Here began a new life for me. Anne Aylett, Mrs. Augustine Washington, was a kind woman, very orderly in her ways, and handsome. After two days Peter was sent home, and I was allowed to ride alone to a Mr. Williams’s school at Oak Grove, four miles away.
I took very easily to arithmetic, and, later, to mathematic studies. I remember with what pleasure and pride I accompanied Mr. Williams when he went to survey some meadows on Bridges’ Creek. To discover that what could be learned at school might be turned to use in setting out the bounds of land, gave me the utmost satisfaction. I have always had this predilection for such knowledge as can be put to practical uses, and was never weary of tramping after my teacher, which much surprised my sister-in-law. I took less readily to geography and history. Some effort was made (but this was later) to instruct me in the rudiments of Latin, but it was not kept up, and a phrase or two I found wrote later in a copybook is all that remains to me of that tongue.
I much regret that I never learned to spell very well or to write English with elegance. As the years went by, I improved as to both defects, through incessant care on my part and copying my letters over and over. Great skill in the use of language I have never possessed, but I have always been able to make my meaning so plain in what I wrote that no one could fail to understand what I desired to make known.
I have always been willing to confess my lack of early education, but notwithstanding have been better able to present my reasons on paper than by word of mouth. I am aware, as I have said, that, except in the chase or in battle, my mind moves slowly, but I am further satisfied that under peaceful circumstances my final capacity to judge and act is quite as good as that of men who, like General Hamilton, were my superiours in power to express themselves. I may add that I learned early to write a clear and very legible hand. As to spelling, my mother’s was the worst I ever saw, and I believe King George was no better at it than I, his namesake. This just now reminds me that I may have been named after his grandfather, King George II, for George was not a family name, and, as we were very loyal people, it may have been so.
It was usual in those days to give to children names long in use in a family. John, Augustine, and Lawrence, for males, were repeated among us, and Mildred and Harriott; but I never heard of a George Washington before me, nor of any George in our descent, except my grandmother’s grandfather, the Hon. George Reade of his Majesty’s council in 1657. General Hamilton at one time interested himself in this matter, but I could make no satisfactory answer. I suppose my mother knew. I never thought to ask her. General Hamilton made merry over the idea of how much it would have gratified his present Majesty to have known of his grandfather being thus honoured.
Indeed, it pleased Mr. Duane, when maligning me, to call me Georgius Rex, but of this I apprehend that I have said enough. It is of no importance.
Outside of my school, the life at Wakefield was well suited to a lad of spirit. There were thirty horses in the stables, and some of them well bred and had won races at Williamsburg.
The waters of Pope’s Creek, where the Potomac tides rush in at flood and out at ebb through a narrow outlet of the creek, were full of crabs, oysters, clams, and fish. One of the slaves, named Appleby after August’s school, was engaged in the supply of fish, which the many negroes and the family needed. I think there were, at the least, seventy blacks. Being permitted to go on the water with Appleby, I found much satisfaction in sailing and rowing and the search for shell-fish. My brother August once surprised me by saying that some day the bottom of the Bay of Chesapeake would be a richer mine, on account of the oysters, than my brother Lawrence’s iron-mines, by which we all set great store. This may some day come to pass. The quantities of shad took in April and May were enough to feed an army, and what we did not eat went to feed the land.
In the autumn I was sometimes allowed to sit with August in a wattled blind, behind brush, while at dawning of day he shot the ducks, geese, and swans which flew over the little islands of Pope’s Creek in great flocks.
I prospered in this hardy life and grew strong and able to endure, nor was it less good for me in other ways; for, although I cared very little for August’s fiddling, nor to hear Anne sing, nor for the books, of which there was a fair supply, I admired August so much that I began, as some lads will do, to imitate his ways of doing things. And this was of use to me, for August was very courteous and mild-spoken to people of all classes, and much beloved by his slaves, to whom he was a gentle and considerate master.