BOYHOOD.

It is fortunate that the materials of Washington’s early life were preserved by one who was rector of the Mount Vernon parish while members of the family and other friends survived. Rev. M. L. Weems ministered there seventy-five years ago, and he gathered information from a woman who was neighbor to the Washingtons in her childhood, and from John Fitzhugh, who was often with George in his early home. In addition, descendants of the family, who had fondly preserved valuable incidents of their illustrious ancestor’s boyhood and manhood, furnished them for his biography by their pastor. We are indebted to Mr. Weems for most of the facts relating to Washington’s boyhood.

In the autumn of 1737, Mr. Washington went to the door of a neighbor and relative, leading George by the hand. The woman who related the incident to Mr. Weems was a little girl at that time, and was visiting the family.

“Will you take a walk with us?” inquired George’s father, addressing himself to the girl just mentioned, and her cousin, whose name was Washington.

“We are going to take a walk in the orchard,” continued Mr. Washington. “It is a fine sight now.”

Both of the parties addressed promptly accepted the invitation, delighted to take a stroll among the trees that were bending under their burden of fruit.

A walk of a half-mile brought them to the orchard, where an unusual spectacle awaited them.

“Oh, see the apples!” exclaimed George. “Such a lot of them!” And he clapped his hands and fairly danced in his excitement.

“I never saw such a sight,” said the girl who accompanied them.

“It is a spectacle, indeed!” responded Mr. Washington. “It is not often we see so much fruit in one field as we see here.”

It was not so much the enormous crop of apples upon the trees, as it was the great quantity on the ground beneath them that attracted George. The winds had relieved the trees of a portion of their burden, and the ground was literally covered with the luscious fruit. George had never beheld such a display of apples, and his young heart bounded with delight over the scene.

They roamed through the orchard for a time, chatting and enjoying the occasion thoroughly, when Mr. Washington rather disturbed the flow of animal spirits by saying,

“Now, George, look here, my son! Don’t you remember when this good cousin of yours (referring to the lad who was with them) brought you that fine large apple last spring, how hardly I could prevail on you to divide it with your brothers and sisters, though I promised you that if you would but do it God would give you plenty of apples this fall.”

George made no reply but hung his head in shame. He had not forgotten his selfishness on that occasion, and he was greatly mortified.

His father continued,

“Now, look up, my son; look up, George! See how richly the blessed God has made good my promise to you. Wherever you turn your eyes, you see the trees loaded with fine fruit; many of them, indeed, breaking down; while the ground is covered with mellow apples, more than you could eat, my son, in all your life-time.”

George made no reply. His young companions stood in silence, gazing at him, as if wondering what all this counsel meant. Mr. Washington waited for his son to speak; and just as he was concluding that George had nothing to say for himself, the latter turned manfully to his father, and said:

“Well, pa, only forgive me this time, and see if I am ever stingy any more.”

Mr. Washington had a purpose in going to the orchard, and it was well accomplished. His son got one nobler idea into his head, and one nobler resolve into his heart. Henceforth the noble boy would treat selfishness as a foe instead of a friend.

Mr. Washington resorted to the following device to impress his son with a proper conception of God as the Creator of all things. In the spring he carefully prepared a bed in the garden, beside the walk, where George would frequently go for pleasure. When the bed was prepared, he wrote George’s name in full in the pulverized earth, and sowed the same with cabbage seed. In due time, of course, the seed appeared in green, thrifty shoots, forming the letters as clearly as they stand in the alphabet. George discovered them one day. He was then seven or eight years old. He stood for a moment in silent wonder.

“Those are letters sure enough,” he thought.

Then he read them aloud, “G-E-O-R-G-E W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N.”

With wondering eyes he rushed to the house, and excitedly broke the news.

“Oh, pa, come here! come here!”

“What’s the matter, my son? what’s the matter?” responded his father.

“Oh, come here, I tell you, pa; come here!” and the boy could scarcely contain himself, so great was his excitement.

“But what is it, my son? Can’t you tell me what has happened?”

“Come here, and I’ll show you the greatest sight you ever saw in your life!”

By this time he was pulling his father along towards the garden, the latter understanding full well what had happened. Very soon they reached the bed, where the bright, thrifty cabbage plants had spelled the name of George Washington in full.

“There, pa!” exclaimed George, pointing to his name in cabbage plants, and exhibiting the greatest astonishment by his appearance. “Did you ever see such a sight in all your life-time?”

“Well, George, it does seem like a curious affair sure enough,” his father answered. “But who should make it there, pa? Who made it there?”

“Why, it grew there, of course, my son.”

“No, pa! No, no! somebody put it there.”

“Then you think it did not grow there by chance?”

“No, indeed, it never did. That couldn’t be.”

“How is that, my son? Don’t it look very much like chance?”

“Why, no, pa; did you ever know anybody’s name in a plant bed before?”

“Well, George, might not such a thing happen though I never saw it before?”

“Yes, pa; but I never saw plants grow up so as to make a single letter of my name before. How could they grow up so as to make all the letters of my name! And all standing one after another so as to spell my name exactly and all so nice and even, too, at top and bottom! Somebody did it. You did it, pa, to scare me, because I am your little boy.”

“Well, George, you have guessed right,” answered Mr. Washington. “I did do it, but not to scare you, my son, but to teach you a great truth which I wish you to understand. I want to introduce you to your true Father.”

“Ain’t you my true father, pa?”

“Yes, I am your father, George, as the world calls it, and love you with a father’s love. Yet, with all my love for you, I am but a poor father in comparison with your true Father.”

“I know well enough whom you mean,” continued George. “You mean God, don’t you?”

“Yes, I mean Him, indeed, my son. He is your true Father,” was Mr. Washington’s hearty answer.

George went on with his inquiries, and his father, answered, adding at last:

“Well, then, as you could not believe that chance had made and put together so exactly the letters of your name (though only sixteen), then how can you believe that chance could have made and put together all those millions and millions of things that are now so exactly fitted for your good! Eyes to see with; ears to hear with; nose to smell with; a mouth to eat with; teeth to bite with; hands to handle with; feet to walk with; a mind to think with; a heart to love with; a home to live in; parents to care for you, and brothers and sisters to love you! Why, look at this beautiful world in which you live, with its golden, light to cheer you by day, and its still night to wrap you in sleep when you are too tired to play; its fruits, and flowers and fields of grass and grain; its horses to draw you and cows to give you milk; its sheep to furnish wool to cloth you, and meat for your food; its sun, moon and stars to comfort you; bubbling springs to quench your thirst; wood to burn that you may be warm in winter; and ten thousand other good things so many that my son could never number them all, or even think of them! Could chance bring about all these things so exactly as to suit your wants and wishes?”

“No, pa, chance could not do it,” answered George, really taking in this new view of the world around him.

“What was it, then, do you think, my son?” continued his father.

“God did it,” George replied.

“Yes, George, it is all the work of God, and nobody else,” responded his father. “He gives us all.”

“Does God give me everything? Don’t you give me some things?” George inquired.

“I give you something!” exclaimed his father. “How can I give you anything, George? I who have nothing on earth I can call my own; no, not even the breath I draw!”

“Ain’t the house yours, and the garden, and the horses and oxen and sheep?” still inquired George, failing to comprehend the great truth of God’s ownership.

“Oh, no, my son, no! Why, you make me shrink into nothing, George, when you talk of all these things belonging to me, who can’t even make a grain of sand! How could I give life to the oxen and horses, when I can’t give life even to a fly, my son?”

George was introduced into a new world by this lesson, as his father intended that he should be. His precocious mind grasped, finally, the great idea of his “true Father,” and the lesson never had to be repeated.

We have rehearsed this incident somewhat in detail as given by Mr. Weems, because its influence will be found interwoven with George’s future private and public life.

Another story told by Mr. Weems is the famous hatchet story, which has been rehearsed to so many children, since that day, to rebuke falsehood and promote truth-telling.

His father made him a present of a hatchet with which George was especially delighted. Of course he proceeded forthwith to try it, first hacking his mother’s pea-sticks, and, finally, trying its edge upon the body of a beautiful “English cherry-tree.” Without understanding that he was destroying the tree, he chopped away upon it to his heart’s content, leaving the bark, if not the solid wood underneath, in a very dilapidated condition. The next morning his father discovered the trespass, and, rushing into the house, under much excitement, he exclaimed:

“My beautiful cherry-tree is utterly ruined. Who could hack it in that manner?”

Nobody knew.

“I would not have taken five guineas for it,” he added, with a long-drawn sigh. The words had scarcely escaped from his lips before George appeared with his hatchet.

“George,” said his father, “do you know who killed that cherry-tree in the garden?”

George had not stopped to think, until that moment, that he had used his hatchet improperly. His father’s question was a revelation to him; and he hung his head in a guilty manner for a moment.

“George, did you do it?” urged his father.

Raising his head, and looking his father fully in the face, he replied:

“I can’t tell a lie, pa; you know I can’t tell a lie, I did cut it with my hatchet.”

Mr. Washington was well-nigh overcome by this frank and honest reply. For a moment he stood spell bound; then recovering himself, he exclaimed:

“Come to my arms, my boy! You have paid for the cherry-tree a thousand times over. Such an act of heroism is worth more to me than a thousand trees!”

Mr. Weems regards this honest confession the out-growth of previous instructions upon the sin of lying and the beauty of truthfulness. He represents Mr. Washington as saying to his son:

“Truth, George, is the loveliest quality of youth. I would ride fifty miles, my son, to see the little boy whose heart is so honest, and his lips so pure, that we may depend on every word he says.

“But, oh, how different, George, is the case with the boy who is so given to lying that nobody can believe a word he says. He is looked at with aversion wherever he goes, and parents dread to see him come among their children. O George, rather than see you come to this pass, dear as you are to me, I would follow you to your grave.”

Here George protested against being charged with lying. “Do I ever tell lies?” he asked.

“No, George, I thank God you do not; and I rejoice in the hope that you never will. At least, you shall never, from me, have cause to be guilty of so shameful a thing. You know I have always told you, and now tell you again, that, whenever by accident you do anything wrong, which must often be the case, as you are but a little boy, without experience or knowledge, never tell a falsehood to conceal it; but come bravely up, and tell me of it; and your confession will merit love instead of punishment.”

As we proceed with this narrative, after having enjoyed this glimpse of George’s earliest years, the charming lines of Burleigh will find a fitting application.

“By honest work and inward truth
The victories of our life are won,
And what is wisely done in youth
For all the years is wisely done;
The little deeds of every day
Shape that within which lives for aye.

“No thought so buried in the dark
It shall not bear its bloom in light;
No act too small to leave its mark
Upon the young hearts tablet white;
Our grand achievements, secret springs,
Are tempered among trivial things.

“No soul at last is truly great
That was not greatly true at first;
In childhood’s play are seeds of fate
Whose flower in manhood’s work shall burst.
In the clinched fist of baby Thor
Might seem his hammer clutched for war.

“The firmest tower to heaven up-piled
Hides deepest its foundation-stone;
Do well the duty of the child,
And manhood’s task is well begun;
In thunders of the forum yet
Resounds the mastered alphabet.”

George was about eight years old when a great excitement arose among the colonists in Virginia, and the fife and drum were heard, to announce that England, the mother country, needed soldiers.

“A regiment of four battalions is called for, by the king, for a campaign in the West Indies,” announced Mr. Washington to his son Lawrence, a young man twenty-two years of age.

“A good opportunity for me,” answered Lawrence, who possessed much of the military spirit of his ancestors. “Perhaps I can get a commission.”

“Perhaps so,” responded his father; “your education ought to place you above the common soldier.”

Lawrence had just returned from England, where he had spent seven years in study, enjoying the best literary advantages the country could afford.

“Well, I can enlist and then see what can be done,” continued Lawrence. “The regiment will be raised at once, and I can soon find out whether there is an appointment for me.”

Soon recruiting parties were parading at the sound of fife and drum, and the military spirit was aroused in the hearts of both young and old. The enthusiasm spread and grew like a fire in the wilderness. The colonists were truly loyal to the king, and their patriotism led them, heartily and promptly, into the defence of the English cause in the West Indies against the Spaniards.

Recruiting advanced rapidly, and the regiment was soon raised. Lawrence obtained a captain’s commission, and appeared wearing the insignia of his office. Music, drilling, parading, now became the order of the day, and it was a new and exciting scene to George. Soldiers in uniform, armed and equipped for war, marching at the sound of music, captivated his soul. It awakened all the ancestral spirit of chivalry that was in his heart. The sight of his big brother at the head of his company, drilling his men in military tactics, filled him with wonder. Gladly would he have donned a soldier’s suit and sailed with the regiment to the West Indies, so wrought upon was his young heart.

In due time the regiment embarked for the West Indies, and George was obliged to part with his noble brother, to whom he had become strongly attached since his return from England. The departure of so many colonists, and the cessation of military display, left George in a serious frame of mind. For the first time in his life he experienced the sensation of loneliness.

However, he had caught the military spirit, and he found relief in playing soldier with his companions. There is no doubt that George inherited somewhat the love and tact for military life for which his English ancestors were renowned; and now that born element of his character was called into active exercise. The recruiting campaign converted him into an amateur soldier.

From that time George found more real pleasure in mimic parades and battles than he found in any other sport. A stick, corn-stalk or broom-handle, answered for gun or sword, and the meadow in front of his father’s house became his muster-field. Here Lewis Willis, John Fitzhugh, William Bustle, Langhorn Dade, and other companions, marched and counter-marched, under the generalship of their young commander, George. Soldiering became the popular pastime of the region, in which the boys played the part of the Englishmen and Spaniards better than boys can do it now.

Lawrence served two years under Admiral Vernon in the West Indies campaign, and returned to Virginia in the autumn of 1742. He proved himself a hero in war. Irving says: “He was present at the siege of Carthagena, when it was bombarded by the fleet, and when the troops attempted to escalade the citadel. It was an ineffectual attack; the ships could not get near enough to throw their shells into the town, and the scaling ladders proved too short. That part of the attack, however, with which Lawrence was concerned, distinguished itself by its bravery. The troops sustained, unflinching, a destructive fire for several hours, and at length retired with honor, their small force having sustained a loss of about six hundred in killed and wounded.”

Lawrence intended to return to England after a brief stay at home.

“My record will insure me a promotion in the army,” he said to his father, who was averse at first to his return.

“Very true; but army life is objectionable in many ways,” his father replied. “The honors hardly pay.”

“But my experience for two years has fitted me for that service more than for any other, and that is to be thought of,” suggested Lawrence.

“Yes; but other avenues to business are always open to young men of spirit,” remarked his father. “Nor is it necessary for them to leave the country in order to accomplish a noble purpose.”

However, Mr. Washington withdrew his objections to his sons return to the army; though, subsequently, he was pleased that he abandoned the project under the following circumstances.

There lived an educated English gentleman in Fairfax County by the name of William Fairfax. He had charge of a very large estate belonging to his cousin, Lord Fairfax, of England. This William Fairfax had a daughter, Anne, as well educated and accomplished as Lawrence. Mutual respect between Lawrence and Anne ripened into mutual love, and they became engaged. This unexpected episode in the lives of the promising couple changed the plans of Lawrence; and he voluntarily abandoned the idea of returning to the army.

The martial spirit of George did not abate when Lawrence came home from the war; it rather increased than otherwise. For his ears were regaled with many stories of army life, in which bravery, peril, bloodshed, and hairbreadth escapes were strangely mixed. There was a singular fascination in these tales of war to George; and he never tired of listening to them. The more he heard, the more he enjoyed playing soldier. He was constantly learning military tactics, too, from the lips of his brother. Being a bright, intelligent boy, he readily comprehended and appropriated information upon a subject that was so congenial to his heart. Lawrence was impressed by the precocity of his little brother, as well as his tact at soldiering, so that he was all the more gratified to nurture his martial spirit by rehearsing his experience in war. Lawrence was twenty-four years of age, and George but ten, so that the latter looked up to the former somewhat as a son looks up to a father, drinking in his words as words of wisdom, and accepting his experience as that of an officer of rank. Lawrence became his military teacher, really; and the opportunity to George proved a sort of West Point.

Lawrence, and others, too, were very much charmed by George’s manly bearing, even before he was ten years old. John Fitzhugh said of him, “He was born a man.”

He was very handsome, large of his age, tall and straight, graceful and dignified in his movements. These qualities were so conspicuous as to attract the attention of strangers.

He was very athletic, too, and loved more active sports than playing marbles. He excelled in running, wrestling, leaping, and throwing the bar, sports that were popular at that time. In these things he took the lead.

John Fitzhugh said of him, as a runner: “He ran wonderfully. We had nobody hereabouts that could come near him. There was a young Langhorn Dade, of Westmoreland, a clean-made, light young fellow, a mighty swift runner, too but then he was no match for George: Langy, indeed, did not like to give it up, and would brag that he had sometimes brought George to a tie. But I believe he was mistaken; for I have seen them run together many a time, and George always beat him easy enough.”

He would throw a stone further then any other boy. Col. Lewis Willis, who was one of his boon companions, said that he “had often seen George throw a stone across the Rappahannock, at the lower ferry of Fredericksburg.” No other boy could do it.

His great physical strength was early displayed in lifting and carrying burdens.

The sequel will show how well his marked physical development served him in public life. A boy of less muscular power could not have made a general of such endurance under privations and hardships.

Much more relating to the boyhood of George Washington will appear in subsequent chapters. Enough has been said in this chapter to accomplish our purpose.