The Raymer enterprise., 1914-02-12

uenneate the herolSm OF the actual
scene. His men we're ragged-half
naked. Besides the running ice in the river there
was binding blizzard. and it was SO bitter cold
that the chief loss on the American side Of
the men who, though Injured to pioneer hardships,
froze to death that awful night
Did General Washington stand in his boat in
that dangerous current during driving storm
and stare pompousy at the opposite shore? Not
he. Instead OF that, he sat tight" and cajoled
the men, using every device that might make them
forget their terrible situation, telling them
facetous story. which, coming from him, star.
tied them. set their blood tingling and made them
obliyious TO the cold and dangers around them
That was the grandest deed in the military STRAIT
agem which made Frederick the Great OF Prussia
and, indeed, the whole world. wonder at the
genius OF Washington.
Nearly every one knows the outside OF the
story of the siege OF Boston by the new com
mandern-chef, who had come to the continental
congress as wealthy Virginia colonel, and his
nondescript crowd of raw recruits, wholly unused
not only to military discipline, but even to mill.
tary forms. But few know OF the transcendent
blum General Washington had to put up when he
discovered that there were but few rounds Of
gunpowter In the possession Of the whole Amer
can army, while the British amply supplied
with ammunition and might sally forth any hour
against the American "irreguars"
Some one had blundered1 Many com.
1nander would have shown UP the improyident
officers who had that matter in charge and pee
vlshly thrown up the command as ridiculously i'm
possible. But General Washington did not tell his
most trusted officers of the eXcruciatlng dilemma
he found himself in He knew the awful secret
would spread If known to few and the great
cause Of justice might be lost He began quietly
10 sruUr the country for uo eo,r
found that the nearest place at which any guam.
tfty could be had was In a magazine on the island
OF bermuda. To get that required secret expe.
ditton. much hazard and many weeks but Wash.
ingtons nerve was equal to the fearful strain
During that long, tense interval the American
troops were working away upon the Notifications
preparing for u grand attack Meanwhile the
young commander-ln-chief was entertaining
Hospitality at his headquarters the Crage man.
sion, now best known 4Longfeows Home" in
Cambridge As pleasant diversion. Lady"
Washington, then one OF the wealthiest women In
America, came to visit the general and all the
countryside was agog over her coach.and-four with
six black positions in white and scarlet livery
Even the British, cooped up in Boston. were i'm.
pressed by the resources and apparent confidence
of the American generali8simo.
While cne expedition was gone to Bermuda
for powder General Knox, with small force
succeeded in bringing number OF cannon sew
eral hundred miles on OK sleds in mdwinter
from Fort Ticonderoga In those times that
tried mems souls it was Washingtons iron
nerve, supported BY his broad sense OF humnr
sometimes scintiatng with a radiance worthy
OF Il Franklin or Lincoln. which saved the day
This was only one Of many occasions on which
Washington had to fight cut the revolution alone.
friend Of Lincolns once said Of him, "g~he
Urpsuput's lauph 10 Io
truer of Washington than any one seems to have
realized in a day when strict gravity without
levity. was expected OF public characters. To
laugh or to see the humorous side of an incident
was considered the sign OF frivolous dsposi.
tion.
Nashingons early biographers were solemn
men. To have told in their books how much their
hero laughed would have been In their opinion
wantonly exposing his weakness to public gaze
Men like "Parson" Weems. renegade preacher and
tramp fiddler though he was, had been brought
up to think that laughing was worse than wick
edit was vulgar!" In straining to make their
hero appear TO have been demigod, those pedan.
tic biographers related not what George Wash.
fngton really did but what they imagined such
boy or man ought to have done under given con.
ditions
Washington would have laughed heartily at
Weems' hatchet-and-cherry.t story II he had
ever heard (which he never did, for II was not
Invented till a later edition of the errng reetors
Juvenile history six years after Washingtons
death. Yet the real hero of the cherry.tree fc.
tion would have found 1t the occasion OF gravity
as well as mirth. In the stted story of Little
George and His Pa" Weems was only carrying
out the idea OF his time to tell not what the small
boy actually did, but what the consummate little
prig he conceived little George Washington to
have been would have done II he had cut down his
fathers favorite cherry tree
IL little George Washington had been the insult.
ferable little prig described by Mr., Weems. his
half-brothers would not have loved him better
than their own brothers, or their own children
for that matter His early life was fuller of es,
citing experiences than any fiction Yet the life
OF young Washington is yet to be told as an nd.
venture story. Even in his quaint little diaries
he early dscoses lively sense of humor--sav.
age humor sometimes, but broad and boysh He
showed this by telling only the jokes against him.
sell When he was lad of sixteen he led sur
yeying party to lay out the lands OF his old friend
Lord Fairfax, In the wilderness of the Shenan.
doah. Here Is one OF his own experiences as a
"tenderfoot," recorded on Tuesday, March Is,
1747-s.
We got our Suppers & was lighted into a
Room and !. not being so good Woodsman as
ye rest OF my company. stripped myself very or.
derby, 4 went into ye Bed, as they called 1t,
when to my surprise found It to be nothing but