Jefferson's Sons

That fall Maddy was almost ten, and he got his first pair of real shoes at give-out time. Always before, he’d worn leather moccasins that Mama made for him, or gone barefoot when it wasn’t cold.

Give-out time happened twice a year, spring and fall. It was when all the enslaved people were given their clothes or the cloth to make them. The kind of clothes or cloth they received depended on the job they did. Burwell’s elegant coat, waistcoat, and breeches were tailor-made for him in Charlottesville, and his wife got fine linen to sew into his shirts and cravats. Mama and Miss Edith got fine linen too, for their underthings, and wool flannel for winter, and in the summer pretty lengths of callimanco printed with bright flowers. Mama got enough cloth to make two dresses each season for herself, and enough to make good clothes for Beverly and Harriet and Eston and Maddy.

In the summer the field workers got osnaburg, a scratchy, dirty-looking fabric made from linen and hemp. In the winter they got undyed coarse woven wool. Field workers got enough for just one dress apiece per season, or one shirt and one pair of pants.

The women got a needle apiece and plenty of thread. The men didn’t; they had to talk women into sewing for them. Nobody got scissors. Scissors, Mama said, you had to buy on your own, from money you made by working on Sundays or selling vegetables to Miss Martha. Shoes were given out once a year, in the fall, and blankets every three years, or sooner if you could convince the overseers that you wore your blanket out.

Maddy never paid much attention to give-out time. He didn’t care what he wore.

But this time the Monticello overseer called him over. He held up a pair of leather shoes. “Here, boy,” he said. “Try these on.”

Maddy shoved his foot into the first shoe. It hurt. The overseer felt for Maddy’s toes, and shook his head. He reached for a larger pair. “Try these.”

Mama came up behind them. “He ought to put them on over stockings,” she said. “Be sure he has room enough to grow.”

The overseer grunted agreement. He looked around in the wagonload of clothes and pulled a pair of child’s stockings out of a box.

Maddy stared at them. They were nothing like the stockings he usually wore, knit out of good woolen yarn. These were tubes of coarse woven fabric, with thick seams running up the long sides.

The overseer waved them impatiently.

“No,” Mama said. “Not those. We get the other kind.”

The overseer looked at the stockings, and then at Mama. “Ah,” he said. He threw the ugly stockings back into the wagon bed and brought out a pair like Maddy usually wore.

Mama and the overseer approved the way the second pair of shoes fit, so Maddy wore them home. As soon as he could he took off the stockings, because they made his feet hot, but he kept the shoes on, even though they scraped his heels. He was proud to have shoes.

“Mama,” he said, “what were those ugly stockings?”

“For the field workers,” Mama said. “We work at the great house, so we get knit ones.”

“They didn’t even look like stockings. They looked like shirtsleeves.” Heavy, ugly shirtsleeves.

“I know,” Mama said. “They can’t be comfortable. I almost never see people wearing them.”

“So why not give real stockings to everybody?”

“It’s cheaper to weave fabric than to knit it,” Mama said. “Woven stockings cost less.”

“How much less?”

“I don’t know,” Mama said. “It’s not my business.”

“How many stockings is it?” Maddy persisted. “For how many people?”

Mama pursed her lips. “About thirty up here on the mountaintop,” she said. “Maybe a bit more. Say one hundred and sixty working on the farms. That would count the children.”

“And everybody gets three pairs of stockings, twice a year—”

“Well, no,” Mama said. “Field hands get one pair, twice a year.”

“That’s not enough,” Maddy said. “They’d wear out.”

“Not if nobody can stand to wear them,” said Mama. “I can’t stay here talking with you, Maddy. I’ve got work to do.”

“But Mama—” Maddy said.

Mama turned in the doorway. “Yes?”

“The field hands do the important work. They grow the crops that make the money.”

“I know,” Mama said.

“So why don’t they get the good clothes and we get the ugly ones?”

Mama sighed. “You know the answer to that. Don’t ask questions when you already know the answer.”

Maddy thought for a moment. He said, “But I don’t like the answer I know.”

A week later Master Jefferson bought Miss Cornelia her first grown-up silk dress. She squealed when she saw it, threw her arms around Master Jefferson, and kissed him hard. She put the dress on and paraded up and down the parlor.

Maddy couldn’t help but stare. He wanted to ask what a dress like that cost. He wanted to say, “How much is that in field-hand socks?”

Harriet took a different view. “When I grow up I’m going to have a silk dress,” she said, back in their room that evening. “I’m going to have one even prettier.”

Beverly looked as cross as Maddy felt. “Mama doesn’t wear silk,” he said. “I don’t see why you should.”

But Mama sided with Harriet. “I want you in silk dresses,” she said to her. “Beautiful clothing and fine buckled shoes. You, and all your little girls.” Harriet and Mama smiled at each other.

Maddy thought of Harriet having little girls. Little white girls, with a white daddy, if Harriet could pull it off. “You going to tell them about me?” he asked Harriet. “You going to tell your little girls about your darky little brother?”

Harriet reached toward Maddy, but he ducked away. “I will never forget you,” she told him. “I’ll always love you and I’ll never forget you.”

“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.”