ds. He considered
himself visited, not as a friend, but as President of the United
States.

[Illustration: Washington at Mount Vernon]

While President, Washington used to give a public dinner, every
Thursday at four o'clock, "to as many as my table will hold." He
allowed five minutes for difference in watches, and, at exactly five
minutes past four by his hall clock, went to the table. His only
apology to the laggard guest was, "I have a cook who never asks
whether the company has come, but whether the hour has come."

If we may judge from the very full accounts of these grand dinners,
as described in the diaries of the {76} guests, they must have been
stiff affairs. These people probably wrote the truth when they said,
"glad it is over," "great formality," "my duty to submit to it,"
"scarcely a word was said," "there was a dead silence." No doubt
there was much good food to eat and choice wine to drink, but the
formal manners of the times were emphasized by awe of their grave
host. Very few of the guests, both at Mount Vernon and at
Philadelphia, failed to allude to the habit that Washington had of
playing with his fork and striking on the table with it.

It would take a book many times larger than this to tell you all that
has been written about Washington's everyday life. Some day you will
delight to read more about him, and learn why he was, in every sense
of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man,--the man who "without a
beacon, without a chart, but with an unswerving eye and steady hand,
guided his country safe through darkness and through storm."

Every young American should remember of Washington that "there is no
word spoken, no line written, no deed done by him, which justice
would reverse or wisdom deplore." His greatness did not consist so
much in his intellect, his skill, and his genius, though he possessed
all these, as in his honor, his integrity, his truthfulness, his high
and controlling sense of duty--in a word, his _character_, honest,
pure, noble, great.

{77}

CHAPTER VI
A MIDNIGHT SURPRISE

We have certainly read enough about General Washington to know that
he often planned to steal a march on the British. Don't you remember
how surprised General Howe was one morning to find that Washington
had gone to Dorchester Heights, with a big force of men, horses, and
carts, and how he threw up breastworks, mounted cannon, and forced
the British general after a few days to quit the good