"6 little books for children beginning to read," and "1 fashionable-dressed
baby to cost 10 shillings." When this latter shared the usual fate, he
further wrote for "1 fashionable dress Doll to cost a guinea," and for "A
box of Gingerbread Toys & Sugar Images or Comfits." A little later he
ordered a Bible and Prayer-Book for each, "neatly bound in Turkey," with
names "in gilt letters on the inside of the cover," followed ere long by an
order for "1 very good Spinet" As Patsy grew to girlhood she developed
fits, and "solely on her account to try (by the advice of her Physician)
the effect of the waters on her Complaint," Washington took the family over
the mountains and camped at the "Warm Springs" in 1769, with "little
benefit," for, after ailing four years longer, "she was seized with one of
her usual Fits & expired in it, in less than two minutes, without uttering
a word, or groan, or scarce a sigh." "The Sweet Innocent Girl," Washington
wrote, "entered into a more happy & peaceful abode than she has met with in
the afflicted Path she has hitherto trod," but none the less "it is an
easier matter to conceive than to describe the distress of this family" at
the loss of "dear Patsy Custis."

[Illustration: JOHN AND MARTHA PARKE CUSTIS]

The care of Jack Custis was a worry to Washington in quite another way. As
a lad, Custis signed his letters to him as "your most affectionate and
dutiful son," "yet I conceive," Washington wrote, "there is much greater
circumspection to be observed by a guardian than a natural parent." Soon
after assuming charge of the boy, a tutor was secured, who lived at Mount
Vernon, but the boy showed little inclination to study, and when fourteen,
Washington wrote that "his mind [is] ... more turned ... to Dogs, Horses
and Guns, indeed upon Dress and equipage." "Having his well being much at
heart," Washington wished to make him "fit for more useful purposes than
[a] horse racer," and so Jack was placed with a clergyman, who agreed to