Jefferson's Sons

At the start of September, Uncle John came into the woodshop whistling a happy tune. “I’m taking a trip to Poplar Forest,” he told Maddy and Beverly. “Leaving this afternoon. Master Jefferson’s got a bunch of work for me there, and he wants me to take the wagon, load it up with wood, and leave today so I can get there ahead of him.”

Maddy knew Master Jefferson had been planning to take Miss Virginia and Miss Ellen there. It made sense to send Uncle John early, since the heavy wagon would travel more slowly than the landau.

Beverly said, “What do you want us to do while you’re gone?”

Uncle John grinned. “I don’t know quite yet. I guess you’ll have to wait until I tell you.” Beverly looked puzzled. Uncle John started to laugh. “I’m taking my two apprentices with me,” he said. “That’s what I was told. ‘Take your two apprentices, John, there’s a lot of work to do.’”

“We’re going to Poplar Forest?” Maddy couldn’t believe it. He’d never been farther from Monticello than Charlottesville.

“We’ll be gone a couple of weeks. Maddy, you’d best go tell your mama.”

Mama was glad for them. Eston pouted, but that couldn’t be helped. Miss Edith packed them a great big basket of food, and they loaded the wagon with wood and tools and set out just after noontime.

It was the most beautiful day. The sky was like an upsidedown bowl, bright blue, covering the whole world as they came down the mountain. As far as Maddy could see there was not one single cloud. The leaves on the top of the mountain had begun to change to gold and brown, but lower down everything was still green, and the sunlight was so clear Maddy had to squint to look at the sky.

Uncle John was in a high mood, and Beverly too. They took turns telling jokes and stories, and they all laughed so hard that once Beverly almost fell out of the wagon. He leaned sideways on the seat, clutching his guts while he laughed, and the wagon bounced into a rut. Beverly fell straight over the edge. Uncle John caught him by the back of his shirt and hauled him back, and then they laughed until they howled.

After a few hours they came to a river spanned by a long bridge. Uncle John halted the horses off the road. “What’s wrong?” Maddy asked. “We need some kind of paper to cross that bridge?”

Uncle John shook his head. “What’s wrong is my legs are stiff and my seat’s gone numb. I need a break, and so do the horses. Get them some water, Maddy. Beverly, oats.” Uncle John walked off behind a bush. Maddy dipped river water into a bucket and watered the horses, then took a long drink himself. Beverly put oats into the horses’ nosebags and strapped them into place. Then he got out the basket of food and carried it to the clear spot by the river where Uncle John sat. “Mmm,” Uncle John said. “Smart boy.”

“Can I eat something?” Maddy asked.

“Help yourself.”

“What can I have?”

Uncle John pulled out a corn pone and took a bite. “Anything you want.”

Maddy sat back like Uncle John and let the sunshine warm his legs. He ate a cookie, then an apple, then a hunk of cheese. “This has to last until we get there?” he asked, looking through the rest of the food. “Three days?” The basket was big, but maybe not that big. He’d better slow down.

“Nah, nah, we’ll get hot food where we stop,” Uncle John said.

Maddy ate another cookie. On the riverbank, a long-legged bird took flight. Maddy had never seen a bird like it before. “That’s a heron,” Uncle John said. “They live near water.” Uncle John lay back and shut his eyes.

Another wagon was crossing the bridge coming toward them. A white man drove it. Maddy nudged Uncle John. “Uncle John,” he said. “Uncle John, there’s a white man.”

“Maddy,” Uncle John said, without opening his eyes, “you’ve seen white men before.”

Maddy whispered, “Don’t you have to show him your pass?”

“No, Maddy. I’m not bothering him, he’s not going to bother me.” After a moment he added, “Do we look like runaways, with this nice wagon and a load full of wood? Hmm?”

“I thought we always had to show white people a pass.”

“Only if they ask for it. Don’t fuss. Anybody’d think you’d never been on the road before.”

Maddy hadn’t ever been on the road before. He opened his mouth to say so, but then saw the corner of Uncle John’s mouth twitch, so he knew Uncle John was just making fun.

“Beverly hasn’t been anywhere either,” Maddy pointed out.

“No, but he’s not the one waking me up with his questions.”

“I’ve got questions,” Beverly said. “I just like to find out the answers myself.”

Uncle John slept. The horses finished their oats, cocked their hips, and dozed. Beverly found a stone and tossed it back and forth to Maddy a few times, and then the two of them went down to the river’s edge to try to skip stones, but the river was running too fast. Uncle John called them back, and they went on.

They reached Mr. Nicholas’s farm at twilight. Mr. Nicholas was one of Master Jefferson’s great friends, a frequent visitor at Monticello. His daughter Jane had just married Mister Jeff. Mr. Nicholas’s farm was large and sumptuous, freshly painted, freshly mown, and much finer-looking than Monticello. Uncle John pulled up at the quarters, and the stable man helped them settle the horses, showed them a spare cabin where they could sleep, and took them to the kitchen to eat. Mr. Nicholas’s kitchen was not as fancy as the Monticello kitchen, but it was comfortable and the food was very good. Maddy ate two big bowls of beans and ham while Uncle John told all the Monticello news. After that, Mr. Nicholas’s people told all the news they knew. It was interesting, but after a while Maddy’s eyes grew heavy. He stretched out beneath a bench and fell asleep.

He woke to the sound of logs thudding onto the hearth. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of bare feet. He looked up. The kitchen was flooded with morning light. The cook’s assistant, a girl a few years older than Maddy, looked down at him and winked. “Your brother and uncle left you where you lay,” she said. “I wondered if you’d get confused in the night.”

Maddy crawled out from the bench, his arms and legs stiff and cold. “I didn’t even move,” he said.

“Yeah, I got a brother your age, he sleeps like the dead. Want coffee?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Be a minute before I get the water boiling. Want biscuits?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re awful polite, ain’t you, you and your brother both.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You ‘ma’am’ me one more time, I won’t give you breakfast. Didn’t I tell you I got a brother your age?”

“Yes, m—” Maddy bit back the word ma’am and grinned at her. “I got a sister your age,” he said.

“Where’s she?”

“Home,” he said. “Monticello—she works in the weaving factory. On the farm. And Beverly you met, and Eston, he’s littler.”

The girl nodded. She was an ugly girl, with a big ugly scar across one side of her face, but she was smart, Maddy could tell. “Lucky you, still together,” she said. “My brother’s on a farm near Appomattox. There’s a tavern you might stop at near there, an’ if you do, tell one of the yard boys to tell him I say hey. Will you? Tell him I’m fine, tell him the burn’s healed up all right.” She touched her cheek, where the scar was. “I was leaning over the fire and something popped. Hit me right here. Got infected, so I was sick a long time.”

Maddy nodded. “I’ll tell Uncle John, and he’ll be sure we stop to give the message. He’ll know the tavern.”

The girl smiled. “Much obliged.”

They spent three and a half days and three nights on the road, the second and third nights at taverns. They weren’t allowed to sleep inside—the rooms were for white people—but that didn’t matter, Uncle John said, because out in public they needed to guard the wagon and its contents anyhow. They rolled up in blankets and slept on the ground beneath the wagon, and they were warm enough, and dry.

“Horses must be white,” Maddy said. They got to sleep in the tavern stables.

Uncle John grinned. “Horses have black skin,” he said. “Didn’t you ever notice? Beneath the hair.”

Maddy shook his head. “Don’t tell the white folks,” Uncle John said. “They find out, they’ll make the horses sleep under the wagon with us.”

Master Jefferson had given Uncle John money to buy food, so they had plenty to eat, though they had to use the back doors of the tavern kitchens and eat out in the yard. On the first day, not knowing the rules, Beverly started to go through the front door of a tavern. Uncle John called him back, sharp. “Watch yourself,” he said. “You’re out here with me and you don’t want people thinking you’re trying to pass.”

“Why not?” Maddy asked.

“White people hate when black people try to pass for white,” Uncle John said. “It makes them nervous.”

Maddy glanced at Beverly. “But when he’s free—”

“Yep,” Uncle John said. “We best not talk about that. Beverly will be okay on his own. But right now, dressed like he is, and traveling with me in this wagon, he appears to be a black person. He’s going to get hurt if he doesn’t follow the rules.”

Maddy scowled. He didn’t like being reminded of the difference between Beverly’s skin color and his. Uncle John seemed to understand. “I’m same as your mama, aren’t I?” he said. “Same Mama, same Papa. But I could see circumstances where maybe she could pass. Me, not a chance.” He showed Beverly the back of his warm brown hand.

“You’re just tan,” Maddy said. “From working outside.”

“Maddy,” Uncle John said, “I’m tan where the sun don’t shine.”

Maddy knew Uncle John meant to be funny, but Maddy couldn’t laugh. Neither did Beverly, who seemed uneasy and kept swallowing as though he had something stuck in his throat. When they had traveled down the road a few miles, Beverly asked, very quietly, “What happens if you don’t follow the rules?”

Uncle John looked serious. “You mean the rules white people make for black people?” Beverly nodded. “I’ll tell you,” Uncle John said. “A black man who doesn’t follow the rules is a dangerous man in a white person’s eyes. A black man who doesn’t follow the rules doesn’t live very long.”

The brightness of the day seemed to fade. Maddy thought about Uncle John’s words. He thought about Beverly, who would be breaking the rules every moment of his white life. He looked at Beverly, but couldn’t tell what his brother was thinking.

Uncle John cleared his throat. “Beverly,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re planning, and I don’t ever need to know. But I will say this. If you pass for white, you’d better pass in your heart too. You better be white all the way. There will never be a single white person you can trust with the truth about your past. Do you hear me? Never a one. No matter how much you think they might care about you. Love you, even. Don’t you ever, ever tell.”

Beverly nodded. He held on to the edge of the wagon seat with both hands. He seemed to be studying the hills far away. “I hear you,” he said.

They drove through towns and villages, past big farms and little houses. Maddy had never realized there were so many people in the world. He’d never thought about them—nor about the roads, the bridges, and fields of corn and trees and everything else. From the Monticello mountaintop he could see a long way, but nothing like as far as they’d driven. When he thought about all the things he’d seen in only three days, and how Lewis and Clark had walked west for months, and how Mama had sailed for weeks across the ocean, he started to understand how big the world might be.

“Beverly,” Maddy said, at the end of the third day, “is this what it’s like to be free? Driving along this road? Go wherever you want? Do whatever you want to?”

“We can’t go wherever we want,” Beverly said. “We’re going from Monticello to Poplar Forest. We can’t go anywhere else.”

“Yeah, but nobody’s telling us how fast to go. We can stop and rest whenever we want to. At the taverns we can order whatever we want to eat.”

Beverly said, “This is nothing. Freedom will be a whole lot better than this.”

The great house at Poplar Forest had the same kind of windows as Monticello, and the same white Chinese railing on the roof, but it was much smaller, and its oddly shaped rooms fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Uncle John called it an octagon. He made Maddy repeat the word octagon. “That means eight-sided,” he said. “This house has eight outside walls, all exactly the same size.”

Maddy thought it was easier to say eight-sided than octagon, but he didn’t say so. Uncle John seemed proud as he showed them through the house. “No Irish carpenters here,” he said. “Local people built the brick walls, but all this fine woodwork was done by yours truly. All these good-looking windows and sashes and cornice boards.”

In the center of the house the dining room was built as a perfect cube, twenty feet long, twenty feet wide, with a ceiling twenty feet high. It had windows in its roof called skylights. “They’re clever,” Uncle John said. “Otherwise this room wouldn’t have windows. It’d be dark all the time. Of course, if it gets too hot, one of you will have to climb onto the roof to pull the blinds.”

Maddy looked, but Uncle John wasn’t joking. “You do it,” he said to Beverly.

“No way,” Beverly said. “That’s a job for you.”

The only way to reach the dining room from the kitchen was to walk through the bedroom Miss Ellen and Miss Virginia would be sharing. “Burwell will serve dinner,” Uncle John said, “but if you get called on to give a hand, be sure you knock before you open their door.”

The ground floor was divided into rooms the same size as the main floor. Beneath the big dining room was a deep cellar full of food and wine. “Fine peach brandy they make here,” Uncle John said. “We’ll take some of that with us when we go home.” He showed them the small room where they would all sleep. The way the house looked from the outside, Maddy would have guessed their room was underground, but it wasn’t: It had a regular door to the outside, two fine glass windows, a brick floor, a bed with a shuck mattress, and a fireplace.

A short, plump black woman came into the room, wiping her hands on her apron. “Everything all right?” she asked.

Uncle John swept her a deep bow. “Miss Hannah,” he said, “allow me to introduce my nephews. Madison and Beverly.”

Miss Hannah grinned and shook them both by the hand. “Come eat,” she said. “Dinner’s ready.”

The kitchen was a smaller version of Monticello’s, with a set kettle in the corner and a stew stove against the wall. “You must cook like Miss Edith,” Maddy said.

“Laws, no.” Miss Hannah laughed. “I’ve heard about that woman’s table. I’m just a plain cook. When Master Jefferson ain’t here I work in the fields.”

“Plain cook nothing,” Uncle John said. “Unless you mean plain good.”

Hannah laughed again. Maddy liked her.

Before sunset they heard the landau coming up the long sloped drive. They went out to meet it. Beverly took the horse Burwell had been riding while Burwell went to the landau and helped Miss Ellen and Miss Virginia down. Miss Ellen looked around, her eyes bright. “Oh, I do love it here!” she said. She smiled at Maddy, but didn’t say hello.

Master Jefferson clutched Burwell’s arm as he stepped from the carriage. He looked tired. His hair was coated with dust from the road. He smiled at Uncle John and Maddy. “I see you made it here all right. Madison, what do you think of the place? Handsome, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Maddy said.

“I thought you’d like it,” Master Jefferson said.

Life at Poplar Forest was different from life at Monticello. Everything was quiet. There weren’t any white visitors, except occasional old friends. Master Jefferson followed his usual routine, writing letters, riding, and eating a fine dinner in the afternoons, but he did it without fuss or interruption, with only his granddaughters for company. Miss Ellen spent most of each day reading, her hair tucked behind her ears, her lips silently moving.

“Greek?” Maddy asked as he passed her one day.

She shook her head without looking up. “Latin,” she said. “I will never read the Aeneid in translation again.”

Miss Virginia wandered the gardens, sketching flowers. “We need a piano here, Grandpapa,” she said.

“Hmm—mm,” Master Jefferson said. “Someday.”

Uncle John was carving more fancy woodwork, like he’d done at Monticello. Master Jefferson often spent part of a morning watching him, and discussing things Maddy’d never heard of before—cornices, entablatures, classic Greek design. Uncle John seemed to know just as much about those things as Master Jefferson. Maddy was impressed.

Master Jefferson had brought his Italian violin. One day he handed it to Maddy. “Try it,” he said. “See what you think. It’ll feel quite different from your kit violin.”

The Italian violin was bigger, and heavier, and Maddy knew how expensive it must be. He was half-afraid to touch it. Once he started, though, he found himself mesmerized by the instrument’s lovely pure sound.

“That was very fine,” Master Jefferson said when Maddy had finished. “You have a good ear.”

“Beverly’s better,” Maddy said. “And Eston, he’s the best of us all.”

“Beverly has had many more years of practice,” Master Jefferson said. “You play well. Eston I understand may be a prodigy.”

“Yes, sir,” Maddy said. He didn’t know the word, but the way Master Jefferson said it made him think it was a good thing. “Were you a prodigy?”

Master Jefferson looked thoughtful. He flexed his wrist, the stiff one. “I don’t know,” he said. “I loved to play, I practiced hard, I played well—but no, I don’t think I would have said I was a prodigy. A good amateur, perhaps. Nothing more.”

It was so strange, to talk with Master Jefferson like that—to have his full attention, to not need to worry about what Mama or Miss Martha or some white stranger might think. In a way it was wonderful—and yet . . . Master Jefferson had sold James. No matter how kind he was to Maddy, he had still done that to James.

“If you could pick anyone to be our father,” he asked Beverly one day, when everyone else was out of hearing, “who would you choose?”

Beverly looked at him for a long moment. “I never think like that,” he said. “We don’t get to pick, so what’s the use of asking?”

“I’d pick Uncle John,” Maddy said.

“He’d be good,” Beverly agreed.

A few days later Beverly brought the subject back up. “Master Jefferson has done a lot of great things,” he said. “Everyone says he was a leader in the war. He wrote that declaration thing. He made us a new country. And then he went to France, and he was president. He reads and writes and thinks all the time.”

“Yes,” said Maddy. He wasn’t sure where Beverly was headed.

“So,” Beverly said, “does all that mean he’s a great person? White folks seem to think so. If you’re great enough in some areas, does it make up for the rest?”

Maddy asked, “Would a great person sell someone else’s son?”

Uncle John had walked up behind Maddy. “What was that?” he asked. Maddy repeated the question. “You want to know if great people can own slaves?” Uncle John asked. “Can a person be great and still participate in evil?” He tapped Maddy’s shoulder. “That’s what you’re asking?”

Maddy nodded.

Uncle John seemed to have already thought it out. “You can be great in the eyes of mankind,” he said, “but not great in the eyes of God. God calls slavery a sin, an evil, corruptible sin. Do you know the Bible verse? ‘And God brought them out of Egypt, that place of slavery.’”

“Mama always says she’s bringing us out of Jordan,” Maddy said.

“Yes, sir,” Uncle John said, nodding. “Yes, sir. Your mama, she is a great woman. You remember that.”

The next day Maddy was sawing a piece of wood for Uncle John when the blade slipped and cut deep into his hand. Blood poured down his forearm. Uncle John clapped a rag over the cut and pressed hard. Blood welled up around Uncle John’s fingers. It hurt so much Maddy could barely breathe.

Master Jefferson hurried to him. “Let’s see,” he said, peeling back the bloody rag. “Ah. Get Hannah, Beverly. Tell her to bring clean cloth.”

Master Jefferson sent Burwell for a doctor. He led Maddy to the great house porch and bound his hand tightly with the bandage Hannah brought. He made Maddy drink a tot of peach brandy. “Medicinal,” he said. He sat with Maddy while they waited for the doctor to arrive.

When the doctor came he pressed on the edges of the cut. They gaped open. Fresh blood flowed. Maddy felt sick. “Mmm,” the doctor said. He picked up the bottle of brandy and poured some into the wound.

It felt like Maddy’s hand had been thrust into a fire. He screamed, and would have jerked his hand away if Master Jefferson hadn’t had such a tight grip on his arm.

“Steady,” Master Jefferson said. “That’s the worst of it.”

Maddy wanted to be brave, but it hurt so much he sobbed.

“It’s all right,” Master Jefferson said, as soothingly as though he were talking to a tiny child. “It’s all right. It’ll be over soon.”

The doctor sewed the wound shut with a needle and thread. He bandaged Maddy’s entire hand. “Keep that clean and dry,” he said. “We don’t want infection.”

“Yes, sir,” Maddy said. “Thank you.”

“He won’t lose the use of it, will he?” Master Jefferson asked.

“Shouldn’t,” said the doctor. “I didn’t see any tendons cut. If we can keep infection out, he ought to be fine. I’ll come around to check it tomorrow.”

Master Jefferson got up, squeezing Maddy’s shoulder. “Go lie down,” he said. “Keep quiet the rest of the day.”

Maddy went to their room and lay down. He took a book with him—with so many books around the house no one would notice, plus here he didn’t think anyone would mind—but found he couldn’t focus. He stared out the open window, lost in thought. Mama would have held him the same way Master Jefferson had. She would have soothed him, but she also would have made him hold still for the brandy and the stitching.

It was the first time he ever felt like he had a father.

Later that night he discussed it with Beverly. “Maybe he does care about us,” Maddy said. “Maybe he does think of us as his children.”

Beverly said, “We are his children, whether he thinks about us that way or not.”

“I know, but—” Maddy struggled to say what he meant. “It’s like there’s a secret side of him, and here, since it’s not Monticello, he can let it show.”

Beverly didn’t say anything. Maddy’s hand throbbed. “He loves Mama,” Beverly said, after a while. “I’ll give him that.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” Beverly said. Maddy nodded. He knew it too.

Poplar Forest was a better place for them than Monticello. Maddy wished he and his family could live there all the time.