Jefferson's Sons

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  “You going to tell them about me?” Maddy asked. “You going to wear a silk dress when you bring them to visit me?”

  Harriet’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t,” she said. “I can’t help that you’re—I can’t help it, that’s all.”

  Beverly got up. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said to Maddy.

  Maddy ignored him. “You could stay,” Maddy said to Harriet. “You and Beverly. You could stay.”

  “Would you?” Harriet asked. She was angry now; her eyes flashed the way Mama’s did. “Would you stay if you had a choice? You think this is easy! Would you stay?”

  “It’s not easy,” said Maddy. “But maybe I would.”

  “Liar,” said Harriet.

  “Maddy.” Beverly had him by the arm now. He hustled Maddy out the door, calling, “We’ll be back, Mama, don’t worry,” over his shoulder.

  “I’ll be back,” Maddy muttered. “I don’t have a choice.”

  Beverly gripped his arm until they were almost to the orchards, to where a pile of big rocks stood by a half-built stone wall. “Here,” said Beverly. He picked up a rock with both hands. “Heave it. Far as you can.”

  Maddy took the rock. He threw it over his head as hard as he could. The rock crashed against the base of the wall.

  “Good,” said Beverly. “Here’s another.”

  Maddy threw it. He threw rocks until his arm muscles trembled, until a film of sweat covered his body and his breath came ragged.

  “Better?” asked Beverly.

  Maddy nodded.

  “Good,” said Beverly. “Let’s get back before Mama leaves, so she knows you’re all right.”

  “Okay,” said Maddy. His voice sounded hoarse.

  “You need to throw rocks, you throw actual rocks, okay? Don’t throw words at Harriet. It’s not her fault.” He looked at Maddy. “I hope you’ve got enough sense that in her shoes or mine you’d do the same. We’ve got to think of the children we might have. We’ve got to do what’s best for them. You hear me?”

  “I guess,” said Maddy.

  “If Harriet died tomorrow, you’d be sorry your last words to her were angry.”

  Maddy shrugged.

  Beverly sighed. “We won’t forget you, Maddy. How could we? We never will.” After a pause he added, “We’ll be able to write to each other, since you taught us all to read.”

  “Will you write to me?”

  Beverly reached for Maddy’s hand. “I will. I promise.”

  Maddy went through and through the primer. It had so many words, easy and hard, so many he could read out loud but didn’t understand. Embellish, transcendent, luminary, apocalypse. “Embellish,” Mama said. “That means to make fancy. You might embellish your shirt with some lace.”

  “I might not,” Maddy said.

  “Transcendent,” Beverly said. “Sounds like transcend, right? So you got to figure it means something that rises.”

  “Huh,” Maddy said.

  “Luminary means full of light,” Miss Ellen said, when Maddy caught up with her as she was walking to the kitchen. She gave him a sideways glance. “You don’t really need to know the big words. Most people use little ones most of the time.”

  “I like big words,” Maddy said. “I like to teach them to Beverly.”

  Apocalypse. “I know that one,” Uncle John said, to Maddy’s surprise. “That’s in the Bible, it means the end of world.”

  “You’ve got a Bible?” Maddy asked. He knew Uncle John could read, and write too: Uncle John sometimes wrote to Master Jefferson when Master Jefferson was away.

  Uncle John shook his head. “I go down to Charlottesville sometimes on a Sunday, listen to a preacher there. He reads passages out of the Bible. There’s a part called the Apocalypse.”

  Maddy nodded. He knew some about the Bible, but not much. Preachers didn’t come to the top of the mountain. “Apocalypse,” he said. “So, when’s that going to be?”

  “No one knows,” Uncle John said cheerfully. “No one knows the day nor yet the hour. Got to stay ready. That’s what they say.”

  “That’s what James says,” Maddy said. “That’s what he says his daddy says.”

  Uncle John nodded. “No flies on Joe Fossett,” he said.

  “Does apocalypse mean what it’s going to be like when Master Jefferson dies?” asked Maddy.

  Uncle John gave him a sidelong look. “What makes you think that?”

  “Money, I guess,” Maddy said. “Everybody talks about money. But worry too.”

  Uncle John took a deep breath. “Most people wouldn’t say so,” he said. “But I don’t know, you could be right.”

  1815

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Peter Fossett

  The money problems finally got so bad that Master Jefferson sold all his books to the government. The Library of Congress had been destroyed during the war with the British. Master Jefferson offered the government his own books as its replacement.

  He had thousands, filling shelves all over the great house. Mama said he loved books like most folks loved children. People in Charlottesville said that giving up his books proved Master Jefferson was a great man.

  “He might be a great man,” Burwell said, down in the kitchen, “but he’s not doing it for nothing.” Burwell said the government was paying more than twenty thousand dollars for the books—more than all the Monticello farms together could earn in five good years.

  With money on hand, Miss Martha laughed more often. Master Jefferson bought another wagonload of wine. He drew up improvements for his house at Poplar Forest, and spoke of buying new carriage horses.

  “How long will this book money last?” asked Maddy.

  Mama glared at him. “That’s not our business,” she said. Then she sighed, and added, “You’d think it’d last forever, money like that. But I doubt it will.”

  Maddy wanted to ask if twenty thousand dollars was enough to buy the field hands decent socks, but the look on Mama’s face kept him silent.

  Miss Edith was pregnant; as summer came on her belly grew round and firm like a watermelon. One morning when Maddy came into the kitchen, he found James with his ear pressed against his mother’s side. “I’m listening to the baby,” James said, grinning at Maddy. “I’ve been telling him, he’s got to grow big and strong, so we can take on all the girls in this family. He’s saying, ‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir, I’m a big boy, and I’m ready!’”

  Miss Edith laughed. “Not quite ready,” she said. “But soon.”

  “You can tell it’s a boy,” James said. “The midwife said so,’cause Mama’s carrying him high.”

  Maria, James’s oldest sister, gave him a cross look. “High means a girl,” she said. “It’s low for a boy.”

  “That’s not what she said,” argued James.

  “It is,” said Miss Edith.

  “Well, then, you must be carrying him low,” said James, “because I know that’s a boy.”

  Maria laughed. “What do you think, Maddy?”

  “Of course it’s a boy,” Maddy said. “Anybody can see that.”

  Later James said, “You’re lucky, Maddy. Two brothers and only one girl.” They had tried to get away fishing, but Wormley had seen them and put them to work weeding the vegetable garden.

  “Harriet’s all right,” Maddy said. He dug into the soil to pull out a thistle by its roots. “Just bossy sometimes. She tells good stories.”

  “All girls are bossy.” James sighed. “You’d think mine would have to listen to me, since I’m oldest, but they don’t.”

  “Eston doesn’t listen to me either,” Maddy said. “He’s probably the bossiest of us all.” He looked around. “I wonder where he’s run off to. He could weed.”

  “Probably playing his fiddle.”

  “If I hear that fiddle,” Maddy said, “I’m going to go track him down. He can work.” Maddy looked around. The garden was enormous; they could weed all day and not be done.

  “Anyway,” James said, “you’
re lucky.”

  Maddy carried a bushel of weeds to the dump pile and came back. “They’ll all be white, and leave me,” he said. “You were right. I can’t pass.”

  James looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. After a while he blew out his breath. “You get to be free,” he said.

  “So Mama says,” Maddy said. “Harriet and Beverly, they believe her.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Anything could happen,” Maddy said. Wormley walked by, and Maddy and James bent to their work. When he was gone Maddy said, “I worry that it’s always going to be different for me.”

  Two weeks later Maddy woke in the dark to the noise of someone pounding on their door. He sat up, quick. Pale streaks of dawn showed around the edges of the shutters. Beverly opened the door, since Mama was still at the great house.

  Joe Fossett stood with his arms around his little girls and James beside him. “Edith’s time has come,” Joe Fossett said. “Davy’s gone for the midwife.”

  “Out of bed, Maddy,” Harriet said, kicking him. “Eston, you too.” She called to the girls, Maria, Patsy, and Betsy-Ann, to come under the covers with her. “We can go back to sleep,” Harriet said.

  “We aren’t sleepy,” protested Patsy.

  Maddy got out of bed. He grinned at James. James grinned back. Beverly poked the dead ashes in the fireplace. “You want something to eat?” he asked Joe Fossett.

  “I do,” Maria called, from the bed.

  Maddy watched Beverly look around. Of course they didn’t have anything to eat. Mama didn’t let them keep food in the room: It attracted mice. “How about something to drink?” Beverly said. “I got water.”

  Joe laughed. “Just keep them out of trouble, Beverly,” he said. “Fanny’ll get the fire going in the kitchen and you all can get something to eat in a bit. I’m going to sit with Edith ’til the midwife comes.”

  “We got to keep you out of trouble,” Maddy said to James, when Joe had gone.

  “Going to be hard to do,” James said. “You might have to tie me down.” He paced the length of the room twice, then sat on the chair and twiddled his fingers.

  “We might,” Beverly said. “Don’t be nervous. Your mama’s used to babies.”

  “I don’t want another girl,” James said, glancing sideways at his sisters.

  “We do,” said Maria, and Patsy said, “So there.”

  At dawn Harriet and Beverly went off to work like always. “What are we supposed to do?” Maddy asked before they left.

  “What do you usually do?” Harriet said. “Use your head, Maddy. You’re not the one having the baby, you don’t have to do anything special.”

  Maddy felt like he did. Maria was a big girl, eight years old, and usually she watched Patsy and Betsy-Ann, but usually Miss Edith was in the kitchen making breakfast, and it felt strange to know she was having a baby instead. “Do we go eat?” he asked James.

  “Might as well,” James said.

  Eston grabbed Maddy’s hand. “I’m hungry.”

  The door to the Fossetts’ room stood propped open, and as they walked past it Maddy could hear the midwife talking to Miss Edith inside. He carefully looked the other way. So did James and Eston. None of them wanted to see a baby half-born. The girls stopped and waved, and tried to go in and talk to their mother, but James pushed them into the kitchen.

  Fanny had hot corn cakes ready, and milk to drink. “You all ought to go somewhere else,” she said. “You’re already fidgety. Babies take a long time.”

  James shook his head. “Not this one.” He wiped the milk off his upper lip with the back of his hand.

  Fanny laughed at him. “How would you know?”

  “I’ve got a feeling.” James grinned. “My brother’s in a hurry, he’s coming fast.”

  At that exact second the baby screamed. It was a long, loud, angry wail, as though the baby had not wanted to be born. Maddy and Eston and James and Maria all threw down their plates and jumped up, quick, but Fanny moved faster. She barred the door with her wooden spoon. “You are not going anywhere,” she said. “You will sit on that bench until I say so. Your mother does not want an audience yet.”

  They sat. Maddy’s mama came in, and kissed and hugged them all around. “The baby just yelled,” Maddy said. “It’s born.”

  Mama’s eyes were sparkling. “I know,” she said. “I took a little look at it. The midwife’s got to clean it up, and then clean up Miss Edith.”

  “I told them to sit until I said so,” Fanny said.

  “Good,” said Mama.

  “Boy or girl?” asked James.

  Mama’s eyes sparkled more. “I’ll let your mama tell you,” she said.

  Time went by at a crawl even though Fanny gave them jobs to do. Maddy didn’t know what Fanny was listening for or how she knew what was happening on the other side of the kitchen wall, but finally she nodded and said, “James. Go get your father from the shop. Then you can all go in together.”

  The girls got up and ran out with James. Maddy and Eston waited until they had gotten Joe Fossett and come back. After a few minutes they followed them into the Fossetts’ room.

  Miss Edith lay flat on the bed, covered with a sheet, looking sweaty but happy. Joe Fossett sat beside her, cradling a tiny baby wrapped tight in a blanket. Joe Fossett’s hands were almost as big as the baby.

  “We’ve named him Peter,” Miss Edith said.

  Maddy came closer. The baby stared at him with wide black eyes. “Hello, Peter Fossett,” Maddy said.

  James put his arm around his father’s shoulder and touched the baby with his finger. “See, Maddy,” he said. “We’ve both got little brothers now.”

  Summer 1815

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Declaration

  James was just nuts for baby Peter. At night he sat in the doorway of their room with Peter on his lap, and made faces at the baby and waggled his fingers in front of his nose. The first morning Peter smiled, James woke Maddy up to tell him the news. Whenever Maddy or Beverly or Eston practiced the violin, James popped his head into their room and said, “Come on over, and play that for my brother. He likes it.” Sometimes, when Peter was fussy, James asked Maddy to play for him special.

  “Was I that excited when Eston was born?” Maddy asked Mama.

  Mama laughed. “You liked Eston fine, but you weren’t as wound up as James. I’ve never seen anybody make as much fuss over a baby as James.”

  That summer Maddy finally began working for Uncle John. He swept shavings and carried tools, just like Beverly did when he began. Uncle John taught him the names of the tools and how they were used, and the different kinds of wood and what each was good for. Maddy took a piece of charcoal and labeled the wood in the shop, alder, pine, hickory, chestnut.

  “That’s helpful, isn’t it?”

  “It would be,” Beverly said, “if we couldn’t already tell what kind of wood it was just by looking.”

  “Now, Beverly,” Uncle John chided him. “Words are fine things.”

  “Beverly knows that,” Maddy said. “He collects them.”

  “Loquacious,” Uncle John said, with a glint in his eye. “Commotion, bedlam, infliction.”

  “What’s that mean?” Maddy asked.

  “Means we talk too much,” Beverly said. “How about we try for tranquility.”

  Maddy swept awhile in silent tranquility. Then he said to Uncle John, “Say that first word again.”

  “Loquacious,” Uncle John said. He went to one of the woodshop cabinets and pulled out a heavy green-bound book. It was much bigger than Maddy’s blue primer or the little book of stories Miss Ellen had given him. “Look it up,” Uncle John said. “Loquacious. L-o-q—”

  Maddy stared at the green book. “Look it up?”

  “This is a dictionary,” Uncle John said. “A man named Mr. Webster wrote it. You can look up any word there is, any word at all, and this book will tell you what it means.” He showed Maddy how to go thro
ugh the pages, finding first l, then lo, then loq, and then, right beneath lopping, loquacious.

  “Talkative,” Maddy read. “Given to continual talking.” He grinned. “Eston is a loquacious fool. Where’d you get this book?”

  “Miss Cornelia gave it to me,” Uncle John said. “She said it would help me with the letters I write.”

  “Not Miss Ellen?” Maddy asked.

  Uncle John shook his head. “Miss Cornelia. Mighty handsome gift, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Can I look up—can I look up all my words?” Maddy meant all the words in the primer, the ones he could read but didn’t understand.

  “In time,” Uncle John said. “We’ve got to get our work done. You bring your primer tomorrow, you can look up a couple of words a day.”

  Maddy looked at the big, beautiful book. He looked at Beverly. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t know,” Beverly said.

  Uncle John closed the book and put it back in the cabinet. “Which I only got last week,” he said. “Nobody’s holding out on you boys. But you’ll not talk too much about it, I hope.”

  “Don’t worry,” Beverly said. “We won’t tell Miss Martha.”

  Bedlam: a place appropriated for lunatics. Commotion: agitation, perturbation. Well, that was no help. Maddy looked those up too. Agitation: disturbance of tranquility. Ah. Beverly’s favorite word. Maddy smiled. And perturbation: disturbance, disorder.

  There were so many words in that dictionary. Maddy worked his way through it, day after day, in the short spurts of time Uncle John would allow. All the words in the primer that confused him—and then he had a great burst of thought. “That declaration,” he said.

  “What declaration?” Uncle John said. “I didn’t hear anybody declaring.”

  “It’s lunchtime,” Beverly said. “I declare.”

  Maddy brushed them aside. “The one in the hallway.”