"About a mile from Fort Necessity," replied Mrs. Travilla. "I have read that on the 17th the sick and wounded reached Fort Cumberland, and the next day Washington wrote to a friend that since his arrival there he had heard a circumstantial account of his own death and dying speech, and now he was taking the earliest opportunity of contradicting the first, and of giving the assurance that he had not yet composed the latter."
"Well, I hope he got the praise he deserved from somebody," said Elsie.
"Yes, he did," replied her grandma. "An eloquent and accomplished preacher, Rev. Samuel Davies, who a few years later became president of Princeton College, in a sermon to one of the companies organized after Braddock's defeat, after praising the zeal and courage of the Virginia troops, added: 'As a remarkable instance of this, I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.'"
"And doesn't it seem that that was what God preserved him for, grandma?" exclaimed Elsie, her eyes shining with pleasure.
"It does, indeed; God was very good to us in giving us such a leader for such a time as that of our hard struggle for the freedom which has made us the great and powerful nation that we now are."
"And we are not the only people that think very highly of Washington," remarked one of the cousins in a tone which was half assertive, half inquiring.
"No, indeed," replied Mrs. Travilla; "one English historian has said that Washington's place in the history of mankind is without a fellow, and Lord Brougham said more than once, 'It will be the duty of the historian in all ages to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and until time shall be no more will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.'"
"That's high praise, grandma, isn't it?" said Eric Leland; "and I think our Washington deserved every word of it."
"As I do," she replied; "he was just, generous, disinterested—spending so many of the best years of his life in fighting for the freedom of his country, and that without a cent of pay—wise, fearless, heroic, self-sacrificing; he feared God, believed in Christ, was a man of prayer, fully acknowledging divine aid and direction in all that he attempted and all he accomplished. He was a wonderful man, a God-given leader to us in a time when such an one was sorely needed."
"When was the war quite over, grandma?" asked Ned.