pounds a year, four hundred pounds of meat, twenty bushels of corn, a
house to live in, a garden, and also the right to keep two cows.

The carpenters were required not only to build houses, barns, sheds and
other structures, but also boats, and had to hew out or whipsaw many of
the timbers and boards used.

The carpenter whose name we meet oftenest was Thomas Green, who married
Sally Bishop. I have seen a contract signed by Green in 1786, by which
he was to receive annually forty-five pounds in Virginia currency, five
hundredweight of pork, pasture for a cow, and two hundred pounds of
common flour. He also had the right to be absent from the plantation
half a day in every month. He did not use these vacations to good
advantage, for he was a drunken incompetent and tried Washington's
patience sorely. Washington frequently threatened to dismiss him and as
often relented and Green finally, in 1794, quit of his own accord,
though Washington thereafter had to assist his family.

The employment of white day labor at Mount Vernon was not extensive. In
harvest time some extra cradlers were employed, as this was a kind of
work at which the slaves were not very skilful. Payment was at the rate
of about a dollar a day or a dollar for cutting four acres, which was
the amount a skilled man could lay down in a day. The men were also
given three meals a day and a pint of spirits each. They slept in the
barns, with straw and a blanket for a bed. With them worked the
overseers, cutting, binding and setting up the sheaves in stools
or shocks.

Laziness in his employees gave our Farmer a vast deal of unhappiness. It
was an enemy that he fought longer and more persistently than he fought
the British. In his early career a certain "Young Stephens," son of the
miller, seems to have been his greatest trial. "Visited my Plantations,"
he confides to his diary. "Severely reprimanded young Stephens for his
Indolence, and his father for suffering it." "Visited my Quarters & ye
Mill according to custom found young Stephens absent." "Visited my
Plantations and found to my great surprise Stephens constantly at work."
"Rid out to my Plantn. and to my Carpenters. Found Richard Stephens hard
at work with an ax--very extraordinary this!"

To what extent the change proved permanent we do not know. But even
though the reformation was absolute, it mattered little, for each year
produces a new crop of lazybones just as it does "lambs" and "suckers."