[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HOME WHEN A BOY.] When the boys went in to breakfast, their mother, knowing that they had just come from the pasture, asked how the colt was getting on. "He is dead, madam," said George; "I killed him." "Dead!" exclaimed his mother. "Yes, madam, dead," replied her son. Then he told her just how it happened. When Mrs. Washington heard the story, her face flushed with anger. Then, waiting a moment, she looked steadily at George, and said quietly, "While I regret the loss of my favorite, I rejoice in my son, who always speaks the truth." 126. Washington goes on a visit to Mount Vernon; he makes the acquaintance of Lord Fairfax.--George's eldest brother, Lawrence Washington, had married the daughter of a gentleman named Fairfax,[3] who lived on the banks of the Potomac. Lawrence had a fine estate a few miles above, on the same river; he called his place Mount Vernon. When he was fourteen, George went to Mount Vernon to visit his brother. Lawrence Washington took George down the river to call on the Fairfaxes. There the lad made the acquaintance of Lord Fairfax, an English nobleman who had come over from London. He owned an immense piece of land in Virginia. Lord Fairfax and George soon became great friends. He was a gray-haired man nearly sixty, but he enjoyed having this boy of fourteen as a companion. They spent weeks together on horseback in the fields and woods, hunting deer and foxes. [Footnote 3: Fairfax. This was the Hon. William Fairfax; he was cousin to Lord Fairfax, and he had the care of Lord Fairfax's land.] 127. Lord Fairfax hires Washington to survey[4] his land; how Washington lived in the woods; the Indian war-dance.--Lord Fairfax's land extended westward more than a hundred miles. It had never been very carefully surveyed; and he was told that settlers were moving in beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains,[5] and were building log-cabins on his property without asking leave. By the time Washington was sixteen, he had learned surveying; and so Lord Fairfax hired him to measure his land for him. Washington was glad to undertake the work; for he needed the money, and he could earn in this way from five to ten dollars a day. [Illustration: Map illustrating Washington's early life.] Early in the spring, Washington, in company with another young man, started off on foot to do this business. They crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, and entered the Valley of Virginia, one of the most beautiful valleys in America. The two young men would work all day in the woods with a long chain, measuring the land. When evening came, Washington would make a map of what they had measured. Then they would wrap themselves up in their blankets, stretch themselves on the ground at the foot of a tree, and go to sleep under the stars.