From Mr. Hobby, George learned to spell easy words, and perhaps to write a little; but, although he afterward became a very careful and good penman, he was a poor speller as long as he lived.

When George was about eleven years old his father died.  We do not know what his father’s intentions had been regarding him.  But possibly, if he had lived, he would have given George the best education that his means would afford.

But now everything was changed.  The plantation at Hunting Creek, and, indeed, almost all the rest of Mr. Washington’s great estate, became the property of the eldest son, Lawrence.

George was sent to Bridge’s Creek to live for a while with his brother Augustine, who now owned the old home plantation there.  The mother and the younger children remained on the Rappahannock farm.

While at Bridge’s Creek, George was sent to school to a Mr. Williams, who had lately come from England.

There are still to be seen some exercises which the lad wrote at that time.  There is also a little book, called The Young Man’s Companion, from which he copied, with great care, a set of rules for good behavior and right living.

Not many boys twelve years old would care for such a book nowadays.  But you must know that in those days there were no books for children, and, indeed, very few for older people.

The maxims and wise sayings which George copied were, no doubt, very interesting to him—­so interesting that many of them were never forgotten.

There are many other things also in this Young Man’s Companion, and we have reason to believe that George studied them all.

There are short chapters on arithmetic and surveying, rules for the measuring of land and lumber, and a set of forms for notes, deeds, and other legal documents.  A knowledge of these things was, doubtless, of greater importance to him than the reading of many books would have been.

Just what else George may have studied in Mr. Williams’s school I cannot say.  But all this time he was growing to be a stout, manly boy, tall and strong, and well-behaved.  And both his brothers and himself were beginning to think of what he should do when he should become a man.

* * * * *

IV.—­Going to sea.

Once every summer a ship came up the river to the plantation, and was moored near the shore.

It had come across the sea from far-away England, and it brought many things for those who were rich enough to pay for them.

It brought bonnets and pretty dresses for George’s mother and sisters; it brought perhaps a hat and a tailor-made suit for himself; it brought tools and furniture, and once a yellow coach that had been made in London, for his brother.

When all these things had been taken ashore, the ship would hoist her sails and go on, farther up the river, to leave goods at other plantations.