So they gave up the scheme, and George was sent back to school.
He would, on fine days, go out in the fields and tracts of land a-round the school-house, and with line and rod take the size and shape, the length and width, and mark it all down in one of his books, and so much pains did he take that from the first to the last page not a blot or blur is to be seen.
These neat ways, formed in his youth, were kept up through all his life, and what seems strange is that day-books, and such books as you will find in great use now-a-days were not known at that time. The plan had been thought out by George Wash-ing-ton when a boy of 16, and shows the cast of his mind.
Near this time George was sent to live with his bro-ther Law-rence, at his fine place on the Po-to-mac, which he had called Mount Ver-non, to show how much he thought of the ad-mi-ral of that name.
Here George had a chance to make friends with those of high rank, and he spent much of his time with George Fair-fax who made his home at Bel-voir, near Mount Ver-non. Lord Fair-fax, a man of wealth and worth was much at Bel-voir at that time. He had bought large tracts of land in Vir-gin-i-a, which had not been staked out, or set off in-to lots. In fact he did not know their size or shape, but he had heard that men had sought out some of the best spots, and had built homes there, and laid out farms for which they paid no rent, and he thought it quite time to put a stop to such things.
In March, 1748, George Wash-ing-ton, who had been picked out by Lord Fair-fax for this task, went on his first trip with George Fair-fax to stake off these wild lands. He wrote down what was done from day to day, and by these notes we learn that he had quite a rough time of it, and yet found much that was to his taste. He and the men with him rode for miles and miles through lands rich in grain, hemp, and to-bac-co, and through fine groves of trees on the bank of a broad stream.
WASHINGTON'S FIRST SPEECH TO THE INDIANS.—P. 19.
One night, writes George, when they had been hard at work all day, they came to the house where they were to be fed and lodged. The wood-men went to bed with their clothes on, but George took his off, and as he turned in he found his bed was of loose straw with not a thing on it but the thread-bare blank-et he was to wrap him-self in. The fleas and bugs soon forced George to get up and put on his clothes and lie as the rest of the men did, and "had we not been so tired," he says "I am sure we should not have slept much that night." He made a vow then that he would sleep out of doors near a fire when on such tramps, and run no more such risks.