and stand unquestioned to this day,
like certain other work which he was subsequently called to do. It was
part of his character, when he did anything, to do it in a lasting
fashion, and it is worth while to remember that the surveys he made as
a boy were the best that could be made.

He wrote to a friend at this time: "Since you received my letter of
October last, I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed,
but, after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain down before
the fire upon a little hay, straw, fodder, or a bearskin, whichever
was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and
happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire. Nothing would make it
pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon is my constant gain
every day that the weather will permit of my going out, and sometimes
six pistoles." He was evidently a thrifty lad, and honestly pleased
with honest earnings. He was no mere adventurous wanderer, but a man
working for results in money, reputation, or some solid value,
and while he worked and earned he kept an observant eye upon the
wilderness, and bought up when he could the best land for himself and
his family, laying the foundations of the great landed estate of which
he died possessed.

There was also a lighter and pleasanter side to this hard-working
existence, which was quite as useful, and more attractive, than
toiling in the woods and mountains. The young surveyor passed much of
his time at Greenway Court, hunting the fox and rejoicing in all field
sports which held high place in that kingdom, while at the same time
he profited much in graver fashion by his friendship with such a man
as Lord Fairfax. There, too, he had a chance at a library, and his
diaries show that he read carefully the history of England and the
essays of the "Spectator." Neither in early days nor at any other time
was he a student, for he had few opportunities, and his life from the
beginning was out of doors and among men. But the idea sometimes put
forward that Washington cared nothing for reading or for books is an
idle one. He read at Greenway Court and everywhere else when he had an
opportunity. He read well, too, and to some purpose, studying men and
events in books as he did in the world, for though he never talked of
his reading, preserving silence on that as on other things concerning
himself, no one ever was able to record an instance in which he showed
himself ignorant of hist