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diff --git a/old/65806-0.txt b/old/65806-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8d3ac23..0000000 --- a/old/65806-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2110 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Christmas at Monticello with Thomas -Jefferson, by Helen Topping Miller - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Christmas at Monticello with Thomas Jefferson - -Author: Helen Topping Miller - -Release Date: July 9, 2021 [eBook #65806] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital - Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS AT MONTICELLO WITH -THOMAS JEFFERSON *** - - - - - Christmas at Monticello - with - _Thomas Jefferson_ - - - BY - HELEN TOPPING MILLER - - - LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. - NEW YORK · LONDON · TORONTO - 1959 - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC. - 119 WEST 40th STREET, NEW YORK 18 - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., Ltd. - 6 & 7 CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON W 1 - - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. - 20 CRANFIELD ROAD, TORONTO 16 - - CHRISTMAS AT MONTICELLO - WITH THOMAS JEFFERSON - - COPYRIGHT © 1959 - BY HELEN TOPPING MILLER -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR ANY - PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM - - PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY - LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO - - FIRST EDITION - - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 59-11264 - - Printed in the United States of America - - [Illustration: Decorative glyph] - - - _Christmas Tales_ - - _By_ Helen Topping Miller - - _Christmas for Tad_ - _No Tears for Christmas_ - _Christmas at Mount Vernon_ - _Her Christmas at the Hermitage_ - _Christmas with Robert E. Lee_ - - - - - 1 - - - _Washington: March, 1809_ - -Suddenly, as he climbed the long, curving flight of stairs, he knew that -now he was an old man. - -Sixty-six last April, and, though his sandy red hair had merely faded -instead of turning gray, there were twinges in his knees that reminded -him of too many miles in the saddle, in cold rain and sleet, too many -hours standing at his writing table, too much tension, not enough rest. -But now he could rest. - -In the half-furnished rooms of the White House below, the crowd still -danced at the Inaugural Ball, with the wife of the new president, -sparkling, vivacious Dolly Madison, a gay and charming hostess in a -sweeping white cambric dress and the inevitable enormous turban on her -head. - -He was grateful, Thomas Jefferson was thinking as he toiled up the -stairs, that he had been able to see his good friend, Jemmy Madison, -inaugurated president of these new and struggling United States. But he -was even more grateful that his own years of service were at an end. - -“No third term,” he had told them when they importuned him. “No, never! -My work is done. I am going home.” - -If only he could have left a government in peace, but, for this new -nation that he had worked a lifetime to build, it appeared sadly that -there could be no peace. Off the coasts of his country British and -French ships prowled and battled, seizing American shipping, taking off -sailors at gunpoint, confiscating cargoes. Would James Madison be able -to keep the nation out of another war? he worried, as he entered the -disordered bedroom where his half-packed possessions were strewn about, -books stacked on the floor, papers spread over the bed. Down below in -some of the empty rooms of the mansion were piled other boxes of papers -already sorted and made ready to travel by barge and wagon back to his -“Little Mountain” in Albemarle County, his beloved Monticello. - -As he closed the door of the room, there was a little whistle and a whir -of wings, and his pet mockingbird came charging through the air, all -reaching feet and stiffened wings, to perch on Jefferson’s shoulder. - -“We’re going home, boy,” he told the bird, turning his face to avoid the -inquisitive bill. “Burwell will see to it that you get back to -Monticello safely, where all the other mockingbirds will probably be -swollen with envy when they see you lording it over the place. No, I -haven’t any sugar tonight. When we get home my grandchildren will feed -you sugar till you’ll probably die of obesity.” - -He sat wearily on the side of the bed and began turning over papers, -studying each, laying them in neat piles. There were too many of them -but each was important to him. A soft rap came at the door; it opened a -crack and his daughter, Martha Randolph, always called “Patsy,” put a -turbaned head in. - -“Papa, may I come in?” - -“It would seem that you are already in,” he smiled. “You should be -downstairs being gay with the rest of them.” - -“Oh, Papa, I’m an old woman now. I’m thirty-six. Old enough for caps and -a chimney corner, too old for frolicking.” - -“The chimney corner hasn’t been built that can hold you long. You were -born restless like your father. You always want to be on to the next -activity, Patsy, no matter what it is.” - -“I didn’t come away down here through all that cold mud to dance and -frivol,” she argued, arranging her wide skirt so she could sit beside -him on the high bed. “I came to help you pack and fetch you home, but -from the looks of things we’re doomed never to get there. What are all -these pages and pages full of strange words?” - -“Look out!” He rescued some sheets from her hand. “Don’t mix them up.” -He straightened the papers lovingly, his long freckled fingers deft. -“These are my Indian vocabularies. I’ve been setting down words from the -different Indian tongues, comparing them and trying to find a common -origin.” - -“So that’s why someone said the other day that you believed that all the -Indians were originally Russians!” Patsy laid the pages in neat piles. -“Papa, you continually astound me! With all the frightful -responsibilities you’ve had all these years—buying Louisiana, the -country continually in a row with England and France and this bank -business, not to mention Aaron Burr—you’ve found time to learn Indian -languages.” - -“I haven’t learned many—only a few words here and there. It kept my mind -off unpleasant things, like having all the Federalists hate me -vehemently and make no bones about it.” He quirked his long mouth in an -ironic grimace. “Do you know that at this moment there are half a dozen -banquets being eaten in this city where the Federalists are proposing -insulting toasts to the despised ‘Virginian,’ gloating over my -departure, telling each other, ‘Thank God, at last we’re rid of -Jefferson!’?” - -“Papa, please don’t remember those things,” pleaded his daughter. “Leave -every bitter memory right here on the shores of this dirty Potomac. Up -on the Rivanna on your mountain the children are already counting hours, -eager for Grandfather to come home. Now, can’t we lay all these papers -in a box so this bed can be used for the purpose for which it was -intended? I’ll call Burwell. I could drag your boots off myself but it’s -hard for me to stoop or bend over in these murderous stays. Back home I -shall never wear them, no matter if my fashion-minded daughters faint -with horror.” - -“Don’t tell me the Misses Randolph have deserted dolls and toad houses -built of mud and gone running after fur-belows! Maybe I had too many -mirrors sent home from France.” He began obediently to lay the papers in -a stout wooden box. “Come in, Burwell. The tyrannical Madam Patsy -Randolph says this ex-president has to go to bed.” - -“With a hot posset and a warm brick at his feet, Burwell,” Martha -instructed the faithful servant. “I wonder if anybody in the future -history of this nation will ever get this old barn of a mansion really -warm? There are more goose-pimples than dimples and beauty patches on -those bare shoulders downstairs this minute and Dolly Madison whispered -to me that she wished that protocol demanded ermine capes with velvet -linings for officials in this country such as the kings and lords wear -in England. Well, good night, Papa. I’ll see you in the morning before I -leave. I do have to hurry home. Remember there is a large family of -small people there all in need of discipline before you get back to -spoil them all outrageously.” - -“I never spoil children. I teach them to use their eyes and their -minds,” he protested, grunting as Burwell eased off the tight polished -slippers and put shabby old carpet slippers on his feet. “There’s one -thing I determine, Madam. If you can throw away stays when you are back -at Monticello, I shall discard all fancy boots and slippers, stocks and -tight cravats, and those confounded, silly lacy affairs down my front. -You haven’t given away my good green breeches, I hope?” - -“Everything of yours is exactly as you left it, Papa. The moths got at -that awful old homespun coat but I suppose you’ll wear it anyway.” - -“It comforts my old shoulders and the pockets are all in the right -places,” he asserted. - -“Very likely full of rocks and arrowheads and dried leaves and dead -butterflies at this moment.” She bent and kissed him, her fancy -headdress slipping a little. She pulled it off freeing reddish brown -curls to fall over her ears. “I’m going to bed myself. Those fiddles and -trombones can squawk all night but they won’t keep me awake.” - -Left alone, Thomas Jefferson dug a comfortable hollow in his pillow and -tried to sleep. But too much went coursing through his mind. That -resolution passed by the Virginia Assembly, especially the words at the -end: “You carry with you the sweetest of awards, the recollection of a -life well spent in the service of your country.” - -That sentiment assuaged a little some of the bitterer things. Young -Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s handsome protégé and Thomas -Jefferson’s relentless enemy, dying, after he had fired dramatically in -the air, from the bullet of Aaron Burr. And there had been Burr, as -Jefferson knew, always plotting, dreaming up his grandiose schemes to -set up an empire of his own in the West, fleeing to England when his -treasonable activities were discovered, forfeiting his bail. - -John Marshall had been to blame for that. John Marshall, John Adams’ -midnight appointee, named for petty spite, and the sworn and bitter -enemy of Thomas Jefferson, had so muddled Burr’s trial that a jury had -acquitted the man of treason and altered the charge to some trivial -misdemeanor. And then Marshall had had the effrontery to subpoena the -President of the United States as a witness! - -These are they who had worked all manner of evil against me, the words -ran through the old man’s tired brain. Yet do I stand and my arm -prevails against them. Curious how darkness and silence always brought -back to him some line or other from the thousands of books he had read. -That was something he would do at Monticello to fill up his -days—catalogue all his books, almost ten thousand of them there must be -now, for he had sent home boxes full every year. He would teach his -older grandsons, Jefferson Randolph and Francis Eppes, to appreciate -books too, and some of the girls might show some signs of possessing an -eager mind like his Patsy’s. - -Someone opened a door below and the blare of a marching tune came to his -ears which likely meant that the dancing company were going down the -chilly halls to the unfurnished rooms where the collation was spread on -trestle tables. Jefferson found himself drumming his fingers on his -chest in time to the music. There had been so much martial music in his -life. He thought of Patrick Henry riding into Williamsburg on that -cloudy morning at the head of his militia. Gallant, shabby Patrick, who -had stood so tall in his run-down boots and worn leather breeches, his -coat out at the elbows, who had twice sent great words ringing on the -air of America, words that were so trumpet-strong and stirring that they -still echoed in the ears of men and made a small thrill quiver in the -breast of Thomas Jefferson himself. - -“If this be treason, make the most of it!” And “Give me Liberty or give -me Death!” He would hear them again and again so long as he lived, -remembering that they had challenged the hesitant hearts of rebelling -Virginians until they were ready to dare even the great guns of the -Third George of Hanover. - -But now, Jefferson was thinking, how early the fires of patriotism had -cooled in Patrick Henry. Patrick had been successful at Red Hill, his -plantation. He had made some money, grown old before his time, and been -content the last time Jefferson had seen him to sit under a green tree -with a jug of cool spring water near by and his grandchildren playing -around. Ease and security—were they the drugs that abated the eternal -challenge in the minds of men? And did nations like men grow sluggish -and apathetic when they were well fed and bodily comfortable, Jefferson -wondered? - -Patrick Henry was dead now, and George Washington was dead. One by one -the passionately dedicated builders of the temple of the Republic had -vanished from the arena, leaving the affairs of state to the younger, -noisier men who had not known the travail, the risks, the fiery trials -of the beginning. I am a lone dead leaf hanging on the tree, the old man -told himself. I am that despised democrat who greeted pompous envoys in -a shabby coat, the one they called Infidel. - -That had been his own private joke, his personal secret—his belief, his -relationship with the Almighty. When he was dead, someone would find the -little book in which he had pasted and annotated all the sayings of -Jesus and know how wrong they had been in their hasty judgment. But now -it did not matter. Nothing mattered now that he was going home. He had -refused a third term as president, adhering to the precedent of George -Washington. Turmoil and trouble were hot in the air, but somehow his -nostrils did not dilate with the old war-horse eagerness at the threat -of conflict. Now he felt no stallion urge to go charging armed with -words into the midst of any fray. How well life was organized, he -thought, as he found a softer spot in the pillow. Old age crept on a man -unaware, bringing its own opiate to dull any lingering sense of loss. - -At length, letting the weight of weariness have its way with him, Thomas -Jefferson fell asleep. Martha Randolph, tiptoeing in later, shading a -candle with her hand, saw his face upturned, eyes closed, nose pinched a -little, some brown freckles standing out on the gray, drained cheeks, -and caught the eagle look about him. - -He will look like that when he is dead, she thought, as she blew out the -candle and quietly slipped away. - - -It was snowing hard when Jefferson awoke early in the morning. - -The raw ugliness of this new city of Washington was being charitably -hidden under a blanket of downy feathers. The stumps where the big tulip -poplars and oaks had been cut down to open up streets and clear space -for building were now, all of them, so many thrones cushioned with -ermine. The cutting of those trees had grieved Jefferson’s heart. How he -hated to see a tree go down, though he had slaughtered a young forest in -his younger years to clear the top of his little mountain for the home -he visioned there. - -He looked down at the narrow streets where sleighs and wagons were -already churning up dark mud to profane the virgin beauty of the snow. - -Martha came in early accompanied by two aides. Jefferson, half dressed, -was eating the breakfast Burwell had brought up, picking the meat from a -fried fish with his fingers, dipping bits of corn bread into new cane -syrup. He dried his fingers quickly on his handkerchief, gulped the last -swallow of tea, and motioned Burwell to take the food away. - -“And what brings you here so early, my dear Patsy?” he inquired. “I -thought you would be starting out for Richmond and Charlottesville on -the next coach?” - -“I knew you’d never finish this packing alone or let any one help you.” -She kissed his forehead, smoothing back his rough motley of hair. “I -declare, Burwell, if you don’t cut his hair soon, he’ll be riding the -country looking like a mangy old lion!” she scolded. “Trim this on top -and fix him a proper cue, or I shall go out and buy you a stylish wig, -Mr. Ex-President.” - -“Can’t stand the things! They’re dirty,” he snorted. “I’ll get -everything packed, Patsy. These boys will help me. You go along home and -get a good fire going to thaw out my old bones after that long three -days in that drafty coach.” - -“You will never finish packing,” she fussed. “You’ll find some book or -paper you haven’t seen in a long time and spend hours poring over it. I -know you, Thomas Jefferson. You gentlemen bring in all those boxes and, -Burwell, see that Mr. Jefferson’s trunks and carpetbag are packed. This -baggage will be taken off the barge at Shadwell, Father, and we’ll have -wagons sent down to carry it to Monticello.” - -“Nothing must be lost!” worried Jefferson. “Nothing! Every paper and -pamphlet I’ve saved is important. They contain the history of an era, -the story of the birth of this nation.” - -“Then,” said Martha, “it would seem that most of them should be in the -Library of Congress.” - -“Never, while they house that library in such makeshift quarters,” he -argued. “Patsy, my dear, I beg of you, go on to Monticello as we -planned. I shall arrive later with everything I own intact. Just -remember that your father has knocked about the world on his own for a -long time, and I am not yet senile nor decrepit.” - -“But you will admit that you are tired to the bone,” she persisted, “and -that long trip in this cold weather is not going to be easy.” - -“I’ll admit anything, only get out of here now so that I can get out of -this dressing gown and into my breeches! Burwell, see that my satin -breeches and the broadcloth coat are well aired before you pack them. It -will be a long day before I shall want to be dressed up and elegant -again.” - -“You were quite the beau at that dance last night,” Martha remarked. -“Several women said to me that they had never before seen you so witty -and gay. And more than one remarked that it was a great pity that you -were leaving Washington.” - -“They had never seen me before without the sad old albatross of -responsibility hung on my back,” he retorted. “When I gave it over to -Jemmy Madison, I felt twenty years younger in twenty minutes and even -several pounds lighter. Once I’m back on my own mountain you’ll see, I -shall be merry as a grig—whatever a grig is.” - -“In my youth, when you were feeding me huge, nauseous doses of Plato and -Livy, you would have ordered me to go and look that word up,” Patsy -reminded him. “I can hear you very sternly directing me never to use a -word unless I knew its exact meaning. Fortunately, I know what a grig -is.” - -“It’s a cricket,” spoke up one of the aides. “My granny told me a long -time ago, a grig is a cricket. When I was a young-un, sir.” - -“It’s a kind of grasshopper,” disputed the other aide. “A little -grasshopper that fiddles tunes with its hind legs, Mr. President, sir.” - -“Mr. Ex-President, Carver. An ex being something that has been crossed -out, obliterated, ignored. I’m obliterated but I can still go on being a -grig. Even though I can’t fiddle any more since I broke this wrist in -France. I miss my music, too.—Well, good-by again, Madam Randolph. Be -sure you take along a warm robe and a shawl. That coach can be mighty -damp and dreary.” - -“And you do the same, Papa, and don’t you climb down halfway home and -start out on horseback in this foul weather. Nothing ever created by -Heaven is so treacherous and mean as this month of March. If they would -leave it off all the calendars, it would please me well.” - -“Keep plenty of elmbark stewing on the hob till I get home,” he ordered. -“It will cure any phthisic ever contracted.” - -“He’s so stubborn,” he heard his daughter say to the aide as she went -out. “I shan’t be surprised at all to see him come riding home on that -horse. If he wants to do it, he’ll do it if it kills him.” - -“It won’t kill him, ma’am,” the man murmured. “Mister Jefferson is still -a mighty stout fellow.” - - - - - 2 - - - _Monticello: Spring, 1809_ - -Why, why had he saved so many things? Yet they were all important, all -precious. One small box full of rocks, little packets of earth, dried -leaves, and the desiccated bodies of insects. These George Clark and -Meriwether Lewis had brought back to him from the long exploring journey -they had made, crossing the country to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson held -out one small, rattling mummy of a creature in his palm. - -“Ever see a bug like this, Burwell?” he asked. - -“Looks like some kind of scawpin. Got he tail in air like one too.” The -old Negro studied the dried object skittishly. “Stinger in that tail, I -bet you. You watch out, Mister Tom, mought be p’ison even if he daid.” - -“There are desert places out there, they told me, where everything has -thorn and stings or stinks.” Jefferson wrapped the desert scorpion -carefully in cotton lint. “I’ll have to have a glass case built at home -to display all these things. These trophies from Europe too. And this -piece of cannonball that was fired at Ticonderoga. I suppose every -president from this time on will be sent weird mementoes of some battle -or discovery or other. John Adams got an Iroquois scalp and a jawbone -some settler had plowed up in his field, but nothing quite so gruesome -has ever come to me. Now we must count all these boxes and I must see -that they all go aboard the boat.” - - -The storm did not abate. Rather, it grew worse, changing from snow to -sleet and then to icy hostile rain that made quagmires of the roads and -treacherous slippery deadfalls of every slope. The coach horses slipped -and stumbled, the coach swayed and lurched in the ruts, splashing muddy -water everywhere. Jefferson’s bones ached from the jolting; his elbows -were sore from being continually slammed against the hard leather of the -seats. The floor was cold and wet. - -At Shadwell, where the barge landed, having made inquiry and been -assured that all his baggage had been transferred to wagons, he left the -coach and mounted his bay horse, the patient animal having been led -behind at a dragging pace for many miles. Snow was still thick in the -air, but once in the saddle Jefferson leaned into the wind, gave the bay -his head, and let him warm his sluggish blood in a brisk canter. Sensing -that he was heading home, the horse loped along, shaking his head in -irritation at the snow that stung his eyelids, but keeping steadily on -until the mountains loomed at last, dark blue and chill upon the -horizon. - -Martha’s husband, Thomas Randolph, had written that all the people of -Albemarle County would be out to meet him with fife and drum and banner, -but Jefferson had urged Martha to see that there was no public -demonstration. “I’ll likely be delayed on the way. I may even get home -in the middle of the night. Head off any hoorah. This is no hero; this -is plain Farmer Jefferson coming home.” - -When he turned off the highway into the narrow winding road up his hill, -he could restrain the bay no longer. Weary as the animal was, he broke -into a reaching gallop, and now the brick house was in sight, and -streaming out from every door came people running, bareheaded and -shouting through the storm. His daughter, his son-in-law, all his -grandchildren, and every slave on the place, he was certain. They -swarmed about him, lifting him off his horse, the jubilant Negroes -pressing forward to kiss his hands, his boots, even his horse. - -The children screamed joyfully, “Grandfather is home for ever and ever!” -With so many arms lifting him, he was half carried in to the house. In -the lofty hall, the ceiling almost two full stories high, a great fire -burned on the hearth and shone on the trophy-covered walls and the great -clock over the door that worked by cannon ball weights and faced both -indoors and out. - -Jefferson sank wearily into a deep chair. He was more worn and chilled -than he wanted to admit, but a great sigh of contentment made his lips -tremble. All around him were all the things he loved, that he had built, -contrived, designed, invented. The weather indicator on the ceiling that -was controlled by a vane on the roof outside—his eyes turned up toward -it. - -“Still works,” he remarked, “and from the set of the wind there’ll be no -good weather for another day at least. Did the wagons get here?” - -“No, Papa, not yet. But the roads are mighty bad, as you know.” - -“Freezing mud. Makes slow traveling. Now, baby,” he protested to a young -granddaughter, “Grandpapa can take off his own boots.” - -“No, you can’t,” insisted young Cornelia, “because I’m going to do it -for you. Ellen’s fetching some wool socks she knit—and, Grandpa, one is -too long but please don’t mention it.” - -“I won’t, I promise. Not if it reaches halfway to my neck.” - -“I found these old slippers in your wardrobe. A mouse had started to -build a nest in one but I brushed it out and aired it. Thank goodness, -he hadn’t gnawed any holes in it.” She jumped up. - -“Ah, my dear sir,” he looked up gratefully at Thomas Randolph, who was -followed by a servant with a steaming mug on a server, “you save my -life!” - -“Just what you need to heat up your blood, sir.” said Randolph. “Another -log on the fire, Cassius, and tend the fires in Mr. Jefferson’s library -and bedroom.” - -Jefferson sipped the warm punch slowly while his granddaughters busied -themselves dressing his feet in warm hose and old slippers. - -“Your breeches are damp, Grandpa,” one said. “But we can’t do anything -about that.” - -“I am marvelously served already.” He pulled them close to kiss their -flushed young faces. “Burwell will find me some dry clothes presently as -soon as I am warmed and rested. I see that our Paris lamp hasn’t -tarnished very much, Patsy.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Remember what -a time we had packing that thing? I remember you stuffed the globes full -of hose and shirts and winced every time the box was moved.” - -“I expected it to arrive here a mass of scraps and splinters,” she said, -“and after you had paid such an outrageous price for it, too.” - -“It was that painting you made the worst fuss about.” Jefferson emptied -the bowl, handed it to the waiting servant, and got to his feet. “Ah, my -old knees are stiff! But they still seem willing to support me. Now, I -want to see everything. Yes”—he halted at the door of the high-ceiled -drawing room—“there’s poor old John the Baptist whom you hated, Patsy.” -He went nearer to study the painting over the mantel. - -“It was Polly who loathed it most,” Martha said. “Not poor old John, all -head and no body, but Salome lugging him on that charger wearing modern -clothes and a very proper turban at that. I’d still like to throw that -picture away, Papa. It used to give little Francis Eppes the horrors. -Every time he had to pass through this room he’d have nightmares.” - -“Nice polish on this floor, Patsy,” commended Jefferson, artfully -turning her mind away from criticism of one of his favorite paintings by -complimenting the gleam of the parquet floor. It was the first such oak -floor laid in America and he was very proud of the way it reflected the -glitter of the gilt chairs and sofas he had brought from Paris. They had -cost fabulous amounts too, more than he could afford, but in his -philosophy the things a man wanted and admired, that made life richer, -were worth whatever they cost. - -A brief nagging jerk of realism struck him—that now he would have to -count the cost of things. Let that wait, let it wait until tomorrow. -Tomorrow he would look over his lands, his farms; he would see how -Randolph’s management had benefited them, and study what more must be -done to the still unfinished house. Martha, catching his roving look, -interrupted it with a protest. - -“Papa, please! Don’t begin right away tearing down something and -building it over. The house is fine as it is and we all love it—and you -are so tired.” - -“My dear, I should be even more tired with no occupation,” he argued. -“Of course it will take me some little time to arrange and dispose of -all my books and papers. Did they build those shelves I wrote you about -in November?” - -“Yes, Papa, come and see. I gave them the drawing you made and I’m quite -sure they followed it exactly.” She walked ahead of him through the -great hall and the narrow passage that led to the southern wing of the -house which contained the library, Jefferson’s study, and his bedroom, -with the bed alcove between and the steep winding stairs to the -mezzanine-like second story. - -There in the familiar rooms were all the homely things he had missed—his -shabby old revolving chair, the painted wooden bench with its leather -cushion that just fitted his lean, weary legs, the round revolving table -he had had built with the legs set right so that the bench would slide -under them and make of table, chair, and bench a comfortable kind of -chaise longue with a high back to shut out the drafts. There was his -file table with octagonal sides, each side holding a filing drawer -labeled with a group of letters, and his high drawing table with drawers -and shelves that could be adjusted at any angle. - -Beside the library fireplace stood a high-backed leather chair, a -pompous and official looking piece of furniture. Jefferson glared at it. - -“And how came that thing here?” he demanded. - -“Why, Papa, don’t you recognize it? It’s the chair you sat in all the -time you were vice-president. Mr. Madison had it sent up by the barge. -He thought you would like to have it,” explained Martha. - -He snorted. “I have spent more eternal hours of boredom in that -miserable chair than in any seat whereon a man has ever rested his -breeches!” he grumbled. “Stick it in a dark corner somewhere. Send it -down to the servants’ quarters. The office of vice-president is about as -tedious an insult to a man’s intelligence as could be conceived. To have -to suffer it for four years is bad enough, but to be reminded of it the -rest of his life is pure persecution. However, I shall take pains to -thank Jemmy Madison properly. He meant this as a handsome gift. I’ll -receive it in the same spirit, but I don’t want it around where I have -to look at it and be reminded of Senator Bingham and of John Adams’s -being urged to slay a thousand Republicans with the jawbone of Thomas -Jefferson.” - -“Oh, Papa, don’t let past times rankle. Look back on the happy ones,” -begged Martha. “We did have fun in Paris, didn’t we?” - -“And you went to school there,” mourned one of her daughters—Jefferson -was not yet entirely sure which was which—“and saw all those fashionable -people and the king and Napoleon and spoke French all the time, and we -have to learn French with that stupid Miss Fraker. You should hear her, -Grandpa. She pronounces French as it is spelled in English.” - -“She says ‘Owy Owy,’ and we know it should be ‘wee wee,’” piped up a -smaller one. Was this Virginia or Ellen? He would have to put his family -tree in order soon before he mortally offended some of them. - -“Grandfather will teach you proper French when he gets time,” promised -their mother. “He spent four years over there and I went to school there -and so did Aunt Maria. But not all that we saw was happy. We saw too -many beggars and hungry people in the streets, something you will never -see in Virginia.” - -“We see blind Remus when we go to church,” said one child. “He sits on -the path with his hat in his hand and says, ‘Please, li’l missy, give -ole Remus a penny?’” - -“And if we put our penny in his hat, then we have nothing when the -verger comes around with the alms basin and he gives us a disgusted -look,” said another. - -“Remus doesn’t have to beg,” said Jefferson. “He is owned by a family -able to take care of him.” - -“Maybe he likes it. Sitting in the sun and hearing people pass.” - -“If he’s sitting there now, he’s being snowed on,” said young Francis -Eppes gravely, standing at the window. It was the first time the quiet, -brown-haired boy had spoken and Jefferson from his seat in the old -revolving chair looked at him sharply. This was his beloved younger -daughter Maria’s only child. Maria, christened Mary, called Polly, and -later changing her name in the convent to Maria, pronounced in the -Italian fashion. Maria was gone now these four years but the pain of her -loss was still a quivering fiber of anguish in Thomas Jefferson’s heart. -She had died, as his own young wife had died, when her daughters were -small, having borne too many children, wasting away after the last -childbirth, fading slowly day by day. Polly’s young husband, Jack Eppes, -still lived at Eppington not far away, but Francis spent a great deal of -time at Monticello with Martha’s healthy, noisy brood. - -“Come here, Francis,” Jefferson called gently. “Come here and let your -grandfather look at you.” - -“He’s always moping and looking out windows,” volunteered a young -Randolph. “It’s because he hasn’t any mother.” - -“Come and talk to me, Francis,” urged Jefferson. “You and I should be -friends. I have no mother either.” - -The boy came obediently and stood by the arm of the chair, his big eyes, -so like Polly’s, very sober. - -“Old people don’t have mothers, sir,” he said. - -“But I did. Till I was a grown up man. I had a handsome mother whose -name was Jane and I still think about her when I stand and look out of -windows. I wonder if I’m the kind of a man she would have wanted me to -be.” - -“I can’t be what my mother wanted me to be,” said small Francis -plaintively. “My father says she wanted me to be a great man like my -grandfather, but how can I be like you, sir? All the things you’ve done -won’t ever be done again, ever, will they? There will never be another -Declaration of Independence and you wrote that. I know. My father told -me.” - -Jefferson circled the lad with an arm. All about, clustered close to the -fire, the young Randolphs were abruptly and amazingly quiet. - -“That’s so,” the old man agreed. “I did write that paper, didn’t I? And -after I’d written it, four other men sat around in Philadelphia for -about a week and picked it to pieces and made changes in it and couldn’t -make up their minds whether to adopt it or not. I guess they never would -have made up their minds and we’d still be British subjects and paying -taxes to the king. But at last they all decided to accept the -Declaration of Independence, leaving out some parts I had labored hard -to make perfect. So—we declared ourselves independent of Great Britain.” - -The small Randolphs were convulsed in a hysteria of giggles but young -Francis kept a grave face. - -“On the fourth of July, 1776,” he said, “and I know the names of those -other men too, Grandfather.” - -“So do I!” piped up a cousin. “One was John Adams and one was Benjamin -Franklin—” - -“And Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert Livingston of New York,” -finished Francis, “and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. But you should have -been the first man to sign it, Grandfather. Why did you let John Hancock -beat you?” - -“He was the president of the Congress, my son. It was his right to put -his name first. Have you read the Declaration, any of you?” - -“Ha!” shouted some older ones. “We know it by heart.” And straightway -there began a chanting recitation, the big ones trying to drown out the -smaller ones. - -Jefferson jumped up, waving his hands for silence. “Enough! Enough! You -know it. I concede that you know it. Better than your grandfather no -doubt, for I have to think hard at times to remember parts of it.” - -It was Ann, the oldest Randolph daughter, who broke up the conclave -around the fire. - -“Grandfather, the wagons have come!” she announced from the door. “Do -you want all those boxes brought in here?” - -“All of them.” He jumped up and was quickly at the door. Now he would -open and arrange all his papers at his leisure. Slaves tramped in and -out through the outer library, endlessly piling up heavy parcels. - -“Twenty-nine,” counted Martha finally. “Papa, there should be thirty. I -know. I counted them twice in Washington.” - -“Something has been lost or stolen,” he worried, “and I won’t know what -it is until I have emptied every box.” - -“I know what it is!” she cried, studying the pile. “It’s that wooden box -we packed in your bedroom—there at the last. The one that had all your -Indian writing in it.” - -“My comparative study of all the Indian languages,” he fretted. “Some -one must go back at once. Thomas, send two boys down the river in a -canoe tomorrow to search the bank where all these parcels were unloaded -from the barge. That Indian work could be valuable. I meant to pursue it -further. It must not be lost.” - -The lost box was found a few days later. It had been torn open on the -muddy river bank and obviously the thieves, seeking for money, had been -disappointed in the contents, for the precious papers were torn and -scattered far and wide. What little could be salvaged, Martha dried and -pressed but little was legible on the sodden sheets. - -Thomas Jefferson’s years of study of the Indian tongues was forever -lost. - - - - - 3 - - - _Monticello: Summer, 1809_ - -Spring came burgeoning over the Virginia hills, warming quickly into -promise of summer. The bulbs Thomas Jefferson and his lost wife Martha -had planted so long ago pushed up through the damp earth and the -children came running excitedly to call him whenever a bud showed, tight -and green-sheathed above its protecting sword blades. - -“Grandfather, come quick! The Roman Empress tulip has a big bud showing -and a teeny one.” - -“Fine, Virginia.” She was one of the younger ones, still small enough so -that he could toss her on his shoulder. “We’ll go and see but not -touch.” - -“We know. They turn brown and don’t open out to be flowers. Francis -pinched the Queen of the Amazons last spring and it never bloomed at -all.” - -“And some little girl tattled, which isn’t nice, do you think?” he -teased, waiting for the others who invariably like hungry chicks came -flying out several doors whenever he walked on the lawn. - -“Francis thinks he is kind of special because he doesn’t live here all -the time,” said Ellen, “but he does stay for long times and he has -lessons with us and so he shouldn’t be any different.” - -“Francis,” explained Jefferson, “does not have a lot of people to love -him. He’s not rich in love like all the Randolphs. Now let us look into -the case of this foreign woman, the Roman Empress.” - -He bent over the bed where the nubby little buds ventured up into the -thin, warming sun of spring. An old pain, long kept hidden deep stirred -again in him, stabbing at his heart, clasping icy fingers at his throat -to make an aching cramp there. Martha, his own Martha, so long gone, so -always present and living still in that deep place where no person, no -plaudit, no antagonism or ambition had ever been permitted. He could -almost see her long white fingers now, as they had pressed the warm -earth down lovingly over the dry, somnolent bulbs, always so delicately -careful not to break an embryo root or smother too deep the promise of -the crown. - -She had been heavy with child that spring day, carrying the son who had -only lived a few days, and when he protested that she must not tire -herself she had given him a little push and said, “No, I must do it, I -must plant them. Don’t you know that whatever I plant now will grow?” - -The years—the years! Almost thirty of them now since she had looked at -him with dimming eyes, and said, “Promise that my children will never -have a stepmother.” - -He had kept that promise. No other woman had ever approached the -walled-off chamber of his heart where she was enshrined. There were -times when, observing Patsy’s healthy brood, an impatient bitterness -colored with a haunting kind of guilt would burn in him. Too many -children—six of them in ten years—had been too much for Martha’s frail -strength; yet Patsy had borne eleven easily and naturally. Childbirth to -her had not been the draining, killing ordeal that had taken Martha, and -their well-loved Maria also. He wondered often if Jack Eppes, Maria’s -young husband, felt too that continuing, sickening weight of -self-accusation. - -He got to his feet quickly, bidding the sad ghosts of the past to -depart. “Off with you all now,” he ordered. “It’s time for lessons. Run, -before your mother scolds you and me too.” - -“Race you?” screamed one Randolph to his sisters. - -“No, no—start fair!” they shrieked in protest. - -Jefferson called a halt. “Line up. Smallest one three paces ahead of the -next. You here, Cornelia.” - -“I’m Ellen, Grandfather.” - -“All right. Some day I shall hang labels around all your necks. No -inching forward now! You—big fellow, three paces to the rear. Now, when -I drop my handkerchief—go!” - -Small feet flew, braids flopped, hats fell off, and happy squeals and -shouts made pandemonium. Flushed and hot and breathless they straggled -back to the dreariness of lessons, the older ones knowing that they must -learn history and Latin verbs well, for inevitably before the day ended -their grandfather would be catechizing them and putting on a sober, -disappointed look if they missed the correct answers. - -There were letters waiting for replies and papers to be gone over and -sorted in his study, but Jefferson discovered a reluctance in himself to -begin these tasks. Pacing the long terrace to the south he came to the -door of a little one-room building. This was what had always been called -Honeymoon Cottage, the first room built at Monticello. He had lived a -bachelor’s life in that one room in ’71 and, when Shadwell, his mother’s -home, had burned, it had become his only and permanent home. - -He took from his pocket the big iron key he had carried for so many -years, turned the stiff lock slowly lest some rusted part should snap, -and opened the door. Long unused, as it had been for years, the room -still held a fresh, sweetish smell of femininity. Patsy had obviously -kept it aired and cleaned, knowing that it was still the secret abode of -his tired old heart. At the windows the dimity curtains were fresh and -starched, the valance and tester of the bed still bright with -old-fashioned wool embroidery. His own mother had worked those many-hued -flowers and curious fruits, coloring the wool in her own dye pots with -homemade dyes set with alum and vinegar. - -The slender posts of the bed were polished, as was the brass fender of -the fireplace. An armchair stood on the hearth rug and Jefferson sank -into it, relaxing his long legs, staring into the cold fireplace where -three dry logs rested on the andirons. - -His mind whet, far back in time, thirty-six years back, to a snowy -January night in ’72, when he had brought his bride, Martha Wayles -Skelton, to this room, the only home he had to offer her. - -Monticello had been a beginning then, some walls raised, part of a wing -roofed over, windows boarded up, floors rough laid and strewn with -scraps and sawdust where they were laid at all. But nowhere within the -ambitiously planned structure a room complete enough for a lady, and the -winter snows had halted all work until a thaw came. - -Thomas Jefferson could almost visualize that spindle-legged, -freckle-faced bridegroom, that brash twenty-nine-year-old fiddler who -had charmed his lady with his music and won her away from a swarm of -admirers by tricking them with a clever stratagem. It had never occurred -to him in those courting days at the Wayles’ place, The Forest, that he -might likely be catalogued with some of Martha’s other swains as an -ambitious country boy and embryo lawyer set on improving his state by -marrying a rich young widow. He had cared too much for Martha, loving -her, he was arrogantly certain, as no man had ever loved a woman before, -and he had brought her here to this cold little room so confident of her -love and courage that a chill or two did not matter. - -Now he thought back on that snowy ride up from Blenheim, where, because -of the deepening snow, they had been obliged to leave the chaise in -which they had started out from Williamsburg, as well as the warm robes -and blankets with which it had been loaded. There had been a debate, he -remembered now, about whether they should ride on or wait for morning, -but Martha had laughed his misgivings down. - -“I can weather any storm that you can weather, Thomas Jefferson.” - -So saddle horses had been brought, his own tired team stabled, and the -slave who had driven the chaise sent to bed with orders to drive to -Monticello in the morning. Jefferson recalled now his dubious concern -when he discovered that the snow on the mountain road was eighteen -inches deep. - -He had ridden ahead, breaking a track for Martha’s horse, trying to -shield her as best he could from the storm that stung their eyelids and -sifted inside collars and up sleeves. But Martha had been undismayed. -She had shouted jokes at him through the wind, ordering him to wait now -and then while she wiped the snow off her face. Eight miles they had had -to climb, the horses sliding, stumbling, and blowing through the dark -until at last they saw the brick piles and scaffolding of what was to be -their home through the weird snow light. - -Not a light showed, not a feather of smoke lay on the air. Where were -all the black people who should have been there ready to serve them with -warm fires and a hot meal? Jefferson burned with hot angry impatience; -then common sense prevailed. No one could possibly have expected them -home at this hour. It was far past midnight. - -The honeymoon cottage felt a trifle chilly now to his old bones, but on -that January night long ago it had held a tomblike cold. Just as he had -done on that night, now he rummaged the old brass pot beside the hearth, -finding scraps of slivers of kindling, mounding them into a heap under -the logs, struck flint, and fired a bit of bark. The tiny flame wavered -and grew as he blew upon it and coaxed fire to burn, as he had done for -his beloved. Finally it leaped in a bright blaze to the resinous pine -logs and Jefferson dropped into the chair again, trying to vision her -there, shaking the snow off her riding skirt, holding one foot and then -the other near to the blaze while he held her up with a supporting arm. - -They had been very silly that night, he knew now, and was glad of the -gay nonsense that had lightened the beginning for them. Life had been -grim enough afterward. He was happy now to recall the laughter. There -had been a mouse who came calling and Martha had not screamed or leaped -on a chair as his sisters did. Instead, she had waggled her fingers at -the mouse, as it sat upright blinking at them, and had exclaimed, -“Thomas, it has big brown eyes!” - -He had played the fiddle for her then, the same fiddle faithful Jupiter -had saved from the burning ruin of Shadwell. Now, he could not play any -more. Just as well. His music had belonged to people he loved. To -Martha, to Dabney Carr, who had married his sister and been his heart’s -best friend until his untimely death. Dabney Carr lay now out on this -hill, under the oak where they two had sat together while young Thomas -Jefferson blithely planned the place he would have here someday. They -had sworn then that the two of them would both be buried under those -trees. Jefferson had kept that promise. His music had belonged for a -while with his friendship for Patrick Henry, another fiddler and a -blithe and restless spirit, but most especially it had been for Martha. -He had wooed her with that fiddle—their duets had excluded her other -suitors—now it was as well that it would be forever silent, now that -there were no more loved ears to hear. - -Ten years he had had before she faded away, and he had been too much -away from home in those years. First as a member of the rebellious House -of Burgesses that had been peremptorily dissolved by Governor Dunmore. -That assembly had marched off to hold meetings in the tavern and out of -their angry discussions had grown the idea of the Colonial Congress. - -Their first year had brought him his little daughter, the other Martha -who had been promptly called Patsy because there were already two -Marthas, her mother and her aunt, Jefferson’s sister. - -For too much of the time, Jefferson knew now, he had kept to himself -when he was at home, shut away with his books. Out of the works of the -old and new philosophers and historians he had striven to evolve some -plan that could help a troubled America. While hammering went on around -him, as the house of his dreams slowly took form and shape, he had -struggled to put his ideas into words. But the essay he finally evolved -with much labor was called too bold by the members of the assembly. -Then, in that miasmic summer of ’73, the fever had laid him low and his -best friend, Dabney Carr, had died. - -I left her too much alone, he told himself as he watched the fire burn -low. She had been ill so often, weak and sorrowful because of the loss -of three children, two stillborn, while he was off riding for days to -reach Philadelphia, there to have a part in the birth of the new nation. -Now that nation lived, but a part of his life was forever dead and lay -on that grassy slope down the climbing road. - -A loud knock at the door broke off his gloomy reverie. The door was -pushed open and Burwell pushed his head in hesitantly. - -“Mister Tom, it past one o’clock,” the old Negro complained, “and they -got that horse out here waiting for you so long he done pawed a hole -mighty nigh deep enough to bury hisself.” - -“Sorry, Burwell.” Jefferson jumped up. “I was just sitting here thinking -about old times. I’ll ride now as soon as I change my breeches.” - -“Yes, suh, Mister Tom. I done looked everywhere for you. Then I seen -this little bitty smoke comin’ out this yere chimney. Ain’t been nobody -in this little room for a time now ’cept Miss Martha. She fetch the gals -in here to clean it up good before you come home.” - -“There won’t be anybody in here from now on, Burwell. Cover this fire so -it will be safe. This place is too full of ghosts and ghosts are sad -company when you are getting old.” - -“Law, you ain’t old, Mister Tom,” protested the slave, shoveling ashes -carefully over the dying embers. “You peert as a lot of young men. Might -get you a young wife yet. Out in the quarters the people been saying, -now Mister Tom come home for good likely he get him a lady of his own. -Miss Patsy, she a fine woman but she got Mister Tom Randolph and all -them chillen and you ain’t got nobody.” - -“I’ve got you, Burwell. And all the others. They’re all mine.” He took -out the iron key and carefully locked the door. Ghosts, he was thinking, -had so little respect for locks. Even the grim locks a man closed upon -his own heart. - - - - - 4 - - - _Monticello: Late summer, 1809_ - -The house was almost complete now. He had torn away what did not please -him and rebuilt some parts to suit his matured ideas. New white paint -gleamed on the cornices; the square windows in what he had called his -“sky room” on the third floor had been replaced by round and half-round -openings. But now in what he had wished would be a quiet summer he was -plagued by the same hosts that for several years had made George -Washington’s life miserable. - -Too many visitors came to Monticello. They came uninvited to see the man -who had written the Declaration of Independence. They came from miles -away, some on horseback, some in carriages, some even in ox-drawn -wagons. Patsy, who had hoped to return to her own place at Bedford long -enough to see to the preservation of the vegetables and fruits for -winter, abandoned the idea and stayed on with her children. - -“These people, these strangers—what are we to do with them?” she -worried. “Some of them come great distances. They have to be kept for -the night; they must be fed. Your pet steward, Petit, is getting really -fractious, Papa, and I have to keep the people cooking practically night -and day. They look at this handsome house and believe that Thomas -Jefferson is a rich man, that he can afford to entertain them—people -we’ve never seen before and will likely never see again—and, Papa, you -know it isn’t true. You aren’t rich enough to afford housing and feeding -so many. The farms don’t pay as they should, and we are often hard -pressed to feed and clothe our own people.” - -“I know,” he said heavily, “but what is a Virginia gentleman to do? We -cannot turn people away. There is no inn anywhere near where they can -buy food or lodging.” - -“Why not put up some barriers?” suggested young Jefferson Randolph. -“Charge everyone a shilling to come in. We might make enough to pay the -taxes.” - -“A poor joke, my son. We would outrage every tradition of Southern -hospitality. But I do wish that some part of this house that I built for -my family could be private and belong only to us. They invade every -corner without leave or apology. Yesterday they were all over my study. -They wanted to see everything. They even pulled out the drawers in my -desk and turned over some personal papers. And these were people of some -quality too—from Delaware, they said.” - -In the dining room Jefferson had devised a dumb-waiter at either end of -the mantelpiece. These ingenious carriers descended into the basement -close by the wine cellars and were used to bring things up from the cool -rooms below by an easy pull on the rope. Not long since he had found a -man in the dining room fascinated by the device and happily running the -carriers up and down. - -“What do you reckon he’s got this here for?” he demanded of Jefferson. -“Was he fixing a place to hide quick from the Injuns?” - -Courteously Jefferson explained the working of the device. “It has never -talked back in all the years it has been in operation,” he said, “so we -call it a dumb-waiter.” - -“These rich people got it mighty fine,” commented the stranger. “My old -lady took a fancy to that bed he’s got in yonder,” said the intruder -blandly, “one pulls up out of the way in daytime. We only got a two-room -house. Be mighty handy to have one of them there, put the young-uns in -it, and haul ’em out of sight when we get tired of their racket. All -these young-uns ain’t Jefferson’s, I figure? Got quite a passel of ’em -around, ain’t he?” - -“Most of these are my grandchildren—some are nieces and nephews. Are -those your children in there?” Jefferson pointed with some annoyance to -four towheaded youngsters, none of them too clean, who were bouncing up -and down on the tapestried seats of the gilt chairs in the drawing room. - -“Yeh, them’s my brats. Reckon they’re gettin’ kind of hungry. Old lady -said we’d ought to leave ’em home down Culpepper way but I said, No, -this here Thomas Jefferson was the people’s friend, even if he did get -to be president, and they’d ought to git a chance to see him. He around -here any place?” - -“I am Thomas Jefferson,” said the ex-president coolly. “And I suggest -that you educate your children to have respect for the property of other -people, sir. Those chairs they are jumping about on were brought all the -way from France.” - -The stranger stared incredulously at the elderly figure before him. -Shabby old brown coat. Faded velveteen breeches. Home-knit hose that -showed signs of much mending, and, most unbelievable of all, a pair of -old run-down carpet slippers. - -“Law, sir!” he exclaimed. “I took you for a butler or a footman or -something. You, Caleb and Beulah! Get away from them fancy cheers. Git -outside, all you-uns, and go sit in the wagon.” - -Dreadful as some of them were, they could not be sent away hungry. Food -that should have been sent to market to provide money for the family -expenses, these visitors ate and ate like locusts. Patsy rebelled at -using the beautiful Chippendale table that had been given Jefferson by -his old friend and teacher, George Wythe of Williamsburg. So trestle -tables were set up in the warming kitchens in the basement and picnic -hampers passed about by servants on the lawn on fine days. A few -important and genteel groups were dined in the big dining room, but -there were often too many of those. All those letters that her father -wrote, she thought impatiently, probably half of them were invitations -to people in Philadelphia or Washington or New York to come to -Monticello for long visits. - -“Where shall I sleep thirty-one people?” she worried, on a July night. -“And, Papa, we had better plan on having a lot more linen woven right -away. The woman washed fifty sheets yesterday. They’ll wear out fast at -that rate.” - -Jefferson sighed. “I came home to find peace and there is no peace. What -have I done in my past, my dear, that such hordes of admirers should -descend upon me? I’ve been a very ordinary fellow. I’ve always been -homely, ungainly, entirely unprepossessing. No one was more surprised -than I when your mother agreed to marry me. There she was—a beautiful -and gracious woman with a fortune of her own—and I a struggling young -lawyer, a long-legged shide-poke of a fellow, freckled and coarse-maned -as a lion, with no grace except that I could fiddle. And you know I was -an unpopular president. The number of them that hated me was legion.” - -“Not the good plain people. Not these people who come up here in old -carts or riding raw-boned nags just to get a glimpse of Thomas -Jefferson, champion of the people,” his daughter said. “Two words of -yours will never die in their ears: ‘Free and Equal.’ And because you -made them feel free and equal, they come to see you—in droves!” - -“I haven’t slept in my own bed all summer,” complained Ann, the oldest -daughter. “I’ve slept on hard pallets laid down on the floor till all my -bones are worn raw.” - -“The worst is the curious women—the young ones,” said Ellen. “They open -our wardrobes and finger our clothes. They even open drawers and jewel -boxes. We should have locks on everything, Grandfather. One girl from -away down on the Eastern Shore asked me to give her my chip-straw -bonnet. The one Mrs. Adams sent me last summer. She said we were all -rich and her folks were terribly poor and she hadn’t a decent bonnet to -get married in because they were fishermen and the run of shad had been -bad this year.” - -“You could have given her the bonnet, Ellen. I would have bought you -another one,” said her grandfather. - -And gone in debt for it, thought his daughter, with a tinge of -exasperation—when he had so many debts already! - -Jefferson put his arms about his granddaughters. “Soon, my dears, there -will come a frost and deep snows and sleet and the roads will become -difficult or impassable. Then nobody will come to see us and you will be -moping around the house because you are bored and lonely.” - -“Ann won’t,” declared her sister, “not if young Mister Bankhead has a -horse long-legged enough to wade the drifts.” - -“And you,” flashed back her sister, “will be primping and ordering all -the servants and the children about in case young Mister Coolidge should -decide to come riding down the road.” - -“Mother says I’m too young,” sighed Ellen, “but you know, Grandfather, -that fourteen isn’t terribly young. Why, mother was only seventeen when -she married.” - -“And look what happened to me!” cried her mother. “Six of you great -greedy daughters, all clamoring that you should have beaux before you -are out of pinafores.” - -“When you are seventeen, Ellen,” Jefferson assured the girl, “I -personally shall dispatch a very polite invitation to young Mister -Coolidge, whoever he is, to come calling at Monticello.” - -“He won’t want to come then. He’ll think I’m an old maid and I will be! -He’ll be looking for somebody young and fresh like Virginia.” - -“Hah! I wouldn’t look at him,” sniffed redheaded Virginia, who had a -crop of bright coppery freckles like her grandfather. “By the time he’s -an old man he’ll be fat as a pig and probably grunt when he moves and -squeal when he’s fed.” - -“He will not!” flared Ellen. “Anyway you’re just jealous. She doesn’t -like having red hair, Grandfather, and she hates every one of us who -haven’t got it.” - -“Why, I have red hair and I’m very proud of it!” he exclaimed. “Shame on -you all for quarreling among yourselves. I used to have a wise old -friend named Benjamin Franklin—” - -“We know about him. You told us before.” - -“We know what he said too,” put in Ellen patiently. “If we don’t hang -together we may all hang separately.” Definitely, she was thinking, -grandfather could at times be a bit tiresome. “And a penny saved is a -penny earned.” - -“But not one of us ever sees a penny!” - -“A sad situation,” remarked Jefferson, rummaging through the pocket of -his worn old green breeches. “Ah, I do seem to have a few pennies. Let -me count. There must be one apiece. Now”—he announced as he laid a coin -in each warm eager palm—“you have each the foundation for a fortune. -Guard it well, for there are long years ahead of you.” - -The years ahead of them! Thinking of those years brought back the old -touch of anxiety. What would he be able to do for them, for these young -things, born of his blood, hostages to fortune? - -“He who watches the pence need not be anxious about the pounds,” he -quoted more of his old friend Franklin, dubiously aware that his -audience were no longer listening. Slowly he walked back to his study, -turning to close the door almost in the face of a man who escorted three -women. - -“I am sorry, sir,” Jefferson said as the three stared indignantly. “I am -Thomas Jefferson. You are very welcome in my house but at this moment I -must beg to be excused and be about some urgent business.” And he turned -the key in the lock. - -The letter lay in the drawer where he had left it. He took it out, -lifted the seal again, and let the single sheet slide out into his hand. - -It was a very brief and slightly curt note from a Philadelphia banker. A -friend for whom Jefferson had felt a sudden compassion and whom he had -trusted had abruptly gone bankrupt. The note Jefferson had endorsed for -this friend, with the hope of helping him recoup his fortunes, was now -long overdue, unpaid and collectible; since Mr. Jefferson had put his -personal endorsement upon the paper he was now legally assumed to be -liable for the full amount of payment. - -The note was drawn for twenty thousand dollars. - - - - - 5 - - - _Monticello: Autumn, 1809_ - -With a frantic kind of energy that early autumn, Jefferson forsook his -books and set himself to the job of assaying and recuperating his own -personal estate. During his long absences, Thomas Randolph, and his son, -young Jefferson after him, had done their best by the vast property—the -acres about Monticello, and the farm, Poplar Grove, a few miles away. -But many fields had been neglected and weeds and brush had taken over; -the slaves, having no firm master, had learned to shirk tasks cleverly -and leave much undone. - -Thomas Jefferson had never been a harsh master, but now he became a -stern and demanding one. Nails must be made and bricks burned, both for -his own building plans and for sale in the market. His French friend, Du -Pont de Nemours, on his last visit had brought him a small flock of -merino sheep. Jefferson enjoyed supervising the shearing of these sheep, -and the washing of the wool, and watched the carding, spinning, and -weaving going on under Martha’s supervision. He decided to have a suit -of clothes made from his own fine woolen cloth and busied himself -drawing patterns, measuring, and figuring for days. - -The wrist that had been broken in Paris had never been properly set, and -he found using drawing tools and writing letters more and more of a -painful chore. And always he was interrupted by guests. Some he had -invited, regretting later his hospitable impulse, but the uninvited -continued to find their way up the winding road to his mountain. - -He must, he determined, have a place that was his own where he could -study and work undisturbed either by the family or by these strangers, -most of whom he was certain had only one desire—to be able to go home -and boast that they had seen the great Thomas Jefferson and the fabulous -house he had created. - -He would have a study built at the far end of the north promenade -immediately. So promptly he set about having seasoned lumber hauled from -the sawmill, bricks burned, and nails and hardware forged in the smithy. -He spent a day drawing a plan for a small, one-room building. - -Meanwhile he found an opportunity occasionally to slip away with one or -two grandchildren for a brief stay at Poplar Grove, his farm, where he -could have a little quiet and relaxation. But always an impelling -urgency drove him. He must write letters. He must counsel James Madison -about whether or not it would be wise to keep America out of war, with -conflicts raging all over Europe. Napoleon was running wild and perhaps -the British should be left alone to contain and subdue him. - -He must write, too, to his old friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, and -invite him to Monticello for a visit. Lafayette had been in prison, and -suffered hardships and loss of fortune. The debt America owed Lafayette -had never been paid, and, to Jefferson’s mind, had never been adequately -acknowledged, and he felt responsibility to prod the consciences of men -in power to do something about that. All these ideas possessed him, then -at times were diminished by a kind of inner irony. Who was he, to be so -concerned about a debt owed to any man when he himself was likely faced -with a weight of debts he had not yet had the courage to calculate? - -Some time soon when his private lair was completed he must sit down for -a day or a week and put all his books and accounts in order. It was a -kind of cowardice in him, he knew, that put off the reckoning from one -day to another. - -Meanwhile his new wool suit was finished and he was more pleased than -ever with the fineness of the material. With the coming of winter, -Martha had taken her own brood back to their plantation, but when she -returned for a brief visit Jefferson dressed up in his new clothes and -paraded before her, grinning like a happy boy. - -Martha gave a little surprise shriek. “Papa! Pantaloons! I never would -have believed you would give up those old knee breeches and long -stockings.” - -“They’re warmer,” Jefferson turned and posed naively, “and the London -papers that still come through in spite of the embargo say that they are -the new style in England. Jemmy Madison wrote that he had a pair -made—black broadcloth. Every hair and bit of lint sticks to that stuff. -I’m sending Jemmy enough of this goods to have himself a suit made. With -the president wearing it, we might be able to sell more in Washington. -Some friends who were here last week said the cloth was better than the -finest wool that comes from England.” - -“It will certainly help if you can find a new product to market. All -these visitors this summer devoured so much of our substance that should -have gone for ready money, and money, Papa, is what you need badly, as -I’m sure you know.” - -“Too well, Patsy. Too well! I’m admitting now to you what you must have -surmised or suspected for a long time. I am a fine farmer on paper. I’ve -been full of wonderful plans and theories, and on paper they looked fine -and profitable, but somehow they have all failed to pay off in cash. All -those vineyards and olive groves I planted so hopefully—I have just -compelled myself to compute the cost and returns on that venture. The -whole project adds up to a substantial loss.” - -“And because of this trouble with the shipping your wheat is mildewing -in the bins because it can’t be shipped to market,” she reminded him. - -“And across the ocean people in need of bread are starving,” he added -sorrowfully. “If there were any way to give the stuff away to those who -suffer for lack of it—but alas, there is none!” - -The people, always the people, thought his daughter. A world full of -people, and if he had his way he would free and feed all of them. In the -meantime he was dubious about spending the money for a new pair of -spectacles, but bent close to his desk peering through an old pair that -had one bow mended with black thread stiffened with glue. - -“You’d better have a new cushion in that old chair, Papa,” she -suggested. “If you sit on that thin one in those wool breeches, they’ll -be worn to a shine and show thin spots mighty quickly. I’ll tell one of -the women to stitch up a stout canvas cover and stuff it with plenty of -feathers.” She moved to the high window and looked off across the hill. -“Those mountains look like winter,” she observed. “In spring and summer -a blue haze makes them dim and far and restful to look at, but in winter -their crests stand out sharp and blue and cold and a bit hostile. I hope -you’ve had plenty of wood cut and piled. You’ll need big fires, -especially if everyone comes home for Christmas.” - -He frowned a little, looked startled. “Christmas?” he repeated. “Is it -near—and is it so important?” - -She drew back a little. “Of course it’s important! Don’t tell me, Papa, -that those people who called you Jefferson the Infidel had any truth to -back up their accusations? Don’t tell me that you don’t believe that the -Son of God was born on Christmas day and that it is a holy day to be -remembered?” - -“I am not an infidel,” he said soberly. “I have never denied the -existence and the power of God. And I have studied extensively the -sayings of Jesus. I have also never discovered in all my reading any -proof that he was born on the twenty-fifth of December—especially as the -calendar has been changed several times since the period began that men -call Anno Domini.” - -“It is the day the Church sets apart as a holy day. For me, Papa, and -for my children, that’s enough,” said Martha a bit tartly. “Surely there -have been times when Christmas was important in your life, though you’ve -been at home so little?” - -“Oh, yes.” He was quick to try to mollify her. Patsy in an acid mood, he -remembered, could be a trifle difficult. “I remember times at Shadwell -when my mother was alive. And before my father died there was always -some kind of feasting, a goose saved and fattened and a fat pig killed -for the Negroes, and mother usually had suckets of some sort for the -young ones and opened her best brandied peaches and preserves.” - -“I remember when Mama was alive,” she looked off pensively into the -lonely blue of the hills, “we had one Christmas. The people brought in -holly and you mixed punch in a big bowl and people came, unless the snow -was too deep. And once I remember you took my mother to church, but she -came home unhappy because you stood outside and talked politics all -through the service. But after that you were seldom at home.” - -“I made her unhappy too often,” he reproached himself. “I was trying to -help build a nation, Patsy. We were living in perilous times. Why, you -must remember the war—when Tarleton came to Monticello? I rode sixty -miles in one night to get here in time to get you all safely away from -the British dragoons.” - -“I was five. I remember. Aunt Martha Carr was here with her boys and we -were all piled into the chaise, with some of the servants sitting on -behind with their legs dangling and old Jupiter lashing the horses to a -gallop. Mother cried because she was sure they would capture you and -burn the house down. She said that if Tarleton could capture the man who -wrote the Declaration of Independence, the king would make him a -general.” - -“Not to speak boastfully, that likely was true. But he didn’t capture me -nor burn the house. Instead Captain McLeod made himself very comfortable -in it for two days, while poor old black Caesar was hidden under the -planks of the portico, where he had crawled to hide all our silver. He -had pried up the floor and dropped down under, and black Martin saw some -horsemen galloping up the drive and dropped the planks back, and there -was faithful old Caesar underneath, hungry and scared for two days.” - -“I remember hearing about it,” said Martha, “and about the soldier who -pushed a gun into Martin’s face and ordered him to tell which way you -had gone or he would shoot. Martin said, ‘Go ahead, shoot!’ And after -that he never got tired of telling it. But, Papa, we were supposed to be -talking about Christmas!” - -How could he make himself clear to her, how could he explain to his -literal downright-minded daughter, that harried and anxious Thomas -Jefferson had been turned away by destiny from all the simple folkways -and beliefs? From all the prosaic and ordinary things that were good and -dedicated to wholesome living into a world of desperate struggle, -intrigue, cabal, tragedy, and strife? - -Now that he was becalmed in this quiet backwater of life he could see -his own career and know that it had been always headlong, more than a -little frenzied, and too much of it precipitate and unpredictable and -little under his own control—and in that chaotic whirling by of history -there had been too little time for a man to meditate and even assay his -own beliefs. - -“I,” he said, “have lived, Patsy, like a man snatched up by a whirlwind. -That is why I am so disassociated from simple things like celebrating -Christmas. Give me time to adjust and learn the value of things. You -know that I do not even yet fit smoothly into the rhythms of life, even -here at Monticello. I still want to alter and tear down and rebuild and -that distresses you; but I am trying, my dear—I am sincerely trying. -Ultimately I shall learn to be a quiescent ancient, grateful for a -fireside and an easy chair. And if you wish to celebrate Christmas, by -all means let us celebrate Christmas. Shall we have a great house full -of guests and much feasting and merrymaking?” - -“Oh, no!” she lifted both hands. “Papa, you know you can’t afford it!” - -He laughed. “And how are we to celebrate if we lack the proper materials -and incentive? Shall we merely hang the holly high and slaughter the -goose and carol a few stanzas under the mistletoe?” - -“Do you realize, sir,” she faced him sternly, “that you have not spent a -Christmas day in this house since I was a little girl?” - -“You have kept count all these years?” - -“I have kept count. And so has every one at Monticello. You owe -something to Monticello in my opinion.” - -“Then by all means, that is one debt that I shall pay,” he smiled, -letting his long, thin lips relax, and his voice sink to a caressing -murmur. “Plan it all, Daughter. Plan it all well and then simply tell -your old father what it is that you want him to do.” - - - - - 6 - - - _Monticello: Christmas, 1809_ - -Of all the people on Jefferson’s Little Mountain, old Burwell was -happiest in those lowering, chilly December days. - -This, the old man orated happily in the servant’s quarters below stairs, -was the way things ought to be on a gentleman’s estate in Virginia. -Plenty of cider cooling ready to be sent posthaste up to the dining -room, riding Mister Tom’s dumb-waiter. Women running up and down the -steep, narrow curving stairways at either end of the house carrying -pitchers of hot water and clean sheets, and heating irons in the rooms -below to press voluminous dresses for the young misses. Trula, the -laundress, kept a whole row of sadirons heating on the hearth of her -little brick-floored room, and in the warming kitchens were rows of -clean scrubbed bricks heating too, ready to be wrapped in flannel and -carried upstairs should some members of the family find the clean linen -sheets too icy for their feet. - -Mr. Jack Eppes had come riding up from Eppington, bringing a haunch of -venison that he had hung for days to tender it, and now it was turning -slowly on a great iron spit, with a half-grown Negro boy sitting by with -a mop of clean lint to dip into melted fat and wine vinegar whenever the -meat needed basting. For days the service yard had been full of -squawkings and drifting feathers as the women killed and dressed turkeys -and geese. A fat ham simmered, and plump plum puddings boiled and -bubbled, with sauce being beaten up in earthen bowls. - -“This here now,” stated Burwell, pompously, “is going to be a -sure-enough Christmas.” - -All the fine china had been taken down from the cupboards and washed, -and every wineglass on the place rubbed to a shine. Burwell himself had -polished the silver, not trusting any other servant to that special task -because Mister Tom wanted things right when he took a fancy notion. -Right now he had the notion and had it through and through. - -Cayce, the new young body servant Burwell was training, was pressing his -master’s new wool pantaloons and the old Negro stood by, supervising and -grumbling. - -“Old times in Washington,” he declared, “Mister Tom wouldn’t be seen in -old plain long-leg breeches like them there. Up there we got him up all -dandified in white satin knee breeches and long silk stockings and a -swingy-tail coat. Ruffles all starched.—Boy, did he strut! ‘Mister -President!’ everybody say, and bow, and some ladies scrooch way down -till they petticoats lay all out on the floor. Won’t see no more times -like that. But anyhow, we puttin’ the big pot in the little one, this -Christmas.” - -“He got Dely ironing a ruffled shirt right now,” insisted Cayce, “but he -say he ain’t wearin’ no buckle shoes. They hurt his feet. Dunno how I -git them old slippers off’n him, but Miss Patsy say I got it to do.” - -The young Randolphs and Carrs and Francis Eppes, all red-cheeked and -excited, were running in and out of the house, lugging in branches of -cedar and pine and holly, scattering needles and berries and trash over -the shining floors so that two women had to follow around with brooms -and mops to shine up to suit Miss Patsy. But in the library, where a -great fire burned under the mirrored mantel and bookshelves mounted to -the ceiling on every wall, Thomas Jefferson sat in his revolving chair -and looked long into the gold and scarlet leap of the flames. - -His thin legs were clothed in a disreputable old pair of homemade -linsey-woolsey breeches, his woolen stockings sagging around his ankles. -His daughter looked at him and sighed, forbearing to nag at him, since -he had promised to be properly and elegantly dressed for the Christmas -dinner. - -“I wish he’d dress up,” she murmured to her daughter, Ann. “Aunt Anna -will be driving in soon and whenever he looks shabby and uncared for, -Aunt Anna always looks at me as though it were my fault.” - -“Let him be,” urged Ann. “He’s old, Mother, and tired and he has earned -the right to do as he pleases in his own house. At least he is letting -us have a real Christmas, so maybe people will stop saying Thomas -Jefferson is a great man but that he is also a heathen.” - -“Do they say things like that, Ann?” asked her mother anxiously. “Surely -not.” - -“I’ve heard them. So has Jeff. So I asked him straightway this morning, -‘Grandfather, do you really believe in God?’” - -“And what did he answer?” - -“He didn’t speak at all till he had taken me by the arm and led me over -to that long window. Then he pointed at the far mountains and there was -a cloud lying on top with a little touch of sun like gold shining over -it. ‘Did any man make that?’ he asked me. Then he went back to his book -again and never looked up.” - -“At least you have your answer. Daughter, a great man is like a pillar -that stands a little higher than the commonalty. There is always an itch -in the crowd of lesser humanity to throw rocks and mud at it. It was the -new laws he wrote for Virginia that started that infidel canard. The law -freed the people of the state from being taxed to support the Church. It -left them free to worship and pay tithes where they pleased, and -naturally the bishops and other clergy resented it. So the story was -circulated that Thomas Jefferson had no religion, and to my knowledge he -has never spoken one word to refute that libel.” - -“He disdained to answer it, Mother. He knew what he was and what he -believed and to his mind it was no concern of any one else. He was -Jefferson who belonged to the people, but what was in his heart and mind -belonged only to himself. Now, at Monticello, he belongs to himself and -he is just learning how to live with himself.” - -Martha sighed as she bent to rescue a falling pine cone that had -shattered down on the hearth. “The children haven’t secured these -wreaths very well,” she remarked, “and that one in the drawing room is -hung too low. The fire will dry it out and it might begin to burn. I’ll -tell Burwell to do something about it. Ever since Shadwell burned before -ever father was married, he has been uneasy about fire. He lost all his -precious books and papers then and nothing was saved but his fiddle.” - -“I wish he’d play again,” sighed Ann. “I’ve never heard him since I was -very small.” - -“He and my mother played together constantly,” Martha said. “When you -grow older memories sharpen and sometimes they hurt. I doubt if he will -ever play again. He made both Polly and me learn to play in France, but -after we came home again we could never persuade him to play with us. He -said we couldn’t keep time like Mama, but I knew even then that he -couldn’t bear to remember.” - -“What was she like, Mother—your mama?” - -“Slender and lovely—and she held herself proudly. But in the years I -remember she had children too fast and she was ill and weak a great deal -of the time. And Polly inherited her frailty and faded away so very -young. I’m glad you are all stout and healthy,” said her mother. - -“Ellen is letting herself get fat. She eats too many sweets and won’t -walk ten steps if she can help it. I scold her all the time. Ellen could -be pretty, if she doesn’t ruin her face with too many chins.” - -“Don’t be critical of your sisters.—Ah, here’s Aunt Anna’s carriage now. -Do run and call Cayce and tell him to replenish the fire in the south -bedroom. Aunt Anna has refused to climb our crooked stairs for years.” -Martha hurried away to welcome Thomas Jefferson’s sister and led her -into the library. “Papa, here’s Aunt Anna!” - -Jefferson came forward, his hands outstretched. He loved this younger -sister and pulled her down into a deep chair without giving her time to -take off her bonnet. - -“Toast your feet,” he ordered. “I know how this first cold gets into old -bones.” - -“Old?” she laughed. “Since when did you decide to be old, Tom Jefferson? -You’ll be hammering up things on this hill twenty years from now.—Well, -Randolph wouldn’t come,” she went on in a tone of disgust. “Only twenty -miles and he said it was too hard a trip in cold weather. That’s your -only brother for you, Tom. How long since you have seen him?” - -“Two years,” Jefferson pulled a chair up beside her. “He came over and -brought me a cask of young carp for my fish pond. He stayed one night.” - -“Uncle Randolph said he couldn’t sleep,” put in young Jefferson. “He -said he was expecting every minute that his bed would go crashing up -against the ceiling.” - -“Tom and his tinkering.” She had a hearty laugh. “Well, my bed will have -a stout chore to do if it hoists me to the ceiling tonight. For Heavens’ -sake, Tom, get yourself elected governor again so we can have some -decent roads in Virginia. Even on that turnpike the mud was hub deep and -my horses traveled grunting like oxen. But if you do get elected, Tom,” -she gave him an amiable prod with her knuckles, “get yourself a haircut! -What’s the matter with Burwell? Has old age caught up with him too?” - -“We’ll arrange to be barbered up beautifully this afternoon,” Jefferson -assured her. “The people have all been busy. They are bound this shall -be the most elaborate Christmas ever celebrated in Albemarle County.” - -“Time there was some life in this house,” she said bluntly. “One thing -you must never do is shut yourself up here like a hermit. He will, -Patsy, unless you keep after him. He’ll read ten thousand books and -never know his stockings are bagging down around his ankles.” - -“Papa,” began Martha, hesitantly, “there’s a Christmas Eve service at -the church tonight. It’s not snowing—and it’s only three miles. Would -you go, Papa?” - -He looked up at her with a direct, searching look. “What are you -thinking, Patsy? Though I think I can read it in your face. You think it -would have made her happy. Very well. Order the chaise around—but, as -for me, I shall ride Eagle. I’ll go to church with you.” - -“How people will stare!” whispered Ellen, in their room as the girls -dressed for supper. “Nobody will even look at the minister.” - -“Grandfather won’t even know they are staring,” declared Cornelia. “He’s -been stared at with bands playing and soldiers standing at attention.” - -“Grandfather,” remarked Ann, “is as aloof and untouchable as one of -those mountains out there.” - -“But people love him. Look how they swarmed over this place all summer.” - -“Have you noticed how low and gently he speaks lately? Even to the -servants, some of the stupidest ones, he never raises his voice. And -they scramble like anything to do what he wants done.” - -“It’s because he knows he is great and famous. Like the mountains. They -know they are going to be there forever and nothing can ever destroy -them. Greatness, real greatness, is always simple,” insisted Ann. - -There was the fragrance of evergreens and of many candles burning in the -church and a feebly burning wood fire strove to take a bit of the chill -off the place. Martha wrapped her heavy cloak around her knees, then -lifted a fold of it and spread it over her father’s thin legs as he sat, -stiffly upright beside her on the hard pew. There was a silence as the -minister came in, his vestment and stole very white in the dim light. -Then in the gallery high at the back came a humming, and the slaves -seated there began singing, low at first, then higher and clearer, rich -deep harmony filling the raftered spaces above where candle smoke softly -drifted. - - _Who got weary? Christmas day! Christmas day! - Oh, no, Lawd! Ain’t nobody weary. Nobody weary Christmas day!_ - -Thomas Jefferson gripped his daughter’s hand hard. “She sang that,” he -whispered. “She liked that song.” - -The age-old words rang out: “And there were in the same country -shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. -And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord -shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.” - -Martha Randolph saw her father’s lips moving. Was he praying? No, his -eyes were not cast down and there was no humility in the set of his -shoulders. He was looking straight ahead and upward, into the high lift -of the ceiling above the chancel where a round window framed an -indigo-dark circle of the sky. She caught the faint whisper from his -lips. - -“I am here,” he was saying to some vision unseen, “I am here, beloved.” - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - -—Silently corrected a few typos. - -—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook - is public-domain in the country of publication. - -—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by - _underscores_. - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS AT MONTICELLO WITH THOMAS -JEFFERSON *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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