ext morning, as usual, George was up and on horseback by sunrise. Until this year he had ridden five miles a day each way to Mr. Hobby's school; but now he was so far ahead of the schoolmaster's classes that he went only a few times a week, to study surveying and the higher mathematics, and to have the week's study at home marked out for him. Every morning, however, it was his duty to ride over the whole plantation before breakfast, and to report the condition of everything in it to his mother. Madam Washington was one of the best farmers in the colony, and it was her custom, after hearing George's account at breakfast, to mount her horse and ride over the place also, and give her orders for the day.
The first long lances of light were just tipping the woods and the river when George came out, and found his horse held by Billy Lee, a negro lad of about his own age, who was his body-servant and shadow.[1] Billy was a chocolate-colored youth, the son of Aunt Sukey, the cook, and Uncle Jasper, the butler. He had but one idea and one ideal on earth, and that was "Marse George." It was in vain that Madam Washington, the strictest of disciplinarians, might lay her commands on Billy. Until he had found out what "Marse George" wanted him to do, Billy seemed unconscious of having got any orders. Madam Washington, who could awe much older and wiser persons than Billy, had often sent for the boy, when he was regularly taken into the house, and after reasoning with him, kindly explaining to him that both "Marse George" and himself were merely boys, and under her authority, would give him a stern reproof, which Billy always received in an abstracted silence, as if he had not heard a word that was said to him. Finding that he acted throughout as if he had not heard, Madam Washington turned him over to Aunt Sukey, who, after the fashion of those days with white boys as well as with black, gave him a smart birching. Billy's roars were like the trumpeting of an elephant; but within a week he went back to his old way of forgetting there was anybody in the world except "Marse George." Then Madam Washington turned him over to Uncle Jasper, who "lay" that he would "meck dat little triflin' nigger min' missis." A second and much more vigorous birching followed at the hands of Uncle Jasper, who triumphed over Aunt Sukey when Billy for two days actually seemed to realize that he had something else to do besides following George about and never taking his eyes off him. Uncle Jasper's victory was short-lived, though. Within a week Billy was as good for nothing as ever, except to George. Madam Washington then saw that it was not a case of discipline—that the boy was simply dominated by his devotion to George, and could neither be forced nor reasoned out of it. Therefore it was arranged that the care of the young master's horse and everything pertaining to him should be confided to Billy, who would work all day with the utmost willingness for "Marse George." By this means Billy was made of use. Nobody touched George's clothes or books or belongings except Billy. He scrubbed and then dry-rubbed the door of his young master's room, scoured the windows, cut the wood and made the fires, attended to his horse, and when George was there personally to direct him Billy would do whatever work he was ordered. But the instant he was left to himself he returned to idleness, or to some perfectly useless work for his young master—polishing up windows that were already bright, dry-rubbing a floor that shone like a mirror, or brushing George's clothes, which were quite spotless. His young master loved him with the strong affection that commonly existed between the masters and the body-servants in those days.
Like Madam Washington, George was a natural disciplinarian, and himself capable of great labor of mind and body, he exacted work from everybody. But Billy was an exception to this rule. It is not in the human heart to be altogether without weaknesses, and Billy was George's weakness. When his mother would declare the boy to be the idlest servant about the place, George could not deny it; but he always left the room when there were any animadversions on his favorite, and could never be brought to acknowledge that Billy was not a much-injured boy. Serene in the consciousness that "Marse George" would stand by him, Billy troubled himself not at all about Madam Washington's occasional cutting remarks as to his uselessness, nor his father's and mother's more outspoken complaints that he "warn't no good 'scusin' 'twas to walk arter Marse George, proud as a peacock ef he kin git a ole jacket or a p'yar o' Marse George's breeches fur ter go struttin' roun' in." Aunt Sukey was very pious, and Uncle Jasper was a preacher, and held forth Sunday nights, in a disused corn-house on the place, to a large congregation of negroes from the neighboring places. But Billy showed no fondness whatever for these meetings, preferring to go to the Established Church with his young master every Sunday, sitting in a corner of the gallery, and going to sleep with much comfort and regularity as soon as he got there. Madam Washington always exacted of every one who went to church from her house that he or she should repeat the clergyman's text on coming home, and Billy was no exception to the rule. On Sunday, therefore, instead of joining the gay procession of youths and young men, all handsomely mounted, who rode along the highway after church, George devoted his time on his way home to teaching Billy the text. The boy always repeated it very glibly when Madam Washington demanded it of him, and thereby won her favor, for a short time, once a week.
On this particular morning, as George took the reins from Billy and jumped on the back of his sorrel colt, and galloped down the lane towards the fodder-field, Billy, who was keen enough where his young master was concerned, saw that he was preoccupied. Contrary to custom, he would not take his dog Rattler with him, and Billy, dragging the whining dog by the neck, hauled him back into the house and up into George's room, where the two proceeded to lay themselves down before the fire and go to sleep. An hour later the indignant Aunt Sukey found them, and but for George's return just then it would have gone hard with Billy anyhow.
As George galloped briskly along in the crisp October morning he felt within him the full exhilaration of youth and health and hope. He had not been able to sleep all night for thinking of that promised visit to Greenway Court. He had heard of it—a strange combination of hunting-lodge and country-seat in the mountains, where Lord Fairfax lived, surrounded by dependents, like a feudal baron. George had never in his life been a hundred miles away from home. He had been over to Mount Vernon since his brother Laurence's marriage, and the visit had charmed him so that his ever-prudent mother had feared that the simpler and plainer life at Ferry Farm would be distasteful to him; for Mount Vernon was a fine, roomy country-house, where Laurence Washington and his handsome young wife, both rich, dispensed a splendid hospitality. There was a great stable full of saddle-horses and coach-horses, a retinue of servants, and a continual round of entertaining going on. Laurence Washington had only lately retired from the British army, and his house was the favorite resort for the officers of the British war-ships, that often came up the Potomac, as well as the officers of the military post at Alexandria. Although he enjoyed this gay and interesting life at Mount Vernon, George had left it without having his head turned, and came back quite willingly to the sober and industrious regularity of the home at Ferry Farm. He was the favorite over all his brothers with Laurence Washington and his wife, and it was a well-understood fact that, if they died without children, George was to inherit the splendid estate of Mount Vernon. Madam Washington had been a kind step-mother to Laurence Washington, and he repaid it by his affection for his half-brothers and young sister. In those days, when the eldest son was the heir, it seemed quite natural that George, as next eldest, should have preference, and should be the next person of consequence in the family to his brother Laurence.
He spent an hour riding over the place, seeing that the fodder had been properly stripped from the stalks in a field, looking after the ferry-boats, giving an eye to the feeding of the stock and a sharp investigation of the stables, and returned to the house by seven o'clock. Precisely at seven o'clock every morning all the children, servants, and whatever guests there were in the house, assembled in the sitting-room, where prayers were read. In his father's time the master of the house had read these prayers, and after his death Laurence, as the head of the family, had taken up this duty; but since his marriage and removal to Mount Vernon it had fallen upon George.
When he entered the room he found his mother waiting for him as usual, with little Mistress Betty and the three younger boys. The servants, including Billy, who had already been reported by Aunt Sukey, were standing around the wall. After an affectionate good-morning to his mother, George, with dignity and reverence, read the family prayers in the Book of Common Prayer. His mother was as calm and as collected as usual, but in the small velvet bag she carried over her arm lay an important letter, received between the time that George left the house in the morning and his return. Prayers over, breakfast was served, George sitting in his father's place at the head of the table, and Madam Washington talking calmly over every-day matters.
"I do not know what we are to do with that boy Billy," she said. "This morning, when he ought to have been picking up chips for the kitchen, he was lying in front of your fireplace with Rattler, both of them sound asleep."
George, instead of being scandalized at this, only smiled a little.