"Mrs. Washington will tell you what she wants, and you will make the changes under her direction," he said to them.
Soon Mrs. Washington was in their presence.
"Now, young men," she said, "I care for nothing but comfort here, and should like you to fit me up a beaufet on one side of the room, and some shelves and places for hanging clothes on the other."
The mechanic said afterwards that "every morning Mrs. Washington came up-stairs to see us; and after she and the general had dined, she always called us down to eat at her table. We worked very hard, nailing smooth boards over the rough and worm-eaten planks, and stopping the crevices in the walls made by time and hard usage. We studied to do everything to please so pleasant a lady, and to make some return in our humble way for the kindness of the general."
When the work was completed, Mrs. Washington was surveying it, when the mechanic said, "Madam, we have endeavored to do the best we could. I hope we have suited you."
"I am astonished," Mrs. Washington replied. "Your work would do honor to an old master, and you are mere lads. I am not only satisfied, but highly gratified with what you have done for my comfort."
She was accustomed to say, after the Revolution, "I heard the first cannon at the opening, and the last at the closing, of all the campaigns of the Revolutionary war."
She survived her husband by two years. As death drew near, with mind clear and heart staid on God, she awaited the final summons with calmness and sweet resignation. She called her grandchildren to her bedside, "discoursed to them of their respective duties, spoke of the happy influence of religion, and then triumphantly resigned her spirit into the hands of her Saviour," and expired.
Mount Vernon is now in a good state of preservation. A national association of women have charge of the place, that it may be kept in repair, and the relics—furniture, pictures, account books, library, etc.—be preserved for coming generations to see.