But none of these dreadful things was to happen, because the people had faith in the men they had sent to the Convention to think and act for them; especially did they have faith in the man who sat in the highest seat as president of that Convention and whose bold and handsome signature, which every boy and girl now knows and honors, was signed to the new Constitution, as much as to say: "I believe that this Constitution is the best we can make as things now stand, and I sign it, not only as president of the Convention that has drawn it, but as one of the people of these United States of America which it seeks to unite in peace and brotherhood."

So it was, at last, accepted and adopted by all the people of the thirteen States. And, with a few changes, called amendments, so it has continued; and it stands

to-day the bond of union between all the States of this great country and one of the most remarkable papers ever written through all the years of the world's long history.

66

'The

The first section of the second article read: executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows" - and then it goes on to say just how he shall be chosen.

He shall hold office during the

Well, when it came to the point of choosing the man. who must stand at the head of the new government as its manager, or "executive," there was but one opinion among the people. You know, of course, what this was: - that George Washington, of Virginia, was the one man in America who ought to be and must be and should be the president of the United States. This was what everyone said, thus his friends wrote him and the man who drafted the most of the new Constitution and who has been called its "father" (I mean Alexander Hamilton) told him that this would have to be and that it was his duty to " comply with the general call" of his country.

As I have told you before, George Washington never "shirked." Whatever he felt to be his duty he set about doing, no matter how hard or how unpleasant it might be. And it is also true that whatever office was tendered him he accepted, because he thought it was his duty to do so, even while he did not feel himself smart enough for the place. This was true about almost every position he accepted, from the days when, as a boy, he went off with rifle, rod and chain to survey Lord Fairfax's wild lands among the Virginia mountains.

So when people told him he was the only man to be president, he was not at all anxious to have things so turn out as to put him into the presidential chair, nor was he pleased at the prospect. He was fifty-seven years old, just the age when a man feels like settling down and taking

things comfortably, especially if his life had been as busy and as active as Washington's had been. "Let those who wish such things as office or leadership be at the head of things," he said; "I do not wish them. All I desire now is to settle down at Mount Vernon and live and die an honest man on my own farm."

But this quiet life was not to be his. Much as he wished to spend the rest of his days as a plain Virginia farmer, the people whom he had led to freedom and citizenship decided otherwise. When, therefore, according to the Constitution, the sixty-nine votes of the electors for president were opened and counted, it was found that every one of them — sixtynine in all named as choice of the people for president of the United States of America, George Washington of Virginia, and the farming at Mount Vernon had to be given up

once more.

CHAPTER X.

THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT.

I

SUPPOSE there is not a boy or a girl who has any sort

of "spunk" or ambition but enjoys being at the head of things. It may cost hard work to get there, and may need hard work to hold the place, but, all the same, the boy or girl who is at the head is proud of it, and tries to stay there.