“Your face has some black streaks on it, Billy,” said Somebody. “Better go and remove them and come back and tell me about it.”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” said the boy named Billy, as he came back from the wash room. “Mom scolded me.”
“What was it all about?” asked Somebody.
“I left my cap on the living room table again. Mom found it there and she held it up for me to see and said, ‘William!’”
Somebody tried not to smile. “That was severe! But George Washington was often reproved by his mother.”
“George Washington,” said the boy named Billy, in astonishment. “Did anyone ever scold George Washington?”
“Indeed, yes,” said Somebody, “and in a very unique way, too. Mary Ball Washington was a wonderful woman, with quantities of good sense and a remarkable idea of truth and justice. It is said of her that when her children disobeyed, or were in need of being reprimanded that she did not trust herself to do it in her own language, but that she always used the words of the Bible.”
“That was a queer way to scold,” said Billy.
“It worked judging from what we know of George and his boyhood,” remarked Somebody. “When he was fourteen he wished to go to sea, but as his mother thought it best that he should not, he abandoned the idea and was given two additional years of schooling, chiefly in mathematics, and so prepared himself for the profession of a surveyor.”
“Sixteen, and finishing school!” exclaimed the boy named Billy.