The Secret Of Wealth
The Secret Of Wealth132 total pages.
CHAPTER LIII "Every man I ever knew had ambition but only a few had application with it." THE BUCKSKIN"--that is the name George Washington bore in Europe during the eight years of the Revolutionary War when he was forging a nation out of the iron of America. Even Napoleon, in the height of his glory, sighed with envy and admiration as he exclaimed: "Washington! The measure of his fame is full. Posterity will talk of him with reverence as the founder of a great empire, when my name shall be lost in the vortex of revolutions. '' "The Buckskin" was a country boy born on a Virginia plantation. When he was ten years of age he lost his father and faced the grim fact that his way in the world must be made by his own efforts and merit. From that time he began to show signs of the talent which in later years placed upon the map of the world the United States of America. At the little country school he organized two opposing armies, he commanding one side, and a boy named William Bustle the other. They fought with corn-stalks for muskets, and gourds for drums. As ho grew into youth, he delighted in the manliest sports; could run with the lightness and speed of an Indian; could throw a stone across the Bappahannock at the lower ferry of Fredericksburg; and at fencing he was unmatched. As the ten year old boy began training his body for the high task to which his Country was calling him, he also began training his mind. From that time forward he was constantly studying, under the instruction of Adjutant Muse, treatises on the management of troops, and learning to go through the manual exercise. Until Washington was twenty years of age, he never saw a town of 5,000 inhabitants. He worked on his mother's plantation. Later, as a surveyor, he roamed the wild forests, and there acquired the woodsman's lore which enabled him to handle his brave but scanty troops during the long years of fighting with the Indians, when he had a frontier of 360 miles to defend, and usually about 700 men with which to defend it.
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