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Little George did try and he did cut it down, and then was very sorry, for he found it was not so easy to set it up again.

His father was angry, of course, for he lived in a new country, and three thousand miles from any place where he could get good fruit trees; but when the little boy told the truth about it, his father said he would rather lose a thousand cherry-trees than have his son tell a lie.

Now perhaps this never happened; but if George Washington ever did cut down a cherry-tree, you may be sure he told the truth about it.

I think, though he grew to be such a wise, wonderful man, that he must have been just a bright, happy boy like you, when he was little.

But everybody knows three things about him,–that he always told the truth, that he never was afraid of anything, and that he always loved and minded his mother.

When little George was eleven years old, his good father died, and his poor mother was left alone to take care of her boys and her great plantation. What a busy mother she was! She mended and sewed, she taught some of her children, she took care of the sick people, she spun wool and knitted stockings and gloves; but every day she found time to gather her children around her and read good books to them, and talk to them about being good children.

So riding his pony, and helping his mother, and learning his lessons, George grew to be a tall boy.

When he was fourteen years old, he made up his mind that he would like to be a sailor, and travel far away over the blue water in a great ship. His elder brother said that he might do so. The right ship was found; his clothes were packed and carried on board, when all at once his mother said he must not go. She had thought about it; he was too young to go away, and she wanted her boy to stay with her.

Of course George was greatly disappointed, but he stayed at home, and worked and studied hard. He wanted very much to learn how to earn money and help his mother, and so he studied to be a surveyor.

Surveyors measure the land, you know. They measure people’s gardens and house-lots and farms, and can tell just where to put the fences, and how much land belongs to you and how much to me, so that we need never quarrel about it.

To be a good surveyor you have to be very careful indeed, and make no mistakes; and George Washington was careful and always tried to do his best, so that his surveys were the finest that could be made.

When he was only sixteen, he went off into the great forest, where no one lived but the Indians, to measure some land for a friend of his. The weather was cold; he slept in a tent at night, or out of doors, on a bearskin by the fire, and he had to work very hard. He met a great many Indians, and learned to know their ways in fighting and how to manage them.

Three years he worked hard at surveying, and at last he was a grown-up man!

He was tall and splendid then, over six feet high, and as straight as an Indian, with a rosy face and bright blue eyes. He had large hands and fingers, and was wonderfully strong. People say that his great tent, which it took three men to carry, Washington could lift with one hand and throw into the wagon.

He was very brave, too, you remember. He could shoot well, and almost never missed his aim; he was used to walking many miles when he was surveying, and he could ride any horse he liked, no matter how wild and fierce.

So you see, when a man is strong, when he can shoot well, and walk and ride great distances, when he is never afraid of anything, that is just the man for a soldier; and I will tell you soon how George Washington came to be a great soldier.