The story grew to this proportion in a hundred years. Given another hundred, and we will find that Mary Washington laid violent hands on the men who claimed the horses, and chastised the ploughmen who surrendered them.
In 1765 two pair of observant eyes opened upon the world, and were focussed upon the "awe-inspiring" lady, Betty Lewis, little Betty and Dr. Charles Mortimer's little Maria. The children were playmates, schoolmates, and girl friends from a very early age, each intimate at the other's home and both intimate at the home of Mary Washington. They adored her! They found naught to remember but smiles, gentle words, sweet, motherly ways. Betty (afterwards Mrs. Charles Carter) has furnished many of the unimportant traditions quoted in various accounts of her grandmother's home life. They come to us as traditions of traditions, not to be despised, yet not to be accepted as history. The other pair of eyes were keener for the dress and belongings of her venerable friend. To Maria Mortimer, daughter of Mary Washington's physician, we are indebted for the familiar picture of the short skirt and sack,—a sort of cote-hardi,—the mob cap, the table upon which lay "Sir Matthew Hale" and his ally, in the presence of which there was such small hope for the sinner. Freshly gathered from the friendly peach tree, this was used as freely—this much we willingly concede—as circumstances demanded. The two children played happily at her knee despite the menacing tools of the Inquisition, which we would fain believe were never used on them.
Mrs. Charles Carter.
To their dying day they talked reverently and most abundantly; for after General Washington became so very great there were always listeners. Had they written conscientiously as the New Jersey tutor did instead of talking, we might have known more of the reserved, stately woman who bore and fostered and taught the revered Father of his Country; but we know too well how sentiments can be trimmed and shaped and clothed upon as they pass down the generations from lip to lip, to venture to give them as gospel facts in clear, twentieth-century type. They will surely live without the aid of any present or future historian, for this is the fortune of trifles! Great thoughts, feelings, aspirations,—great unselfish deeds even,—perish and are forgotten, while trifling words, gestures, peculiarities in dress or speech, live with no apparent reasonableness whatever—certainly not because of their dignity or merit. They swarm around the honored men and women of the world like insects around a traveller on a sunny day, living of their own accord, too insignificant to challenge or brush away, gaining dignity at last from their own antiquity. Who cares whether Thomas Carlyle liked his chops tender, objected to vermin, or abhorred the crowing of a cock? Yet, I venture to say, when his name is called, his image is associated oftener with his peculiarities than with the sublime thoughts with which he sought to elevate and inspire the world.
Mary Washington sustained through a long life a lofty character for Christian purity and dignity; trained a son to lead our country through many years of danger and privation to the liberty and prosperity which places it to-day in the front of all the nations of the earth; yielded her life at last, in pain unspeakable, with no murmur upon her pure lips. Yet when her name is called, all the ingenuity of her countrymen is aroused to accentuate her peculiarities—to treat her with a sort of whimsical indulgence, as an unlettered old woman, conspicuous for eccentricities of temper, of dress, petty economies—in short, make her ridiculous! Truly, in all ages there are Greeks who weary of hearing Aristides called the Just!
In the face of all the testimony I have presented and will present, the most remarkable statements regarding Mary Washington are continually printed in the Historical Sketches published by the best firms in the country. What can be their authority for such statements as these?—
"The Washingtons were poor hard-working people. Mary Washington cooked, weaved, spun, washed and made the clothes for her family."
"Her children had no outer garments to protect them from the cold—no cloak, boots or hats except in winter; no cloaks then. In severe weather the boys simply put on two or three trousers instead of one."
"Mary Washington quarrelled with her son so that when he wished to minister to her comfort in her old age he was forced to do so through some third party. These things she accepted as her due, showing a grim half-comic ingratitude that was very fine."
"Washington's mother scolded and grumbled to the day of her death—seeking solace only by smoking a pipe."