CHAPTER XIV.
A FARMER'S AMUSEMENTS No one would ever think of characterizing George Washington as frivolous minded, but from youth to old age he was a believer in the adage that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy--a saying that many an overworked farmer of our own day would do well to take to heart.
Like most Virginians he was decidedly a social being and loved to be in the company of his kind.

This trait was noticeable in his youth and during his early military career, nor did it disappear after he married and settled down at Mount Vernon.

Until the end he and Mrs.Washington kept open house, and what a galaxy of company they had! Scarcely a day passed without some guest crossing their hospitable threshold, nor did such visitors come merely to leave their cards or to pay fashionable five-minute calls.

They invariably stayed to dinner and most generally for the night; very often for days or weeks at a time.

After the Revolution the number of guests increased to such an extent that Mount Vernon became "little better than a well-resorted inn." Artists came to paint the great man's picture; the sculptor Houdon to take the great man's bust, arriving from Alexandria, by the way, after the family had gone to bed; the Marquis de Lafayette to visit his old friend; Mrs.Macaulay Graham to obtain material for her history; Noah Webster to consider whether he would become the tutor of young Custis; Mr.John Fitch, November 4, 1785, "to propose a draft & Model of a machine for promoting Navigation by means of a Steam"; Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, to notify the General of his election to the presidency; a host of others, some out of friendship, others from mere curiosity or a desire for free lodging.
The visit of Lafayette was the last he made to this country while the man with whose fame his name is inseparably linked remained alive.