He further saved her much of the detail of ordering her own clothing, and we find him sending for “A Salmon-colored Tabby of the enclosed pattern, with satin flowers, to be made in a sack,” “1 Cap, Handkerchief, Tucker and Ruffles, to be made of Brussels lace or point, proper to wear with the above negligee, to cost £20,” “1 pair black, and 1 pair white Satin Shoes, of the smallest,” and “1 black mask.” Again he writes his London agent, “Mrs. Washington sends home a green sack to get cleaned, or fresh dyed of the same color; made up into a handsome sack again, would be her choice; but if the cloth won’t afford that, then to be thrown into a genteel Night Gown.” At another time he wants a pair of clogs, and when the wrong kind are sent he writes that “she intended to have leathern Gloshoes.” When she was asked to present a pair of colors to a company, he attended to every detail of obtaining the flag, and when “Mrs. Washington … perceived the Tomb of her Father … to be much out of Sorts” he wrote to get a workman to repair it. The care of the Mount Vernon household proving beyond his wife’s ability, a housekeeper was very quickly engaged, and when one who filled this position was on the point of leaving, Washington wrote his agent to find another without the least delay, for the vacancy would “throw a great additional weight on Mrs. Washington;” again, writing in another domestic difficulty, “Your aunt’s distresses for want of a good housekeeper are such as to render the wages demanded by Mrs. Forbes (though unusually high) of no consideration.” Her letters of form, which required better orthography than she was mistress of, he draughted for her, pen-weary though he was. It has already been shown how he fathered her “little progeny,” as he once called them. Mrs. Washington was a worrying mother, as is shown by a letter to her sister, speaking of a visit in which “I carried my little patt with me and left Jacky at home for a trial to see how well I could stay without him though we were gon but wone fortnight I was quite impatient to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a noise out, I thought thair was a person sent for me. I often fancied he was sick or some accident had happened to him so that I think it is impossible for me to leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay when he comes down.” To spare her anxiety, therefore, when the time came for “Jacky” to be inoculated, Washington “withheld from her the information … & purpose, if possible, to keep her in total ignorance … till I hear of his return, or perfect recovery;… she having often wished that Jack wou’d take & go through the disorder without her knowing of it, that she might escape those Tortures which suspense wd throw her into.” And on the death of Patsy he wrote, “This sudden and unexpected blow, I scarce need add has almost reduced my poor Wife to the lowest ebb of Misery; which is encreas’d by the absence of her son.”