e flag, and when "Mrs. Washington ... perceived the
Tomb of her Father ... to be much out of Sorts" he wrote to get a workman
to repair it. The care of the Mount Vernon household proving beyond his
wife's ability, a housekeeper was very quickly engaged, and when one who
filled this position was on the point of leaving, Washington wrote his
agent to find another without the least delay, for the vacancy would
"throw a great additional weight on Mrs. Washington;" again, writing in
another domestic difficulty, "Your aunt's distresses for want of a good
housekeeper are such as to render the wages demanded by Mrs. Forbes
(though unusually high) of no consideration." Her letters of form, which
required better orthography than she was mistress of, he draughted for
her, pen-weary though he was.

It has already been shown how he fathered her "little progeny," as he once
called them. Mrs. Washington was a worrying mother, as is shown by a
letter to her sister, speaking of a visit in which "I carried my little
patt with me and left Jacky at home for a trial to see how well I could
stay without him though we were gon but wone fortnight I was quite
impatient to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a noise
out, I thought thair was a person sent for me. I often fancied he was sick
or some accident had happened to him so that I think it is impossible
for me to leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay when he comes
down." To spare her anxiety, therefore, when the time came for "Jacky" to
be inoculated, Washington "withheld from her the information ... &
purpose, if possible, to keep her in total ignorance ... till I hear of
his return, or perfect recovery;... she having often wished that Jack
wou'd take & go through the disorder without her knowing of it, that she
might escape those Tortures which suspense wd throw her into." And on the
death of Patsy he wrote, "This sudden and unexpected blow, I scarce need
add has almost reduced my poor Wife to the lowest ebb of Misery; which is
encreas'd by the absence of her son."

When Washington left Mount Vernon, in May, 1775, to attend the Continental
Congress, he did not foresee his appointment as commander-in-chief, and as
soon as it occurred he wrote his wife,--

"I am now set down to write to you on a subject, which fills me with
inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and
increased, when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It