The carpenter whose name we meet oftenest was Thomas Green, who married Sally Bishop. I have seen a contract signed by Green in 1786, by which he was to receive annually forty-five pounds in Virginia currency, five hundredweight of pork, pasture for a cow, and two hundred pounds of common flour. He also had the right to be absent from the plantation half a day in every month. He did not use these vacations to good advantage, for he was a drunken incompetent and tried Washington's patience sorely. Washington frequently threatened to dismiss him and as often relented and Green finally, in 1794, quit of his own accord, though Washington thereafter had to assist his family.
The employment of white day labor at Mount Vernon was not extensive. In harvest time some extra cradlers were employed, as this was a kind of work at which the slaves were not very skilful. Payment was at the rate of about a dollar a day or a dollar for cutting four acres, which was the amount a skilled man could lay down in a day. The men were also given three meals a day and a pint of spirits each. They slept in the barns, with straw and a blanket for a bed. With them worked the overseers, cutting, binding and setting up the sheaves in stools or shocks.
Laziness in his employees gave our Farmer a vast deal of unhappiness. It was an enemy that he fought longer and more persistently than he fought the British. In his early career a certain "Young Stephens," son of the miller, seems to have been his greatest trial. "Visited my Plantations," he confides to his diary. "Severely reprimanded young Stephens for his Indolence, and his father for suffering it." "Visited my Quarters & ye Mill according to custom found young Stephens absent." "Visited my Plantations and found to my great surprise Stephens constantly at work." "Rid out to my Plantn. and to my Carpenters. Found Richard Stephens hard at work with an ax--very extraordinary this!"
To what extent the change proved permanent we do not know. But even though the reformation was absolute, it mattered little, for each year produces a new crop of lazybones just as it does "lambs" and "suckers."
Enough has been said to show that our Farmer was impatient, perhaps even a bit querulous, but innumerable incidents prove that he was also generous and just. Thus when paper currency depreciated to a low figure he, of his own volition, wrote to Lund Washington that he would not hold him to his contract, but would pay his wages by a share in the crops, and this at a time when his own debtors were discharging their indebtedness in the almost worthless paper.
If ever a square man lived, Washington was that man. He believed in the Golden Rule and he practiced it--not only in church, but in business. It was not for nothing that as a boy he had written as his one hundred tenth "Rule of Civility": "Labor to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire called Conscience."
In looking through his later letters I came upon one, dated January 7, 1796, from Pearce stating that Davenport, a miller whom Washington had brought from Pennsylvania, was dead. He had already received six hundred pounds of pork and more wages than were due him as advances for the coming year. What should be done? asked the manager. "His Wife and Children will be in a most Distressed Situation." As I examined the papers that followed I said to myself: "I will see if I know what his answer will be." I thought I did, and so it proved. Back from Philadelphia came the answer:
"Altho' she can have no right to the Meat, I would have none of it taken from her.--You may also let her have middlings from the Mill,--and until the house may become indispensably necessary for the succeeding Miller, let her remain in it.--As she went from these parts she can have no friends (by these I mean relations) where she is. If therefore she wishes to return back to his, or her own relations, aid her in doing so."
Not always were his problems so somber as this. Consider, for example, the case of William M. Roberts, an employee who feared that he was about to get the sack. "In your absence to Richmond," writes anxious William, November 25, 1784, "My Wife & I have had a Most Unhappy falling out Which I Shall not Trouble you with the Praticlers No farther than This. I hapened To Git to Drinking one Night as She thought Two Much. & From one Cros Question to a nother Matters weare Carred to the Langth it has been. Which Mr. Lund Washington will Inform you For My part I am Heartily Sorry in my Sole My Wife appares to be the Same & I am of a pinion that We Shall Live More Happy than We have Don for the fewter."