
 anything that will last," he said, " unless they agree to live 
 together under some plan of union, by which they can all 
 join hands to pull together for the good of all, and to 
 appoint certain men who should represent them in the coun 
 cils of the new nation and some one man to be its head and 
 its guiding hand." 
 
 Even before Washington left the army, at the close of 
 the war, he had seen what was needed and had written to 
 the governors of the different States a strong letter begging 
 them to do something toward establishing a union of all the 
 States under a central government and, what he called, "a 
 federal head." He said the same thing to his soldiers when 
 he bade them farewell, and so it was known pretty generally 
 throughout the land what Washington s ideas were, and 
 people had a way of saying: If General Washington thinks 
 it is best, then it is best! " 
 
 So, when, from his home at Mount Vernon, where he 
 had thought all he had to do was to attend to his own 
 affairs and " run his farm," he began to write letters to lead 
 ing men, trying to get them to do something, it was seen 
 
124 
 
 NOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 
 
 that his way was wise and that his advice should be taken. 
 One by one the different States agreed to meet and talk 
 things over. So, after trying to do this at Annapolis in 
 Maryland in 1786, and failing, they met at last at Phila 
 delphia in May, 1787, in what is known as the Federal Con 
 vention. There, they went to work to get up some sort of an 
 
 agreement by which the thirteen 
 States, and the new ones that 
 might be made later, could live in 
 peaceful union and work together 
 for the prosperity and welfare of 
 the new nation whose freedom 
 had been obtained after so much 
 struggle and privation and danger 
 and death. 
 
 It was quite natural that Wash 
 ington should be the leading man 
 in this Convention. The" coming 
 together " for that was what 
 " convention " meant - - was largely 
 his idea and when he came to it as delegate from Virginia 
 he was elected to be its presiding officer. 
 
 Of course you are not to imagine that there were no 
 other great men in America. It would be very wrong for 
 me to so write this story of our great man as to lead you to 
 think that he was the only one. It was the time of great 
 men. There were Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, who 
 
 "IF GIN RAL WASHINGTON SAYS IT is 
 
 BEST, IT IS BEST ! " 
 
A GROUP OF GREAT AMERICANS. 
 
 (I. Tnomas Jtftrson. 2. Alexander Hamilton. 3. John Adams. 4 - George Washington. 
 5. Benjamin Franklin. 6. Samuel Adams.) 
 
HOW WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 127 
 
 was as wise as he was great, and John Adams and his 
 cousin Samuel, from Massachusetts, great men, both, and 
 foremost in putting the new nation of the United States on 
 the right track; there were Alexander Hamilton of New 
 York, Washington s right-hand man for so many years, and 
 Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Hamilton s great rival, and, 
 later on, President of the United States ; and there were 
 others whose hearts were warm for liberty through the 
 struggle with England and whose brains were busy in try 
 ing to think out and plan out just the right future for the 
 nation they had helped to make. These all were great men ; 
 but George Washington was the greatest. 
 
 The American people believed in him ; they felt that he 
 was honest, pure, and strong and that whatever he wished 
 to do or whatever he tried to bring about would be best for 
 the country and for them. 
 
 So, when he was made president of the convention that 
 was to arrange for some sort of a compact by which the 
 United States could be joined together and under which 
 they could live, everyone felt that it was the right thing to 
 do, and waited for the result. 
 
 You know what the result was --the Constitution of the 
 United States. You know, because you study it at school, 
 how it commences : " We, the People of the United States, 
 in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, 
 insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common de 
 fence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings 
 
128 HO IV WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 
 
 of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and 
 establish this Constitution for the United States of America." 
 
 The " people of the United States " did not all of them 
 like the constitution that their convention agreed upon ; it 
 was a long time before all the States decided to accept it, 
 but they did, finally, and there is no doubt that George 
 Washington s name signed to the document the first of 
 all the names signed to it did much to bring people to 
 believe in it as the best paper that could be made saying 
 just how the United States should be governed. 
 
 It is said that when Washington took his pen to 
 sign the Constitution he said, thoughtfully and solemnly: 
 " Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the 
 probability is that an opportunity will never again be offered 
 to cancel another in peace ; the next will be drawn in blood " 
 -all of which means that Washington felt that this was a 
 most important moment in the history of the United States ; 
 that the Constitution he was about to sign was the very 
 best thing that the very best men of America could agree upon ; 
 he was certain that, should the people of the several States 
 say they did not like it and would not have it, no one could 
 agree upon anything ; then quarreling and strife would 
 follow ; all that the Americans had fought for in the revolu 
 tion would be lost and the people, unable to govern them 
 selves, would fall to fighting to see who should govern, 
 until, perhaps, in the end, they would be worse off than when 
 they revolted from King George of England. 
 
HO W WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 
 
 But none of these dreadful things was to happen, be 
 cause the people had faith in the men they had sent to the 
 Convention to think and act for them; especially did they 
 have faith in the man who sat in the highest seat as presi 
 dent of that Convention and whose bold and handsome sig 
 nature, which every boy and girl now knows and honors, was 
 signed to the new Constitution, as much as to say : " I believe 
 that this Constitution is the best we can make as things now 
 stand, and I sign it, not only as president of the Convention 
 that has drawn it, but as one of 
 the people of these United States 
 of America which it seeks to 
 unite in peace and brotherhood." 
 
 So it was, at last, accepted 
 and adopted by all the people of 
 the thirteen States. And, with 
 
 a few Changes, Called amendments, INKSTAND FROM WHICH WASHINGTON 
 
 . _, , . . j , ., , SIGNED THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 so it has continued ; and it stands 
 
 to-day the bond of union between all the States of this great 
 country and one of the most remarkable papers ever written 
 through all the years of the world s long history. 
 
 The first section of the second article read: "The 
 executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
 United States of America. He shall hold office during the 
 term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, 
 chosen for the same term, be elected as follows " -and then 
 it goes on to say just how he shall be chosen. 
 
132 HO IV WASHINGTON WISHED TO BE A FARMER. 
 
 Well, when it came to the point of choosing the man 
 who must stand at the head of the new government as its 
 manager, or " executive," there was but one opinion among 
 the people. You know, of course, what this was: --that 
 George Washington, of Virginia, was the one man in 
 America who ought to be and must be and should be the 
 president of the United States. This was what everyone 
 said, thus his friends wrote him and the man who drafted 
 the most of the new Constitution and who has been called its 
 "father "(I mean Alexander Hamilton) told him that this 
 would have to be and that it was his duty to " comply with 
 the general call " of his country. 
 
 As I have told you before, George Washington never 
 " shirked," Whatever he felt to be his duty he set about 
 doing, no matter how hard or how unpleasant it might be. 
 And it is also true that whatever office was tendered him he 
 accepted, because he thought it was his duty to do so, even 
 while he did not feel himself smart enough for the place. 
 This was true about almost every position he accepted, from 
 the days when, as a boy, he went off with rifle, rod and chain 
 to survey Lord Fairfax s wild lands among the Virginia 
 mountains. 
 
 So when people told him he was the only man to be 
 president, he was not at all anxious to have things so turn 
 out as to put him into the presidential chair, nor was he 
 pleased at the prospect. He was fifty-seven years old, just 
 the age when a man feels like settling down and taking 
 
THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 
 
 133 
 
 things comfortably, especially if his life had been as busy 
 and as active as Washington s had been. " Let those who 
 wish such things as office or leadership be at the head of 
 things," he said ; " I do not wish them. All I desire now is 
 to settle down at Mount Vernon and live and die an honest 
 man on my own farm." 
 
 But this quiet life was not to be his. Much as he wished 
 to spend the rest of his days as a plain Virginia farmer, the 
 people whom he had led to freedom and citizenship decided 
 otherwise. When, therefore, according to the Constitution, 
 the sixty-nine votes ot the electors lor president were opened 
 and counted, it was Tound that every one of them --sixty- r/ 
 nine in all --named as choice of the people for president of 
 the United States of America, George Washington of Vir 
 ginia, and the farming at Mount Vernon had to be given up 
 once more. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FIRST AMERICAN 
 
 T SUPPOSE there is not a boy or a girl who has any sort 
 -* of " spunk " or ambition but enjoys being at the head of 
 things. It may cost hard work to get there, and may need 
 hard work to hold the place, but, all the same, the boy or girl 
 who is at the head is proud of it, and tries to stay there. 
 
134 THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 
 
 It is so with men and women, too, and the real test of a 
 man s ability, courage and good sense comes when the high 
 position he has attained demands certain duties of him 
 which he must try to do as well as he knows how. 
 
 George Washington, as we have seen, would have pre 
 ferred the easier life of a Virginia farmer; but, even though 
 he said to his friends : " I don t wish to be President ; I don t 
 want the office ; I shall be sorry if I am elected and have to 
 give up my home for public life again" still there is no 
 doubt he felt pleased to think that he was so highly honored ; 
 and, although he accepted the office of President, as he him 
 self said, " with more diffidence and reluctance than ever I 
 experienced before in my life," he accepted the office with the 
 determination to do his duty, no matter how hard might be 
 the work he had undertaken. He knew that he had the 
 people at his back. He knew that they believed in him, and 
 so, leaving Mount Vernon, he rode on toward New York 
 City, then the capital of the new nation. 
 
 Every mile of the \vay must have made Washington feel 
 more ready to enter upon his high position. For all along 
 the route, bells rang, drums beat, soldiers and citizens turned 
 out, and boys and girls met him with songs and flowers and 
 smiles and ringing cheers. And yet, though this reception 
 made the American hero gratified and glad, it made him also 
 sad and sober ; for he saw, better than any one else, what it 
 all meant-- what the people expected of him and how much 
 he must do to meet their expectations and desires. 
 
THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 137 
 
 It was no easy task he had undertaken, but he accepted 
 it with an earnest determination ; and, on the thirtieth of 
 August, 1789, he stood upon the balcony of Federal Hall in 
 New York (where the sub-treasury building now stands, in 
 Wall Street), and took the oath of office. 
 \ He was dressed in a dark-brown suit, made of American 
 croth, with knee-breeches, white silk stockings and silver 
 shoe-buckles. He wore a sword at his side, and his hair 
 was powdered and drawn back into a queue, as people wore 
 it then. He was a noble-looking man, and how proud of 
 him must have been the crowd of people that packed the 
 street, looking on. 
 
 He bent above the open Bible and kissed it solemnly as 
 he took the oath of office; the chancellor, or judge, who pro 
 nounced the words that Washington subscribed to, stepped 
 forward, and lifting his hand cried out in a loud voice : " Long 
 live George Washington, President of the United States ! " 
 Then a flag shot up to the cupola of the hall and swung out 
 upon the breeze ; cannons boomed ; bells rang ; the people 
 cheered and cheered and cheered ; and George Washington, the 
 farmer s boy, the surveyor, the backwoodsman, the soldier, 
 the statesman, the hero, was inaugurated as the first 
 American President. 
 
 All this sounds very grand, but compared with the 
 United States to-day, it was really a very small country 
 and a very fe\v people, that hailed George Washington as 
 president. There were not quite four millions of people in 
 
138 
 
 THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 
 
 , 
 - 
 
 . 
 
 the United States when Washington was inaugurated ; to 
 day there are nearly seventy millions. The settled portion 
 of the country lay along the Atlantic coast, and little or 
 nothing was known of the vast western country from which 
 so many great states have since been made. There were 
 but few cities, and not one of them had more than twenty 
 thousand inhabitants. To-day, Chicago, the site of which 
 was not even known in Washington s day, has a population of 
 considerable over a million, and in the city of New York and 
 the section round about there, live to-day more people than, 
 
 in Washington s day, 
 lived in the whole 
 United States. There 
 were no railroads, nor 
 steamboats ; there was 
 neither electricity nor 
 gas, nor matches, nor 
 even oil lamps, for 
 lighting ; there were 
 
 no water works ; there 
 were but few bridges, 
 and on the farms there 
 were none of^he things 
 that to-day help the farmer, such as mowing-machines, and 
 reapers, and threshers, and stump-pullers and steel ploughs. 
 There were only a few newspapers and these were small 
 and uninteresting; there were but few books, and the schools 
 
 FEDERAL HALL IN WALL STREET. 
 (Where Washington was inaugurated.) 
 
THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 141 
 
 were poor enough. So, taking it all together, you will see 
 that the boys and girls of to-day would find themselves any 
 thing but happy if they should be suddenly set down in the 
 America of Washington s day, with all the wants and none 
 of the comforts of to-day, and told to make men and women 
 of themselves. 
 
 But it was these men and women, these boys and girls 
 that Washington was elected to govern and make a nation 
 of. He set about it at once. The first thing he did was to 
 select the men with whom he could talk and work as 
 his advisers. They were to be the heads of the different 
 departments of the government the State Department, 
 which looked after the things that were to be carried on 
 between the United States and other nations ; the Treasury 
 Department, which looked after the money matters of the 
 country; the War Department, \vhich looked after the sol 
 diers and sailors; and the Law Department, which settled 
 questions in dispute, and advised the other departments what 
 to do in such cases. Since Washington s time other depart 
 ments have been added - - the Navy Department, the Post- 
 office Department, the Department of the Interior and the 
 Department of Agriculture; but when the first American 
 president went into office, there were but four of these depart 
 ments, and the heads or secretaries of these four depart 
 ments were selected by Washington, and made by him his 
 advisers or Cabinet, as it is now called. 
 
 You must not think that because the people hailed Wash- 
 
1 42 THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 
 
 ington as a hero and cheered him as president, that every 
 body agreed upon the way things were done or ought to be 
 done. They did not. There was discussion, and wrangling, 
 and dispute and quarrelling in Congress and out, just as 
 there is now, and just as there has always been, ever since 
 men began to act for themselves, and tried to govern them 
 selves. This is what makes what we call political parties; 
 and, as there were Tories and Patriots in the Revolution, and 
 as there are Republicans and Democrats to-day, so, when the 
 government was first formed, there were two parties, the 
 Federalists and the Anti-Federalists those who liked the 
 United States (or Federal) government, and believed in the 
 Constitution, and those who liked best the old plan of the 
 states governing themselves and did not believe in the 
 Constitution. Washington and Franklin were the greatest 
 Federalists, and their following was large. 
 
 But Washington knew that even those who did not 
 believe as he did might be men of wisdom, with a right to 
 their opinions. He did not think, as do so many boys and 
 girls and a great many grown folks also, that the person who 
 does not believe as they do is a stupid or dangerous know- 
 nothing. So, when he made up his advisers or Cabinet, 
 President Washington invited, among others, Hamilton, the 
 most earnest of Federalists, and Jefferson, the warmest of 
 Anti-Federalists. He did this because he considered them 
 the best men he could select for the departments he wished 
 to give into their charge; and Thomas Jefferson was ap- 
 
THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 143 
 
 pointed Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, Secre 
 tary of the Treasury-- the two most important places in 
 the Cabinet. 
 
 It is often the little things that bother people the most. 
 Now it seems a small thing to worry over, just how to speak 
 of the president, and just how he should see the people. But 
 it turned out to be quite an important affair. You see the 
 nation was new ; it was made up of people who had been used 
 to kings and royal governors-- both those who respected 
 them and those who disliked them. It is a hard thing to 
 satisfy everybody. Certain of the people thought that, as the 
 head of a nation, the President should have some grand title 
 like His Grace, or His High Mightiness or, as the Sen 
 ate really decided, His Highness the President of the United 
 States and Protector of their Liberties ; others wished to have 
 no title whatever, for fear the presidents should think them 
 selves too grand and " give themselves airs." Washington, 
 himself, cared little for titles. " A grand name is of no value," 
 he said, " if the man who bears it is not worthy or noble, or 
 one who tries to so live and act that the title shall really be 
 suited to him." " It is best to be a plain and simple Mr. if 
 one is but a gentleman," he said. He was therefore really 
 pleased when it was decided to address him just as the Con 
 stitution called him "the President of the United States" 
 and " Mr. President," and the title has remained unchanged 
 from Washington s day to this. 
 
 So many people wished to see him from curiosity, on 
 
144 
 
 THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 
 
 business or for their own selfish advantage that the Presi 
 dent had scarcely time to give to his regular business and 
 to his letters. In fact, all these calls kept him from attend 
 ing to the work he had to 
 do. So he arranged for 
 certain reception days. On 
 Tuesdays, from three to four, 
 he saw all those who wished 
 
 to call upon him, and on 
 
 I 
 every Friday afternoon the 
 
 President and Mrs. Wash 
 ington had a reception, to 
 which the people were all 
 invited. When this was 
 decided upon there were 
 plenty of people to criticise 
 and to say that Washington 
 and his wife were " stuck 
 up," and were trying to be 
 as grand as the kings and 
 queens of Europe; and in 
 deed, as you will soon see, 
 as parties grew and men took 
 
 IN WASHINGTON S DAY. 
 
 one side or the other on 
 the questions that were all the time coming up for dis 
 cussion, there were many who did not hesitate to say 
 things against Washington which some of them lived 
 
THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT. 145 
 
 Jong enough to be sorry for and to wish they had never said. 
 So, at last, the government was started, with a Congress 
 and a President ; and the world looked on and sneered and 
 criticised, or applauded and praised, according as these who 
 sneered disliked and those who praised believed in a people 
 trying to govern themselves without kings or queens, or 
 princes and nobles. For you see, a republic, such as the 
 United States had declared themselves, was an experiment / 
 in the world and people did not know how the experiment 
 would turn out. It was well for the experiment and well 
 for the United States of America that the first American 
 President was so great, so noble, so dignified, so simple, so 
 just, so able, so sensible and so good a man as was George 
 Washington of Virginia. It was his wisdom and caution 
 and will that gave the Republic so fair a start and set it so 
 well forward on the road that nothing could stop its pro 
 gress or do it lasting harm in all the hundred years of 
 prosperity and pride and danger and disturbance that 
 were to follow the inauguration of its first and noblest 
 President. 
 
 "THE WORLD SNEERED OR APPLAUDED, CRITICISED OR PRAISED." 
 
146 HOW WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND 2IME. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW WASHINGTON SERVED^.AS PRESIDENT THE 
 SECOND TIME. 
 
 HPHE Constitution says that the term of office of the 
 *- President of the United States shall be four years. 
 But when Washington s first term of four years, which 
 extended from 1789 to 1793, was finished, the people were 
 not willing to give him up. Even those who did not agree 
 with him felt that it was not wise, at that time, to make a 
 change and all agreed that no man in the land was better 
 
 o o 
 
 fitted to be its chief magistrate than George Washington. 
 
 So he was again elected to the presidency without a vote 
 against him ; and, though he wished greatly to give up the 
 office and go back to his beloved farm at Mount Vernon, he 
 felt that the people wished him to stay where he was and 
 that, for a time at any rate, it was his duty to remain. And 
 thus, on the fourth of March, 1793, he entered upon the 
 office of President of the United States for the second time. 
 
 Great things were happening in the world, and Washing 
 ton s justice, good sense and patriotism were to be tried dur 
 ing his second term as President as they had never before 
 
r.KOROK WASHINGTON. 
 
 (" The Athena urn Head." Painted from life in 1796, ly Gilbert Stiiarl, and owned by the 
 Boston Athentrum. Now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) 
 
HOW WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND TIME. 149 
 
 been tried in all his long and busy life. The success of the 
 Americans in their struggle against tyranny, and the forma 
 tion of the American Republic had set folks in Europe to 
 thinking. Especially was this the case in France, where 
 the king had been the ruling power for hundreds of years 
 and the nobles had made slaves of the people. Gradually 
 the people began to talk and then to act, until at last, in 
 1789, came that uprising of the people, so like and yet so 
 unlike our own. This was the French Revolution. The 
 people of France got their tyrants by the throat ; they be 
 came mad with success, and did many terrible things. 
 They murdered their king and queen, the princes and 
 nobles ; the men and women who had been in power ran 
 away or, not being able to get off, staid behind and were put 
 to death. Alone and unaided France fought all Europe - 
 fought, defeated and, by the aid of a young soldier who was 
 not a Frenchman but a Corsican, named Napoleon Bona 
 parte, finally conquered it --and then lost all it had gained, 
 because Bonaparte was not a Washington and thought more 
 of himself than he did of the country that had made him 
 Emperor. 
 
 France, as you know, had assisted America in her struggle 
 for independence ; she had helped to make the United 
 States a republic. So, when France tried to do the same 
 thing, she naturally supposed that America would help her, 
 and there were thousands of people in America who sup 
 posed and said the same thing. Especially, when, in 1793, 
 
150 HOW WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND TJME. 
 
 war was declared against England, and a Frenchman named 
 Genet was sent to America to fit out vessels, called priva 
 teers, to destroy English vessels and ruin the commerce of 
 England, from which its strength and prosperity came, did 
 the French republicans think they could do about as they 
 pleased in the land which, so they said, would not have been 
 free had it not been for the French help. 
 
 Washington saw the danger. He was full of friendship 
 to France for the help she had given America, though none 
 knew better than did he that France gave that help, not 
 because she loved and pitied America, but because she hated 
 England. " But," he said, " if we let France come over here to 
 fit out vessels and enlist men to fight England, we ourselves 
 shall soon get into a war with England and that would be 
 the worst thing that could happen to us now. America is 
 weak and poor as yet ; what she needs is peace, not war. 
 If I let myself be guided by these people \vho wish to help 
 France, I shall get the whole country into a bad fix. It is 
 best for America not to meddle in the troubles and struggles 
 between European nations ; she has her hands full in trying 
 to get on here. Therefore the United States, in this war 
 between France and England, must be neutral -- that is, we 
 must help neither the one nor the other. If we do, it may 
 be our ruin/ 
 
 So he preserved what is called " a strict neutrality." 
 Genet, the Frenchman, who had come across for help, 
 threatened and blustered and scolded and said all sorts of 
 
MARTHA WASHINGTON. 
 
 (Painted from life in 1796, by Gilbert Stuart, and owned by the Boston Athcnaum. 
 Nova in ike Boston Afu.tfum of Fine Art~.) 
 
HOW WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND TIME. 153 
 
 harsh and mean things against Washington, and, strange as 
 it may appear, so did hundreds of Americans who should 
 have known better and should have had faith enough in 
 Washington to know that what he did was right. But 
 they did not, and, instead, they made his life miserable 
 by insisting upon his doing things he ought not and 
 would not do. They called him hard names and made ugly 
 pictures of him and did and said many things that we, to 
 day, knowing how great and good a man he was, cannot 
 understand. 
 
 And, with the French trouble came others that needed all 
 Washington s wisdom and firmness and courage to face and 
 settle. The Indians in the Ohio country, which, years be 
 fore, Washington had struggled over with France for pos 
 session, begun to annoy and attack the settlers who were 
 forcing their way into the new lands to make homes and 
 build towns therein. They would not agree to the terms or 
 offers that President Washington made them, but kept on 
 burning and killing until soldiers were sent to punish them. 
 Twice, the soldiers returned unsuccessful, and then Wash 
 ington collected a large army and sent it out under com 
 mand of General St. Clair, an old Revolutionary fighter, to 
 conquer the Ohio Indians. He gave General St. Clair all 
 the good advice that so successful an Indian fighter as 
 Washington had been in his young days could give, and 
 especially he said to him, remembering Braddock s terrible 
 defeat, " Beware of a surprise." But St. Clair was surprised 
 
54 
 
 HOW WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND TIME. 
 
 and, in a defeat almost as bad as was that of Braddock s, his 
 army was so whipped that nearly one half of his soldiers 
 were killed or taken prisoners. 
 
 Washington felt dreadfully. Had his directions been 
 followed the war would have been brought to an end. But 
 now he had to do it all over again. This time he sent a 
 brave soldier who had fought well and successfully in the 
 
 Revolution, General Anthony 
 Wayne. He could not be sur 
 prised and he soon whipped the 
 Indians, made them sue for 
 peace and got from them, for 
 ever, the present great State 
 of Ohio. 
 
 Then there were troubles 
 about taxes among the settlers 
 of Western Pennsylvania, which 
 led to \vhat is known as the 
 
 " Whiskey Rebellion ; " there were worrying disputes with 
 England as to forts and bounderies in the western coun 
 try and the stealing of American sailors by English sea- 
 captains ; these were only settled by sending an American 
 to England to try to, make things right, but as this set 
 tlement, known as Jay s Treaty (from Judge Jay who was 
 sent to England about the matter), gave up some things to 
 England, many of the people who had not yet got over their 
 hatred for the " mother country," as England was called, 
 
 GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR. 
 
THE POST OFFICE IN WASHINGTON S DAY. 
 
 (Delivering the mail in the Ohio Country.} 
 
HOW WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND TIME. 157 
 
 grumbled and talked about it and found fault with the 
 President. There were troubles in the Cabinet because the 
 members did not all believe alike and were continually disput 
 ing or seeking to get the better of one another. 
 
 Through all these troubles, Washington moved straight 
 on, doing his duty, saying little, but acting at just the right 
 moment, and so bringing the young nation safely through 
 its years of babyhood and making it ready for a vigorous 
 youth and a sturdy manhood. 
 
 But all the worries and anxieties of the time told on 
 Washington s strong nature and made him determined, 
 when his time was up, not to serve again as President. 
 
 Election time came around once more, but, though 
 implored to act a third time as President of the United 
 States, and though assured that those who were against him 
 were but a few, a very few, as compared with the whole peo 
 ple, and though it was told him that to put in another man 
 as President while the revolution in France and the wars in 
 Europe were going on would be bad for America, Washing 
 ton declared that he could not and would not serve again ; 
 he said he believed that the people were united and that a 
 new President, if a wise choice were made, would be able to 
 carry on the government satisfactorily and well. And then, 
 on the seventeenth of September, 1796, he issued his re 
 markable Farewell Address to the American People. 
 
 I wish you boys and girls who read this story of George 
 Washington would turn to your histories and read this won- 
 
158 HO W WASHINGTON SERVED THE SECOND TIME. 
 
 derful letter to the people of the United States ; or, if it is too 
 long, read a part of it. The Address was meant for the peo 
 ple of that day, to be sure, but it seems to have been written, 
 just as surely, for you and for me. 
 
 It was, of course,. his announcement to the people that 
 he would not serve again as President. But it was more 
 than this ; it was his good-bye to public life after forty-five 
 years of noble service ; it was a solemn appeal to his coun 
 trymen to be true to the country they themselves had freed 
 and tHe nation they themselves had made; it was a word in 
 warning, a word in advice and a word in love. It implored 
 them to be patriotic, to be united, to be brothers, to be 
 Americans ! 
 
 And yet, though the loving and helpful words of this 
 noble man were written to his countrymen in affection, in 
 faith, in hope, and in the desire to strengthen and benefit 
 them, the Farewell Address was laughed at and criticised 
 and pulled to pieces and called all sorts of names by some 
 of those very Americans who needed, more than all others, 
 to read and heed it. To-day their memories are unhonored, 
 their words are lost, their names are forgotten ; and, though 
 they may have been honest men and really meant all the 
 mean and spiteful things they said, it is for us to remember 
 that the life of a really good man can be made unhappy by 
 those who should think before they speak, but do not; and 
 that the tongue of the slanderer is sometimes as sharp and 
 hurtful as the dagger of the assassin. But, more than all 
 
HO IV THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 161 
 
 can we feel glad to think that neither slander nor wicked 
 ness nor meanness have been able to take away one jot 
 from the name and fame of George Washington. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 A MID tears and cheers and the warm good-byes of friends 
 * * and followers, George Washington laid aside the cares 
 of office and went back to his farm in Virginia-- that 
 Mount Vernon farm toward which his thoughts and desires 
 had so often turned through the eight years of his busy and 
 anxious life as president. 
 
 He found plenty to do. Mount Vernon, in his absence, 
 had been taken care of by an overseer, but things had been 
 allowed to run down, or, at least, not kept up to Washing 
 ton s idea of what was right; so the first thing he did was to 
 repair and improve things. " I find myself in the situation, 
 nearly, of a new beginner," he wrote to one of his friends. 
 " I am surrounded by joiners, masons and painters ; and 
 such is my anxiety to get out of their hands, that I have 
 scarcely a room to put a friend into or to sit in myself, with 
 out the music of hammers or the smell of paint." 
 
162 
 
 HOU THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 So he mended and repaired and built and extended, or 
 looked after his broad plantations, glad to get back to the 
 
 free, busy, out- 
 
 of-door life he 
 had a 1 w a y s 
 loved. Ilisdoor 
 was ever open 
 to the friends 
 and strangers 
 who were con 
 stantly coming 
 to Mount Ver- 
 non to see the 
 
 greatest man in 
 America. 
 
 For he was 
 the greatest man 
 in America. Of 
 that there can 
 be no doubt. 
 Notwithstand 
 ing the enemies 
 he had made be 
 cause of his say 
 ing to France : 
 "Hands off! America is not your servant;" and notwith 
 standing the strong and different ways of thinking about 
 
 WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 
 
HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 163 
 
 matters of government that were dividing the people into 
 what we call political parties ; and notwithstanding the harsh 
 and unfriendly things that leading men and leading news 
 papers had said about the president, the great mass of people 
 were of his following and on his side. They could not for- 
 
 MOUNT VERNON IN l8oO. 
 
 get that this strong and silent man had for forty-five years 
 been at the front in all the great events that had made the 
 United States possible ; they knew his sincerity, his honesty, 
 his faith in freedom and in the people, his clear vision, his 
 strong grasp, his wisdom in planning and doing, his modesty, 
 his ability as a leader, his safety as a guide. For the success- 
 
164 
 
 HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 fill soldier they cried: " Hurrah! he is a hero;" for the able 
 president they flun their queer, three-cornered hats in the 
 
 air and shouted: "Hail to 
 the chief!" for the big, 
 noble-looking, strong and 
 stalwart six-footer, with the 
 calm and handsome face, 
 the well-knit figure and the 
 kindly, courteous but awe- 
 inspiring manner they felt 
 both reverence and affec 
 tion, and, even as they 
 cheered and shouted and 
 swung their hats, they would 
 say : " See, there is Wash 
 ington ! the greatest man 
 
 o o 
 
 in the world." 
 
 So, even though he was 
 worn out in the people s 
 service, though he was " get 
 ting on in years," as the 
 saying is, and longed only 
 for rest and quiet, the peo 
 ple could not do without 
 him, and when the time 
 came and they called him to the front again, he came, as 
 reluctant as ever, but just as ready if the need existed. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 (Carried in -wood by William Rush ; thought to be 
 the most life-like representation of Washington. 
 Now in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. ) 
 
HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 165 
 
 The need did exist and the call came speedily. The 
 trouble with France grew grave. The men who overthrew 
 the king, and started the French republic, were not as calm, 
 as cautious or as wise as those who started the American 
 republic. They had no Washington to lead them on. So, 
 as they gained power by killing their king and queen and 
 leading men and women, they grew bloodier and more 
 tyrannical, they became selfish and " cheeky " and, es 
 pecially toward America, they were arrogant and insulting. 
 They treated the United States as if America owed France 
 a debt, for which payment was always to be asked. " France 
 helped you in your struggle ; now you must help France in 
 hers. Give us ships and men ; let us use your seaports to 
 fit out our vessels in; or, if not, pay us so much money and 
 we will let you off." 
 
 Washington had not liked such talk, and had said so. 
 When he saw how cruelly France had treated her king, and 
 had at last cut off his head ; when he saw how she had perse 
 cuted and almost killed Lafayette and Rochambeau and 
 other brave Frenchmen who had fought for American lib 
 erty; when he saw how unjust and brutal and arrogant and 
 overbearing were the men in power, he said : "We must not 
 yield to France. If we do, it will be bad for us in every 
 way." 
 
 John Adams, who followed Washington as President of 
 the United States, said the same thing. And when the 
 French leaders demanded from the American representative 
 
1 66 HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 money to keep the peace, Pinckney, the American minister 
 indignantly refused, and was driven out of France. Then all 
 America was angry and prepared to fight. " Millions for 
 defence, but not one cent for tribute," was the cry on Ameri 
 can lips. It looked like a war with France, and w r ord was 
 sent to Washington at Mount Vernon to leave his farm once 
 more and raise and lead the army of the United States. 
 
 Much against his will, but feeling, as he always did, that 
 if the republic were in danger he must do whatever seemed 
 to be his duty, Washington left the o^iet of Mount Vernon 
 and hurried to Philadelphia, which was then the capital of the 
 nation. He was appointed lieutenant-general and com- 
 mander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. 
 
 Here again, boys and girls, you may see the greatness of 
 Washington. The greatest is not he who commands, but 
 he who, while able to command, is willing to be commanded. 
 Washington had held the highest office in the gift of the 
 people for whose freedom he had fought. Now, when duty 
 called, he was ready to accept a position below the highest. 
 Other men in his position have, when such an opportunity 
 offered, seized the power and used it to their own advantage. 
 He acted always in the spirit of the Master whom he served 
 and tried to follow --the Divine Leader who said : " Whoso 
 ever will be great among you shall be your minister, and 
 whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all ; 
 even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but 
 to minister and to give His life a ransom for many " 
 
HO IV THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 167 
 
 At Philadelphia, Washington was soon deep in work 
 again, organizing and appointing officers in the new army 
 that was being recruited for the French war that all men 
 thought would surely come. But Washington was getting 
 to be an old man too old, at least, for the wear and tear of 
 
 ; : ~-. - 
 
 DRILLING RECRUITS FOR THE WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 life in the saddle and the field as a soldier, and, in 
 accepting command of the armies of his country, he had 
 only asked one privilege : that he should not be compelled 
 to serve in the camp or the field until it was really necessary 
 for him to do so. 
 
 After he had got everything ready, and had appointed 
 
168 HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 his chief helpers, and seen to the comfort of the soldiers and 
 the new recruits --he was always great for doing that, you 
 know he went back to Mount Vernon, to attend to his plan 
 tation, and put things in order in case he should be called 
 away again. For, whatever happened, Washington was 
 always ready. 
 
 He was ready now ; and all too soon the call came. But 
 it was a call that few men expected, though all men knew it 
 must some day come. It was the call to the soldier, the 
 statesman, the patriot, to come up higher. The call came 
 as suddenly, as unexpectedly, as sharply, as ever on the bat 
 tlefield his orders to his soldiers had been issued ; and he 
 met and obeyed it as calmly, as uncomplainingly and as wil- 
 ingly as he had taught his followers to obey. 
 
 Washington was now nearly sixty-eight ; he seemed to be 
 as well, as strong and as vigorous as ever ; he had scarcely 
 ever been ill; there was not the least sign that sickness could 
 lay him low, and he rode and walked and looked after things 
 on his farm and conducted the affairs of the army as wisely 
 and as well as ever. 
 
 But one cloudy day in December, 1799 the twelfth of 
 the month --just after he had finished a letter urging the 
 establishment of the school for soldiers, now known as the 
 Military Academy at West Point, he mounted his horse and 
 rode away to visit different points of his big farm where 
 work was being done. A snow storm caught him, while he 
 was riding; it turned to hail and then to rain and the Gen- 
 
HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 169 
 
 ONE OF WASHINGTON S RECOMMENDATIONS. 
 ( The U. S. Military Academy at West Point, N. Y. ) 
 
 eral came home wet and chilled. The next day he had a 
 sore throat, but rode out to see about cutting down some trees; 
 and then went home again. His cold increased ; he had a 
 chill and then a difficulty in breathing. The doctors who 
 were called could not help him and he grew worse. He had 
 what was then called a "quinsy sore throat" -a sort of 
 croup or laryngitis, as it is called to-day. 
 
170 HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 He called his household around him ; he said he knew he 
 was going, but that he was " not afraid to go ; " he thanked the 
 doctors for their efforts, gave directions to his beloved wife 
 and his faithful secretary, and with the words " it is well " 
 upon his lips, answered the call that had come to him. 
 With his fingers upon his own pulse, calmly counting the 
 feebly-coming strokes, at eleven o clock on Saturday night, 
 the fourteenth of December, 1799, George Washington the 
 American bade good-bye to the world he had served so well 
 by living in, the land he had helped so much by his loyalty 
 and his love. The old General had his discharge. 
 
 When the news went abroad, saying " Washington is 
 dead," friends and foes alike hastened to pay tribute to his 
 memory. The two powers against \vhich he had stood 
 out most sturdily-- monarchical England and republican 
 France --hastened to express their sorrow and their respect. 
 In the midst of a great pageant of rejoicing because Napo 
 leon Bonaparte was returning a victor from his battles in 
 Egypt, the standards and flags of the French army, which 
 Americans thought Washington might have to lead them 
 against in battle, were draped in black, and " Bonaparte, 
 First Consul of the Republic" decreed a statue to Washing 
 ton. At almost the same time the great Channel fleet of 
 England, riding at anchor in Tor Bay on the Devonshire 
 coast, lowered the flags of every frigate and every vessel of 
 the fleet to half-mast, thus honoring a foeman that England 
 had faced in fight, but respected, honored and mourned. 
 
1 
 
HOW THE GENERAL GOT HIS DISCHARGE. 
 
 73 
 
 And his own land which he had so loved and labored 
 for, sorrowed deeply for its loss. Congress adjourned at 
 once, the Speaker s chair was draped in black, the Congress 
 men put on mourning; there were resolutions passed, and 
 speeches made, and memorial services held all over the land ; 
 and wherever, in cities or villages, on fishing-boat and work 
 bench, in the farmhouse, the schoolhouse, and the homes of 
 the wealthy and the poor, the sorrowful tidings came, there 
 was mourning and sorrow, there were words of praise, of 
 reverence and love, for the general called from his army, the 
 planter from his farm, the husband from his home, the 
 foremost citizen from the land he had served so nobly - 
 Washington, " first in war, first in peace and first in the 
 hearts of his countrymen." 
 
 THE TRIBUTE OF THE NATIONS. 
 
i 7 4 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 OOMEHOWor other, we are always interested in hearing 
 ^^ about the home-life of famous folks -- where they live 
 and how they live, how many children they have, and even 
 what they have for breakfast and how they spend their time. 
 
 This is perfectly natural ; for, when we know people, we 
 like to know them well ; and when we have become inter 
 ested in a great man s story we are glad to become 
 acquainted with the surroundings amid which that story 
 told itself. So we like to know how Longfellow lived at 
 Craigie House and where Dickens loved to walk about Gads 
 Hill. We are interested in reading about Lincoln s love for 
 his boy Tad, and how Shakspere used to play with his little 
 granddaughter, Lizzie, and how anxious Columbus was that 
 his son Diego should be rich and powerful. 
 
 It is not always safe to gratify this desire, for sometimes 
 the men of whom we have made heroes, do not bear close 
 inspection, and the men who are great in the world often 
 prove to be very small at home. But when we come close 
 to George Washington, we need have no fear of being 
 ashamed of our hero. 
 
MRS. ALEXANDER HAMILTON 
 
 of New York. 
 
 MRS. Rl FUS KING, 
 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 MRS. WILLIAM BINGHAM, 
 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 MRS. ROBERT MORRIS, 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 MRS. THEODORE SEDGWICK, 
 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 MRS. JAMES MONROE, 
 of Virginia.. 
 
 MRS. JAMES MADISON, 
 f 1 irginia. 
 
 MRS. CHARLES CARROLL, 
 of Maryland. 
 
 SOMK OF THE LADIES OK WASHINGTON S "PRESIDENTIAL CIRCLE," 1789-1797. 
 
WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 177 
 
 When we hear that he had no children of his own we 
 feel, at first, that it was a pity that he had no one to follow 
 him and bear his name in direct descent to the future. But 
 we can console ourselves with two thoughts : sometimes, 
 great men s children do not always turn out a credit to their 
 fathers indeed, one writer has recorded, with satisfaction, 
 that George Washington had no son to disgrace the name 
 
 THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA. 
 (Which gave Washington his commission as surveyor, and of which he was Chancellor) 
 
 he had made so great and glorious ; the second thought is 
 the one that a great American long ago put into beautiful 
 words : " Heaven left him childless that his country might 
 call him father ; " and the " Father of his Country " George 
 Washington has been called to this day. 
 
 But that home-life of Washington which we all like to 
 
i 7 8 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 know about, and of which I have now and then given you a 
 glimpse, was really one of the best and most beautiful things 
 about this great man. We know how dearly he loved his 
 fine home at Mount Yernon, and ho\v, when he was most 
 successful, as well as when he was most bothered and per 
 plexed, his thoughts would turn to his big and fertile farm 
 on the banks of the broad Potomac, and how the desire " to 
 live and die a private citizen on my own farm," was ex 
 pressed both in his talk and in his letters. 
 
 To that " farm," after the wedding festivities were over, 
 he took his wife, the fair young widow Custis, and here, with 
 their mother, came Washington s step-children, John --the 
 six-year-old boy whom they called "Jacky" -and the little 
 four-year-old girl Martha, known to the homestead as 
 "Patty." 
 
 It was a fine home for Jacky and Patty Custis. Mount 
 Vernon, as many of you know, is a beautiful place to-day; in 
 Washington s time it was a splendid Virginia plantation, 
 with broad acres of rolling farm-land, and a lawn sloping 
 down to the sparkling Potomac, with fruit and flowers in 
 abundance and a house that afforded plenty of play room 
 for children. 
 
 Colonel Washington, the children s step-father, was then 
 a tall and noble-looking gentleman of twenty-seven ; their 
 mother, whom all the world now reveres as " Martha Wash 
 ington," was a " small and stately lady," who looked after 
 her son and daughter very closely, as was the way \vith 
 
JOHN PARKE CUSTIS AND MARTHA PARKE CUSTIS " JACKY " AND "PATTY." 
 (From att original painting.) 
 
WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 181 
 
 parents in those days. The little boy and girl studied their 
 lessons and did their tasks dutifully and well. Matilda, or 
 Patty, was, we are told, a demure little lady who wore her 
 hair " done up " and adorned with " pompons," and was 
 brought up by her mother to work on " samplers " and 
 study housekeeping, and be diligent and quiet and " correct." 
 Jacky, being a boy, had a little more freedom ; but he, too, 
 had to study hard ; his step-father, who as we know was one 
 of the best surveyors in America, taught him engineering 
 and military tactics and instilled into the boy that deep love 
 of out-of-door life that was a part of his own nature. 
 
 Washington was always inclined to be more " easy " with 
 his step-children than was their mother ; and, before his real 
 duty of " nation-making " called him from his home, he was 
 with them much at Mount Vernon, and tried to act toward 
 them as if they were his own son and daughter. Very 
 often he and Jacky went " a-hunting," and very often, too, 
 they " catched a fox " together, as Washington notes in his 
 diary. 
 
 Both Jacky and Patty were delicate children. Indeed, 
 the pretty little girl did not live to grow up, but died in 
 1773, when she was but scarcely seventeen. A letter, yel 
 low with age, is still in existence in which her step-father 
 tells of his grief and sorrow over the loss of " the sweet, 
 innocent girl --dear Patty Custis." Jacky, however, out 
 grew his delicate boyhood and lived to have children of his 
 own. He became his step-father s " aid-de-camp ; " and he sad- 
 
182 
 
 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 dened for George Washington the glorious close of the Revo 
 lution ; for he sickened and died at Yorktown just after the 
 surrender of Cornwallis. And when he died, Washington, 
 who had watched over him so carefully and loved him so 
 dearly, threw himself, as we are told, at full length on a 
 couch and wept like a child over the sad and sudden taking 
 off of his " dear Jacky." 
 
 When Colonel " Jacky " Custis died he left a widow 
 and four children. And 
 Mount Vernon was so 
 lonely without the young 
 life and gayety that Wash 
 ington loved, that he beg 
 ged for two of the children 
 to bring up as his own. 
 Mrs. Custis finally con 
 sented, and Washington 
 adopted a girl and a boy 
 - Eleanor Parke Custis, 
 two and a half years old, 
 and George Washington 
 
 aged 
 
 six 
 
 Parke Custis 
 months. 
 
 These children were 
 
 brought up at beautiful ELEANOR PARKE CUSTIS <" NELI - E ">- 
 
 Mount Vernon, as their father and his sister had been before 
 them ; and, even to-day, " Nellie Custis " the bright, charm- 
 
WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 183 
 
 ing, wilful and loving girl of Mount Vernon --is an ever- 
 present memory as the visitor walks through the rooms of 
 that historic house. She was " the general s " pet and pride, 
 his companion in ride and walk, his ardent admirer as he 
 was hers, and the one who, by witty or saucy remark, could 
 set a-laughing the man who, his critics declared, was never 
 
 NELLIE CUSTISS ROOM AT MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 known to laugh. Her room at Mount Vernon is still 
 shown to visitors, her " harpsichord," or old-fashioned piano, 
 for which the general paid a thousand dollars and presented 
 to her, is there too, and about the old mansion linger many 
 traditions of the good times " Miss Nellie" and her brother 
 " Tut " had when they were the children of Mount Vernon 
 in the days after the Revolution. It swarmed with visitors 
 then, and was full of life and gayety Its stables and its 
 
184 
 
 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 dog-kennels, its garden and its " preserves " were filled with 
 animals and with the rare and beautiful things that came as 
 gifts to Washington from his admirers all over the world. 
 
 " Tut," as Nellie s brother, George Washington Parke 
 Custis was nicknamed, was a bright little fellow - - " a clever 
 
 boy " his grandmother, 
 Mrs. Washington, called 
 him and " the general " 
 in his leisure hours looked 
 carefully after his bring 
 ing up. He was educated 
 at Princeton College and 
 at Annapolis, and General 
 Washington, then Presi 
 dent, wrote the boy many 
 
 NELLIES PIANO OR " HARPISCORD." J J 
 
 at Mount Vernon.} letters of advice, 
 
 tion and help. That they did him good, we know ; for he 
 grew to be a man of gentle manners and fine tastes, the 
 author of " The Life and Letters of Washington " and the 
 owner of the beautiful mansion now known as Arlington, 
 on the Potomac, just across from Washington City. It 
 was the home of his son-in-law, Robert E. Lee, and is now 
 the National Burying Ground of a host of the soldiers who 
 fell in the Civil War. Both Nellie and Washington Custis 
 lived to be old people ; and, when Washington Custis died 
 in 1857, m nmi passed away the last male representative of 
 the family of George Washington. 
 
WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 85 
 
 So many years of Washington s life were public ones, 
 passed in the service of the people as leader of their armies 
 or as the head of the nation, that the home-life he loved so 
 much was largely denied him. But, whenever possible, he 
 had the children with him. They made a " triumphal pro 
 gress " to his inauguration, and during his term as President 
 they were frequently with 
 him. And when Nellie be 
 came the wife of Lawrence 
 Lewis, the general s private 
 secretary, she made Mount 
 Vernon her home, and was 
 there with her new little 
 baby the sad night that 
 Washington died. 
 
 There \vere other boys 
 and girls, not of the imme 
 diate Mount Vernon house 
 hold, who were always 
 welcomed there and who 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS. 
 (From an ivory miniature.) 
 
 were dear to Washington 
 and his wife. If any pre 
 ference existed and with "the general" it must be con 
 fessed that such a preference did exist --it was in favor of 
 girls. Mr. Moncure Conway tells us how he loved to have 
 the little Custis girls with him and adds, "it was so through 
 life. In the most critical week of his presidency, that in 
 
i86 
 
 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 which the British treaty was decided - - the second week of 
 August, 1795-- Washington went to the house of Randolph, 
 Secretary of State, and played with his little daughters." 
 
 He would walk up and down the great portico at Mount 
 Vernon with a little toddling girl holding his finger-- that 
 great finger that the baby hand could scarcely encircle, and 
 many a dollar went for toys and keepsakes for the children 
 and grandchildren of the various Custis households. Some 
 of those very keepsakes are now preserved as heirlooms by 
 the descendants of the little folks to whom they were given 
 so many years ago. 
 
 As Washington grew older and more famous, young peo 
 ple had that awe of him 
 that boys and girls are 
 apt to feel for great men, 
 and were not easy in 
 his presence. This made 
 Washington feel badly, for 
 he liked a good time; he 
 liked to dance and play 
 games, and he did not like 
 to feel that his presence put a damper on sport. There is 
 a story told that, at a young people s party, when the fun was 
 "fast and furious," President Washington came into the 
 room ; at once the fun stopped, and every boy and girl 
 were on their good behavior. Like dear old Colonel New- 
 come in Thackeray s story, Washington saw that his pres- 
 
 THE PORTICO AT MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 ( Where Washington played with the children. ] 
 
WASHINGTON S BOYS AXD GIRLS. 
 
 189 
 
 ence was a bar to the frolic, and after a few pleasant words 
 he left the room, whereupon the young folks dignity turned 
 into fun again. But Washington had felt badly to think 
 that he could not be in a good time ; so, when the frolic was 
 again at its height, he slipped quietly up to the open door- 
 
 PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 
 
 way and, unseen by the boys and girls, watched the sport and 
 enjoyed it immensely. All of which shows that greatness 
 has its drawbacks, and that fame is sometimes a fun-spoiler. 
 But the same love of sport that made Washington the 
 boy a leader among his comrades, lived with him all through 
 
190 
 
 WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 life ; and, when he was among his girls and boys, even his 
 dignity would relax and he would join with them in their 
 good times. We read of his having had " a pretty little 
 
 WASHINGTON AND THE "LITTLE COCKADE MAKER. 
 
 frisk" with a houseful of young people. Indeed, " Nellie " 
 Custis said of him that, though " a silent, thoughtful man, 
 the general would unbend when there were children in the 
 company;" and, she added, "I have sometimes made him 
 
WASHINGTON S BOYS AND GIRLS. 191 
 
 laugh most heartily from sympathy with my joyous and 
 extravagant sports." 
 
 So you see that our hero had about him much of the 
 real man after all, and was not the "marble statue" that so 
 many would have us think him. He loved children, and the 
 boys and girls loved him. There are many stories told of 
 his interest in boys and girls and his tender ways toward 
 them ; such, for instance, as the story that Miss Seward tells 
 of Simon Crosby, "the little cockade maker," who rode his 
 shaggy pony to Washington s camp with a load of cockades 
 and epaulets-- all he could contribute toward the cause 
 and implored " the general " to accept them. Lafayette 
 and Hamilton, scarcely more than "big boys," were his 
 closest friends in the army, and the British, in derision, 
 called the brave young French noble "the Boy." Jacky 
 Custis and Lawrence Lewis, both boys, were very near 
 and dear to him ; and, so strong was his belief that upon 
 the boys and girls of his day depended the future success 
 or failure of the nation he had helped to found, that, in his 
 will, he left money for four different educational enterprises ; 
 while, in his famous Farewell Address, he wrote for the 
 benefit of young Americans, quite as much as for their fath 
 ers and mothers, the words of advice and direction that his 
 countrymen have ever remembered and, sometimes, tried to 
 live up to. 
 
192 
 
 THE STORY WI1HOUT AN END. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 N 
 
 THE GREAT WHITE DOME. 
 
 George Washington s life, 
 does it seem to you a very 
 remarkable one? If you 
 are looking for something 
 
 O c3 
 
 exciting, or for something 
 full of adventure and sur 
 prises, you may, of course, 
 be disappointed ; for George 
 Washington was simply a Virginia gentleman who did his 
 duty and helped his fellowmen. 
 
 He was not perfect; he had his faults, as do all of us. 
 He could get very angry when things went wrong, and could 
 say and do things that made men afraid to face him. He 
 was not the precious little prig that certain unfounded stories 
 of his boyhood make him appear, who could cut down 
 his father s pet cherry-tree, and then strike an attitude and 
 say, as if he were speaking a piece : " Father, I cannot tell a 
 lie, I did it with my little hatchet." But he never told a lie, 
 
THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 193 
 
 
 and through all his long life he hated nothing worse than 
 falsehood. In the heat of passion, as when Lee traitorously 
 ordered a retreat at Monmouth ; when he detected men mak 
 ing money out of the woes and worries of the Revolution ; 
 or when St. Clair, in the face of his repeated charge to be 
 ware of a surprise in fighting the Ohio Indians, fell into the 
 trap, and was desperately defeated, this quiet, calm and cool 
 man could swear and rage ; but he detested an oath, and one 
 of the first things he did upon taking command of the army 
 at Cambridge was to issue an order requesting his sol 
 diers not to swear. 
 He has been known 
 to cuff and strike 
 his soldiers when 
 they were cowardly, 
 quarrelsome and 
 stupid ; but no com 
 mander of armies 
 ever looked more 
 carefully after the 
 men under his lead, 
 
 was more beloved by them or was followed more willingly. 
 I suppose we could find faults and flaws in everyone s 
 character, if we set out to hunt for them ; but that is not 
 what we are sent into the world to do. We want to find out 
 the good points of men and women, of boys and girls, and if 
 the faults that we see or read of are so many or so big that 
 
 THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. 
 
194 THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 we cannot help seeing them, then we are to use these very 
 faults as warnings for our conduct, to escape them, or steer 
 clear of them if we wish to be good men and women -- even 
 if we may not be great ones. 
 
 Now, what made Washington great ? We admit that he 
 had faults ; but who remembers them now, or tries to pick 
 them out? If you recall the life of Columbus, the Admiral, 
 which opened this series of Children s Lives of Great Men, 
 you will recollect that he had very great and detestable 
 faults, and was capable of doing things that really good men 
 like Washington and Lincoln would not have done for all 
 the wealth of the Indies, nor all the gold of Carthay. And 
 yet Columbus is to-day one of the world s great men ; his 
 faults are forgotten ; only what he achieved is remembered. 
 
 Of Washington, we set down this : as a boy he was hon 
 est, upright, truthful, obedient and brave --liking out-of-door 
 life and out-of-door sports, and entering into everything so 
 heartily that he soon became the leader of his playmates, and 
 the one that all other boys who knew him looked up to ( " tied 
 to, " as the saying is), and followed; as a young man, he was 
 reliable, adventurous, courageous, manly, pure and strong 
 doing whatever task was set for him as well as he could, 
 never grumbling, and never shirking; as a man, he was 
 what we call a leader of men clear-headed, clean-hearted, 
 seeing what ought to be done and doing it, or setting 
 others to do it when he had shown the way, never try 
 ing to get the best of others, never jealous, never disturbed 
 
GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. 
 
 (From the fainting by John Fatd, called" Washington at Trenton") 
 
THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 197 
 
 by the jealousies of smaller men, however hard they tried to 
 upset his plans or injure his reputation, a planner of great 
 things, and a doer of them as well, just the man for just the 
 work that the making of a nation demanded. 
 
 He was not born great. He grew into greatness. He 
 was not a bright nor a brilliant boy ; but if he had anything to 
 do he set about doing 
 it at once. And as 
 he grew older and 
 mixed with men, he 
 saw that what made 
 men respected and 
 obeyed by others was 
 reliability- - that is, 
 keeping one s prom 
 ises, and promising 
 only what one felt he 
 could do. 
 
 ,-T^T WASHINGTON S HANDWRITING AS A MAN. 
 
 1 here are some 
 
 people who object to what is called " hero-worship; " but if a 
 man is worthy to be called a hero, then it is well and wise 
 for men and women, especially for boys and girls, to set him 
 high in their hearts, to look up to him, and to call him great 
 and grand and noble. Only, boys and girls, be careful how 
 you pick out your hero. Not the conqueror, who, like 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, though a mighty genius, was, still, 
 simply brave and smart and selfish, who loved war and 
 
 
198 THE STORY WITHOUT AN END: 
 
 power simply for his own ends, and because they brought 
 him what he desired not such a man is worthy to be 
 selected by you as a real hero ; not the man who is powerful 
 because he is rich, or because he is strong, or because he is 
 smart, alone, is to be chosen by you as your hero ; but the 
 man who, knowing what is right, dares to do it, and, doing 
 it, is able to do it nobly and well, the man whose work is 
 not for himself, but for the good of others, who is cour 
 ageous, strong and honest, loving, tender and true, who can 
 command and counsel, but is himself willing to obey and to 
 take advice, who is a leader of men, but a lover of men 
 also, who is noble because he is good, and great because 
 he is noble --that is the man you can take for your hero, 
 and thank God that such a man really has lived and labored 
 and succeeded in the world. And such a man was George 
 Washington. 
 
 The people who, as I have told you, object to hero- 
 worship are ready to criticise Washington. They will tell 
 you that he was not an American, but only an Englishman 
 w r ho happened to live in America when America was really 
 English ; they will tell you he was cold and stern, and unlov 
 ing ; that he was great, as a mountain or an iceberg is great, 
 but not such a man as boys and girls would love if they 
 knew him, or would care to hang about or cling to, if they 
 were with him ; they will tell you that he never laughed, that he 
 never played, that he never joked or did any of the things 
 that make men pleasant comrades and good fellows. 
 
THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 199 
 
 To all of which things you can answer: "It is not so." 
 No man was more an American than Washington. He, first 
 of all, saw the great future that was in store for the people 
 he had made free, and the nation he had founded. He was 
 cold only to those who tried to use him for selfish ends ; 
 stern only to those who proved 
 themselves unworthy, cowardly, 
 traitorous or disloyal; unloving to 
 no one, not even his enemies. The 
 man who, when a young Indian 
 fighter, was so moved by the woes 
 of the people on the frontier as to 
 say : " I solemnly declare I could 
 offer myself a willing victim to the 
 butchering enemy, provided this 
 would contribute to the people s 
 ease; " who could love his mother, < 
 even like a little child, when he was 
 both general and president ; who, as 
 we have seen, was a favorite with children and especially to 
 little girls ; who could make such young men as Hamilton 
 and Lafayette cling to him in affection and admiration, and 
 could kiss his officers good-bye when the war was over, and 
 the day of parting came - - this was surely not a cold, a 
 stern nor an unloving man. 
 
 The man who has the care of a nation on his shoulders, 
 who is naturally grave, silent and sober, does not go about 
 
 A PEN PORTRAIT OF 1 KtSlUi.NT 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 poking fun at people, " cutting up," or being what is called 
 a Ce hail fellow; " and yet we know that Washington enjoyed 
 a good time, a hearty laugh and a pleasant company. 
 
 But these things, after all, 
 are not for us to consider. As 
 the years pass, the greatness 
 
 of Washington grows on the 
 world. His story is not yet at 
 an end ; and it will never end, 
 while men and women honor 
 nobility of character, while boys 
 and girls love to hear the story 
 of how a farmer s boy grew 
 into a hero, and a simple gen 
 tleman into a great man. His 
 story will never end, for the 
 world will never cease to love, 
 to honor and to reverence the 
 name of George Washington. 
 
 o o 
 
 And how his country has 
 honored him ! It holds him as, 
 above all others, its mightiest 
 man. The capital of the nation 
 bears his name, and is built, a 
 beautiful city, upon the spot 
 he selected, while, above its splendid streets and its magnifi 
 cent buildings and its glorious white dome, towers the mighty 
 
 THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 
 (In the City of Washington.} 
 
THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 203 
 
 shaft that has been reared as his monument and memorial. 
 The home he loved so dearly at Mount Vernon is the most 
 sacred spot in all the land, sought by pilgrims from all over 
 the world, as one, in foreign lands, visits the shrines of saintly 
 men. On the far Pacific coast a great and growing state 
 bears his name, and, all over the land, towns and counties, 
 streets and parks, schools and institutions and banks and all 
 the things that people most prize and most work for, honor 
 the memory of Washington by bearing his name. 
 
 And how grandly has the country 
 which he helped to form and which he 
 led to victory and a future, made his 
 predictions come true ! Its four millions 
 of people who hailed him as president 
 have grown to nearly seventy millions, 
 its thirteen states to forty-five, its four 
 cities to more than four hundred, any one 
 of which is more populous than the most populous city of 
 Washington s day. The American leads the world in enter 
 prise, energy, invention, prosperity and patriotism ; and, under 
 the folds of the banner of the stars and stripes, schools and 
 churches flourish as in no other land, homes are happier, men 
 and women freer, boys and girls better, and the future more 
 certain and more secure than in any other land upon the 
 whole round earth. 
 
 And all this is because George Washington lived a hun 
 dred years ago ; and that is why his story, as I have assured 
 
 THE SEAL OF THE STATE OF 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
204 
 
 THE STORY WITHOUT AN END. 
 
 you, was not yet come to an end. It never will end, while 
 the world stands, and fathers and mothers teach their boys 
 and girls to reverence worth and greatness, truth and honor, 
 nobility and goodness, strength and purpose, grandeur and 
 success all of which are chapters in the ever-living story 
 of George Washington, the noblest American. 
 
4J 
 
 DEC 
 
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