The Story Hour Part 8

Of course all these are pictures of a strong, handsome, grown-up man, and I suppose you never happened to think that George Washington was once a little boy.

But ever so long ago he was as small as you are now, and I am going to tell you about his father and mother, his home and his little-boy days.

He was born one hundred and sixty years ago in Virginia, near a great river called the Potomac. His father's name was Augustine, his mother's Mary, and he had several brothers and a little sister.

They all lived in the country on a farm, or a plantation, as they call it in Virginia. The Washington house stood in the middle of green tobacco fields and flowery meadows, and there were so many barns and storehouses and sheds round about it that they made quite a village of themselves. The nearest neighbors lived miles away; there were no railroads nor stages, and if you wanted to travel, you must ride on horseback through the thick woods, or you might sail in little boats up and down the rivers.

City boys and girls might think, perhaps, that little George Washington was very lonely on the great plantation, with no neighbor-boys to play with; but you must remember that the horses and cattle and sheep and dogs on a farm make the dearest of playmates, and that there are all kinds of pleasant things to do in the country that city boys know nothing about.

Little George played out of doors all the time and grew very strong. He went fishing and swimming in the great river, he ran races and jumped fences with his brothers and the dogs, he threw stones across the brooks, and when he grew a larger boy he even learned to shoot.

He had a pretty pony, too, named "Hero," that he loved very much, and that he used to ride all about the plantation.

Some of the letters have been kept that he wrote when he was a little boy, and he talks in them about his pony, and his books with pictures of elephants, and the new top he is going to have soon.

Think of that great General Washington on a white horse once playing with a little humming top like yours!

Many things are told about Washington when he was little; but he lived so long ago that we cannot tell very well whether they ever happened or not. One story is that his father took him out into the garden on a spring morning, and drew the letters of his name with a cane in the soft earth. Then he filled the letters with seed, and told little George to wait a week or two and see what would happen. You can all guess what did happen, and can think how pleased the little boy was when he found his name all growing in fresh green leaves.

Then another story, I'm sure you've all heard, is about the cherry-tree and the hatchet.

Little George's father gave him one day, so they say, a nice, bright, sharp little hatchet. Of course he went around the barns and the sheds, trying everything and seeing how well he could cut, and at last he went into the orchard. There he saw a young cherry-tree, as straight as a soldier, with the most beautiful, smooth, shining bark, waving its boughs in a very provoking way, as if to say, "You can't cut me down, and you needn't try."

Little George did try and he did cut it down, and then was very sorry, for he found it was not so easy to set it up again.

{Ill.u.s.tration: The letters of his name . . . the soft earth}

His father was angry, of course, for he lived in a new country, and three thousand miles from any place where he could get good fruit trees; but when the little boy told the truth about it, his father said he would rather lose a thousand cherry-trees than have his son tell a lie.

Now perhaps this never happened; but if George Washington ever did cut down a cherry-tree, you may be sure he told the truth about it.

I think, though he grew to be such a wise, wonderful man, that he must have been just a bright, happy boy like you, when he was little.

But everybody knows three things about him,--that he always told the truth, that he never was afraid of anything, and that he always loved and minded his mother.

When little George was eleven years old, his good father died, and his poor mother was left alone to take care of her boys and her great plantation. What a busy mother she was! She mended and sewed, she taught some of her children, she took care of the sick people, she spun wool and knitted stockings and gloves; but every day she found time to gather her children around her and read good books to them, and talk to them about being good children.

So riding his pony, and helping his mother, and learning his lessons, George grew to be a tall boy.

When he was fourteen years old, he made up his mind that he would like to be a sailor, and travel far away over the blue water in a great ship.

His elder brother said that he might do so. The right ship was found; his clothes were packed and carried on board, when all at once his mother said he must not go. She had thought about it; he was too young to go away, and she wanted her boy to stay with her.

Of course George was greatly disappointed, but he stayed at home, and worked and studied hard. He wanted very much to learn how to earn money and help his mother, and so he studied to be a surveyor.

Surveyors measure the land, you know. They measure people's gardens and house-lots and farms, and can tell just where to put the fences, and how much land belongs to you and how much to me, so that we need never quarrel about it.

To be a good surveyor you have to be very careful indeed, and make no mistakes; and George Washington was careful and always tried to do his best, so that his surveys were the finest that could be made.

When he was only sixteen, he went off into the great forest, where no one lived but the Indians, to measure some land for a friend of his.

The weather was cold; he slept in a tent at night, or out of doors, on a bearskin by the fire, and he had to work very hard. He met a great many Indians, and learned to know their ways in fighting and how to manage them.

Three years he worked hard at surveying, and at last he was a grown-up man!

He was tall and splendid then, over six feet high, and as straight as an Indian, with a rosy face and bright blue eyes. He had large hands and fingers, and was wonderfully strong. People say that his great tent, which it took three men to carry, Washington could lift with one hand and throw into the wagon.

He was very brave, too, you remember. He could shoot well, and almost never missed his aim; he was used to walking many miles when he was surveying, and he could ride any horse he liked, no matter how wild and fierce.

So you see, when a man is strong, when he can shoot well, and walk and ride great distances, when he is never afraid of anything, that is just the man for a soldier; and I will tell you soon how George Washington came to be a great soldier.

GREAT GEORGE WASHINGTON, PART II.

"The good story-teller effects much; he has an enn.o.bling effect upon children,--so much the more enn.o.bling that he does not appear to intend it,"--FROEBEL.

All this time while George Washington had been growing up,--first a little boy, then a larger boy, and then a young surveyor,--all this time the French and English and Indians were unhappy and uncomfortable in the country north of Virginia. The French wanted all the land, so did the English, and the Indians saw that there would be no room for them, whichever had it, so they all began to trouble each other and to quarrel and fight.

These troubles grew so bad at last that the Virginians began to be afraid of the French and Indians, and thought they must have some soldiers of their own ready to fight.

George Washington was only nineteen then, but everybody knew he was wise and brave, so they chose him to teach the soldiers near his home how to march and to fight.

Then the king and the people of England grew very uneasy at all this quarreling, and they sent over soldiers and cannon and powder, and commenced to get ready to fight in earnest. Washington was made a major, and he had to go a thousand miles, in the middle of winter, into the Indian and French country, to see the chiefs and the soldiers, and find out about the troubles.

When he came back again, all the people were so pleased with his courage and with the wise way in which he had behaved, that they made him lieutenant-colonel.

Then began a long war between the French and the English, which lasted seven years. Washington fought through all of it, and was made a colonel, and by and by commander of all the soldiers in Virginia. He built forts and roads, he gained and lost battles, he fought the Indians and the French; and by all this trouble and hard work he learned to be a great soldier.

In many of the battles of this war, Washington and the Virginians did not wear a uniform like the English soldiers, but a buckskin shirt and fringed leggings like the Indians.

From beginning to end of some of the battles, Washington rode about among the men, telling them where to go and how to fight; the bullets were whistling around him all the time, but he said he liked the music.

By and by the war was over; the French were driven back to their own part of the country, and Washington went home to Mt. Vernon to rest, and took with him his wife, lovely Martha Washington, whom he had met and married while he was fighting the French and Indians.

While he was at Mt. Vernon he saw all his horses again,--"Valiant" and "Magnolia" and "c.h.i.n.kling" and "Ajax,"--and had grand gallops over the country.

He had some fine dogs, too, to run by his side, and help him hunt the bushy-tailed foxes. "Vulcan" and "Bingwood" and "Music" and "Sweetlips"

were the names of some of them. You may be sure the dogs were glad when they had their master home again.

But Washington did not have long to rest, for another war was coming, the great war of the Revolution.

Little children cannot understand all the reasons for this war, but I can tell you some of them.

You remember in the story of Thanksgiving I told you about the Pilgrim fathers, who came from England to this country because their king would not let them pray to G.o.d as they liked. That king was dead now, and there was another in his place, a king with the name of George, like our Washington.

Now our great-grandfathers had always loved England and Englishmen, because many of their friends were still living there, and because it was their old home.