Washington’s Athletic Skill

Many stories are told which show Washington’s athletic skill.  During a surveying expedition he first visited the Natural Bridge, in Virginia.  Standing almost directly under it, he tossed a stone on top, a distance of about two hundred feet.  He scaled the rocks and carved his name far above all others.  He was said to be the only man who could throw a stone across the Potomac River.  Washington was never more at home than when in the saddle.  “The general is a very excellent and bold horseman,” wrote a contemporary, “leaping the highest fences and going extremely quick, without standing on his stirrups, bearing on his bridle, or letting his horse run wild.”

After his first battle Washington wrote to his brother, “I heard the bullets whistle about me, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”  But years after, when he had learned all there was to know of the horrors of war, he said, sadly, “I said that when I was young.”

Punctuality

Punctuality was one of Washington’s strong points.  When company was invited to dinner, he made an allowance of only five minutes for variation in watches.  If the guests came late he would say:  “We are too punctual for you.  I have a cook who does not ask if the company has come, but if the hour has come.”

In a letter to a friend he wrote:  “I begin my diurnal course with the sun; if my hirelings are not in their places by that time I send them messages of sorrow for their indisposition.”

A letter to his sister, Betty, shows his businesslike manner:  “If your son Howell is with you and not usefully employed in your own affairs, and should incline to spend a few months with me in my office as a writer (if he is fit for it), I will allow him at the rate of 300 a year, provided he is diligent in discharging the duties of it from breakfast till dinnertime....  I am particular in declaring beforehand what I require, so that there may be no disappointment or false expectations on either side.”

His Stepchildren

Washington’s relations with his stepchildren show a very pleasant side of his character.  We find him ordering from London such articles as “10 shillings’ worth of toys, 6 little books for children beginning to read, 1 fashionable-dressed baby to cost 10 shillings, and a box of gingerbread toys and sugar images, or comfits.”  Later he sent for “1 very good spinet,” for Patsey, as Martha Parke Custis was called.

His niece, Hariot, who lived in the Washington home from 1785 to 1796, was a great trial to him.  “She has,” he wrote, “no disposition to be careful of her clothes, which she dabs about in every hole and corner, and her best things always in use, so that she costs me enough.”

One of the characteristics of a truly great man is his readiness to ask pardon.  Once when Nelly Custis, Mrs. Washington’s granddaughter, was severely reprimanded for walking alone by moonlight in the grounds of Mount Vernon, Washington tried to intercede for the girl.