se name he
changed to Mount Vernon, in honor of the English admiral with whom he
had seen some service. George, of course, was a frequent visitor at
Belvoir, meeting other members of the Fairfax family, among them Thomas,
sixth Lord Fairfax, who finally engaged him to survey a great estate
which had been granted him by the king on the slope of the Blue Ridge
mountains.

George Washington was only sixteen years of age when he started out on
this errand into what was then the wilderness. It was a tremendous task
which he had undertaken, for the estate comprised nearly a fifth of the
present state, but he did it so well that, on Lord Fairfax's
recommendation, he was at once appointed a public surveyor, and may
fairly be said to have commenced his public career. His brother soon
afterwards secured for him the appointment as adjutant-general for the
district in which he lived, so that it became his duty to attend to the
organization and equipment of the district militia. This was the
beginning of his military service and of his study of military
science. He was at that time eighteen years of age.

That was the end of his boyhood. You will notice that I have said
nothing about his being a marvel of goodness or of wisdom--nothing, for
instance, about a cherry tree. That fable, and a hundred others like it,
were the invention of a man who wrote a life of Washington half a
century after his death, and who managed so to enwrap him with
disguises, that it is only recently we have been able to strip them all
away and see the man as he really was. Washington's boyhood was much
like any other. He was a strong, vigorous, manly fellow; he got into
scrapes, just as any healthy boy does; he grew up straight and handsome,
ready to play his part in the world, and he was called upon to play it
much earlier than most boys are. We shall see what account he gave of
himself.

When George was twenty years old, his brother Lawrence died and made him
his executor. From that time forward, Mount Vernon was his home, and in
the end passed into his possession. But he was not long to enjoy the
pleasant life there, for a year later, he was called upon to perform an
important and hazardous mission.

We have seen how La Salle dreamed of a great French empire, stretching
from the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. This was already
becoming a reality, for the governor of Canada had sent troops to occupy
the Ohio valley, and to build such fort