The Ely Miner

A WASHINGTON STORY
Probably Is Not, But Might Have Been, True.

D S

HAVE just been reading a note from the diary of Gen. Washington, who will remain until the crack of doom the one great, flawless, dignified hero of the nation, if not of the world. A hero means one who is a brave gentleman all the time.

Says Gen. Washington's diary, June 30, 1785: "Dined with only Mrs. Washington, which I believe is the first instance of it since my retirement from public life." That was 18 months after coming home from his victorious wars.

Think of the horror of it! For all that time the inquisitive hero worshipers had been dropping in just about dinner time to say: "How wonderful, really, Mr. Washington! It makes me quite shudder to think of; really and truly it does. Oh, I must kiss your hand!" And poor George would have to be polite and ask them to stay for dinner.

How cozy that little dinner on June 30, 1785, must have been; how homelike at last, when Gen. Washington raised his glass and said: "Martha, my love, your health. That ribbon becomes you vastly. You look too young for a battered old hulk like me."

"George," said Mrs. Washington, "don't dare talk like that! You a battered what-did-you-say! The idea! Why, not a young man in old Virginia has your figure."

Then she got up and came round the table and kissed him, the cupbearers having withdrawn, and they walked together in the gentle summer afternoon, and his excellency said, as he gathered some cherries: "Why can't people always leave us in peace, Martha? How nice this is. Let's go and look at the pigs."

There were heaps of birthday presents awaiting his excellency, and all the jolly black house servants wished him long life and happiness, and a table was weighed down with 5,000 birthday poems from the 5,000 most promising poets in the country, and there was a heap of newspapers with marked editorials in his praise, and every man who had ever invented anything, from a clockwork clambake (a most curious and amusing contrivance) to a baseball, sent the general one, and every man, woman and child who had written a book, even if not published, sent a copy to George Washington. Yes, everybody sent him a present and wished him joy, and most of them wished something for themselves in return.

Certainly George Washington should have been happy with all these beautiful, costly things; but somehow he slipped to the attic and left all the gifts and looked at the little hatchet his father had given him years and years ago, and he said, as he put it back: "When was I happier, then or now?"

Then the visitors came, very old men, who told him he could never hope to live as long as they, for they had constitutions like iron, and he must enjoy himself before it was time to give him a state funeral; and very old ladies who had known his father and called him "Georgie," and very young misses who trembled so they could hardly utter the words of congratulation they had learned by heart. And there was one manly little rascal who rode on his pony bearing his grandfather's compliments, and pushed straight at the hero, crying: "Gen'ral, grandpa's compymens, harny returns, mine too. General, I want to know, grandpa says you're a hero, and I want to be a hero, too, when I'm growed up. Can't I, please? Grandpa says not to talk nonsense. It isn't nonsense, is it, general? Can't I be a hero when I'm growed big?"

Big Washington stooped and lifted the child-did you ever know a hero that didn't love children?-and kissed his cheek and whispered:

"None of us can be great or good without God's blessing.
To be a hero
you must be good as great.
So pray
first and always that God will make
you good."

The little enthusiast looked deep and grave into the general's eyes, suddenly kissed the kind mouth hard, said: "I will," and, sliding down, rode off with his groom-always a better man for that caressing whisper.

When it was still long from the stately festival dinner George Washington slipped away from the crowd at the house and wandered off by himself, though with great dread that some pale young man should jump out from a bush and fire a birthday ode at him.

Now he was off Mount Vernon farm, and by a lane away from the main road. In the corner of the lane, in a most deserted, newly-cleared spot, about 50 feet back in the bushes, was the newest of tiny cottages, with unpainted walls, and rough timbers, and a newly laid-out garden at the back. George Washington looked from the wood through which he was wandering, and paused.

"That was not there when I had time before the war to run about," said he. "Who can they be? They're not Africans. Oh, no!"

For from the house came a bright voice that was certainly Virginian.

"Now, Jack," said the voice, "you must not be so lazy, because there is ever so much to do before father comes home."

"I ain't lazy, Martha," said another voice, unmistakably the shrill one of a boy. "I'm doing what dad said-I'm looking after you and protecting you."

"Oh, Jack, do you call eating raisins and sitting on the table protecting me?"

"Well, it is. If anyone was to come round now to hurt you, even King George himself, wouldn't I be ready to kill him?"

"Well," said Martha, with a laugh, "I don't expect King George this morning. Our George, bless him—"

"Hooray!"

"Has boxed his ears. But there is work to be done."

"I don't see any."

"You are looking only at the raisins. How do you expect to eat if you don't work? And how am I to get supper for daddy in the evening?"

"Oh, I have thought of that. I'll go fishing, and you'll fry them."

"Oh, and who would protect me while you're fishing, please?"

"You can come, too, if you won't always call out: Mind you don't fall in."

"Be good, Jack, and fetch me some water from the well, and chop a little firewood."

The general had been listening and chuckling. Always the sound of children's voices brightened his eyes. Now he suddenly stepped up to the open door of the little new house and bowed. He was dressed very plainly for his muddy walk, and his boots were spattered, and he looked quite plain and homely. He saw a neat little woman of 12 or 13 busy in her kitchen and a pert, bright-eyed, snub-nosed young rogue of seven sitting on the table.

"I wish you good morning, ma'am," said the general.

"Good morning, sir," said the maiden, with a frightened courtesy.

"Halloa!" said Master Pert, seizing a carving knife. "Where did you come from? Are you a friend of King George?"

"I am a true"

You're not an Englishman?

"I am a-"

"You're not a royalist?"

"I—"

"Because if you were I'd have to kill you, that's all."

"Be quiet, Jack; you're very rude," said his sister, reprovingly. "Please sir; he's only a little boy, and sometimes they're a little vexing, but he's a good boy. Is there anything I can do for you, sir?"

"If it were not too much trouble, a glass of water-"

Oh, certainly," said the willing housewife, and ran off. Up came Jack and stood very erect in front of the visitor.

"I do believe," said the little boy, "you're the biggest man I ever saw. Ain't you?"

"How could I tell you that, Master Jack?"

"Are you bigger than my father? Do you know my father? My father's a big man, bigger than me a good deal. My father's just come to live here and farm. Do you live near here? Were you in the war? Did you kill any Englislmen? Did you get hurted? My father fought in the war and got a bullet through his nose. It makes him look awful funny. You've a big nose. A boy hit me on the nose once, and it bleeded awful. I guess your nose would bleed lots, wouldn't it? Oh, what a nice chain. Won't you show me your watch? Oh, what a nice watch-will you show me the inside?"

"After," said the general, with his arm gently round the child, "after we've given up thinking of going fishing, and brought the water for sister, and chopped some wood."

Jack looked quite startled and turned red. The big, kind, yet firm eyes looked into Master Pert's and Master Pert stuffed his knuckles into the corners.

"Toot, toot!" said the general, "come, i'll help you."

So the gray-eyed, pleasant-faced little girl, coming back, found the father of his country breaking up wood at a great rate, while her little brother was laughingly gathering chips.

"Oh, sir," said Martha, with amaze, "what a man you'd be around the house!"

And she was still more amazed at the effect her words had upon the stranger, who dropped the ax and threw his head back with quite a roar of laughter, until, for the pure happiness of it, little Jack and Martha laughed too.

"I like you," said Jack, grabbing the general's hand as they went into the house. "Come and see us often and I'il show you where the best fishing place is."

"My father would be glad to welcome you, sir," said the courtly maiden. "His business takes him away just now almost every day, but in the spring"

"I thank you kindly," said the general. "And as I live near here, I hope I shall be friends with my new neighbors. But this is milk?"

"I thought you'd like it better than water, sir. And please try these cakes, which I made this morning, because—"

"'Cause it's her birthday," cried Jack. "She's 13 and I'm seven."

"Now that is a happy coincidence," said the general, "because it is also my birthday. I beg to wish you many happy returns of the day."

And he bowed very low, and she bobbed her very best courtesy, and Jack cried out:

"You look so you was dancing."

Time was getting on, but the general was loath to go. He was enjoying himself for the first time in a long time. He brought water; he mended the window latch; he planned out a flower bed. He was thoroughly happy in the merry company of these children, who only thought him a passing, unusually good-natured stranger. But at last he went, with a grimace at the thought of all the laced and silken crowd waiting for him.

The two children, quite brightened by his presence, worked about busily, and played about merrily, and made things pleasant for father at sundown.

But an hour before sundown came riding by two people who called themselves gentlemen, but nobody really thought them so. They had been merry-making, and one man's horse had lost a shoe, and his drunken dignity was such that he must pause at the cottage to send for a blacksmith to come to him or else have his horse led to the blacksmith's while he waited. It was evident that the dwellers at the cottage were poor folks, and these gentlemen felt assured their lordly orders would be obeyed. Now, Miss Martha was civil, if frightened, but Master Jack was sullen, and when the young, wine-heated man bade him lead the horse or fetch the smith. Jack flatly refused to do either.

"What, what! You'll be paid," shouted the owner of the horse.

"Come, young mistress, have you no wine for weary travelers?"

"Indeed, no, sir," said Martha, "but further on the post road—"

"I'll go no further on the post or any other road. Haste now, Flibbertigibbet, and do as you are told."

"I'll stay here and protect my sister," said Jack, "as my father bade me."

"Ha, ha! A brave protector! But in truth a pretty sister. Come, my dear, let me also be a brother"

He staggered up, and Jack-Jack flew at his throat like a terrier. The girl screamed, the other man raised his riding whip and struck down on the boy. Jack yelled from rage and anguish, but clung to the choking throat, never heeding the first blows rained on him. The cottage was in a dreadful uproar; when in rushed the stranger of the morning, and it is said-but you need not believe it unless you want to-he used a dreadfully bad word. Those two foolish young men never were in such trouble before. In George Washington's great right arm swung one of them, helpless, and in the left another, and bump, bump, bumpety bump, went the two empty, foolish, braggart, blackguard heads, cracking against each other like cocoanuts on a tree in a storm. When they were almost senseless the general laid them down with force and thrashed them with their own whips, and so mangled and maltreated and mashed them that, when at last they got to their knees and begged for mercy, their own loving mammas would have indignantly repudiated them as being offspring of theirs. In the meantime Jacky Pert danced about cheering on his new friend, and Martha sobbed in a corner, hiding her face and begging "Mr. George," for so the general had called himself, not to kill anybody, and not to get hurt himself. And then the general threw aside his whip and made the rascals stand up before him, but they could only face that raging, righteous eye with bowed heads and bowed knees.

"Gen. Washington," they mumbled. "please let us go. It-it was only the wine. There was no harm done."

He waved them out, but the mischief was done. At the words "Gen. Washington" little Jack's jaw dropped and he shook like a felon at the thought that he had threatened to kill the best and greatest man in that or any other country. Martha dropped to her knees, but the general made her rise and accept the birthday gift he had run to Mount Vernon and back to get for her. Still, it was not the same, and the general felt saddened as he went homeward, just as everybody has felt saddened because he could not be a boy again.

"However," said he to himself, with a smile, as he was dressing for the ball in the evening, "I have not had so much fun on a birthday since I chopped up that old cherry tree."

Edgerton Davis, in St. Louis Globe Democrat.