University of Virginia Library

Two or three hundred steps to the right and up a general incline and you stand on the board, high porch of Mount Vernon.

A great river creeps close underneath one hundred feet below. You might suppose you could throw a stone, standing on the porch, into the Potomac, as seen through the trees that hug the hillside and the water's bank below. All was quiet, so quiet. Now and then a barnyard fowl, back in the rear, strained his glossy neck and called out loud and clear in the eternal Sabbath here; a fine shaggy dog wallowed and romped about the grassy dooryard, while far out over the vast river some black, wide-winged birds kept circling round and round. I went back and around into the barnyard to inquire what kind of birds they were. I met a very respectful but very stammery negro here. He took his cap in his hand, and twisting it all about and opening his mouth many times, he finally said:

“Do-do-dose burds was created by de Lord to p-p-pu-purify de yearth.”

“But what do you call them, uncle?”

“Tur-tur-tur,” and he twisted his cap, backed out, came forward, winked his eyes, but could not go on.

“Do you mean turkey buzzards?”

“Ya-ya-yas, sah, do-do-dose burds eats up de carrion ob de yearth, sah.”

Down yonder is the tomb, the family vault. Back in the rear of the two marble coffins about thirty of the Washington family lie. The vault is locked up and closed forever. The key has been thrown into the trusty old Potomac to lie there until the last trump shall open all tombs.

Let no one hereafter complain of having to live in a garret alone and without a fire. For here, with all this spacious and Noble house to select from, the widow of Washington chose a garret looking to the south and out upon his tomb. This is the old tomb where he was first laid to rest and where the fallen oak leaves are crowding in heaps now and almost filling up the low, dark doorway.

This garret has but one window, a small and narrow dormer window, and is otherwise quite dark. A bottom corner of the door is cut away so that her cat might come and go at will. And this is the saddest, tenderest sight at Mount Vernon. It seemed to me that I could see this noble lady sitting here, looking out upon the tomb of her mighty dead, the great river sweeping fast beyond, her heart full of the memory of a mighty Nation's birth, waiting, waiting, waiting.

The thing, however, of the most singular interest here is a key of the Bastile, presented by Thomas Paine to Lafayette, who brought it to America and presented it to Mount Vernon. It hangs here in a glass case, massive and monstrous. It is a hideous, horrible thing, and has, perhaps, more blood and misery on it than ony other piece of iron or steel that was ever seen.