hat a country's greatness depended on its
soldiers, and so Fritz made Prussia an army and compelled the world to
admit the might of his troops. To Europe he was the ambitious tyrant,
Frederick the Great. It was only to Wilhelmina and a few friends that he
showed a little of that softer nature which had been his as the boy of
Potsdam.

At the Charlottenburg Palace hangs the famous portrait of him playing
upon the drum. It was a long step from that boy to the man Frederick the
Great.

VI

George Washington

The Boy of the Old Dominion: 1732-1799

A few miles below Mount Vernon, on the Potomac River, was the beautiful
estate of Belvoir, belonging to an English gentleman of rank named Lord
Fairfax. The broad Potomac wound about the base of the lawn that sloped
gently downward from the old colonial mansion which sat upon a height
looking out across the exquisite Virginia country.

The Potomac was not a busy river then, and the only trade that came up
it was such as was needed to supply the rich planters on the shores with
food and clothing. From the porch of Belvoir one might see an occasional
sailing vessel dropping up with the tide, lately come from England to
make a tour of the seaboard states, and to take home cotton and tobacco
in exchange for the silks and satins brought out to the colonies.

A great man in both England and America was Lord Fairfax; he owned many
estates in both countries, but his favorite was this of Belvoir, not
only because of its great natural beauty, but because he liked the
company of the Virginia planters, who joined a certain frankness and
simplicity of life with all the charms of European refinement.

Lord Fairfax kept up all the old English customs in his Potomac home. He
had a passion for horses and for hunting, and his pack of foxhounds was
the best in the colony. Sometimes he had the company of men of his own
age to hunt with him, but he was always sure that he could count upon
the fellowship of a certain boy, the son of a neighbor, named
Washington. Whenever the hunting season arrived, Lord Fairfax sent word
to Mrs. Washington that he would be glad of the company of her eldest
son George, and a day or two later the boy would appear at Belvoir, keen
to mount horse and be off for the chase.

On one such winter day Lord Fairfax and his friend George were hunting
alone. They had had a good run and caught their fox, and were returning
home in a leisurely fashion across the r