Jefferson's Sons

The year Peter turned nine, three important things happened. His baby brother Daniel was born, the University of Virginia opened, and the Marquis de Lafayette came to visit from France.

Peter cared a whole bunch more about Daniel than any university or marquis. Daniel’s birth made Mama tired, but Maria was seventeen now, and she took charge of everything. She made sure that the kitchen ran okay, and that Patsy and Betsy-Ann took care of the little ones, Isabella and William. “And you, Peter,” Maria told him, “you’re old enough to take care of yourself, so don’t you give me any trouble.”

“Well, you make sure one of them is fetching water and wood,” Maria said. “I don’t want Mama having to walk for anything, and I don’t want us running short in the kitchen. I’ve already had Miss Martha down here twice, complaining because I burned the muffins and messed up the eggs.”

When James came to see the new baby on Sunday, he brought a woman with him. Her name was Mary. She had high cheekbones, dark skin, and very soft eyes. She smiled at Peter’s mama, but hardly said a word.

Mama kissed them both, and said she was glad. Peter scratched his toes. He watched Mary try to play with William, who was two. Mary wriggled her fingers and poked William in the belly. “Goo—chee!” she cooed.

Mary just grinned, and James laughed. He held baby Daniel in the crook of his arm. “I remember holding you like this when you were little,” he said to Peter.

Peter wriggled in James’s grasp. When James didn’t let go, Peter leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Why you got to get married?”

Peter glanced at Mary. William had run away from her, but Isabella had climbed onto her lap. “She doesn’t look like much,” Peter said.

After James got married they didn’t see him every week. Mama said it was only natural that sometimes he and his wife might want to spend their day off alone. “I don’t see why,” Peter said. “You cook better. He ought to come here to eat.”

Master Jefferson’s school, the University of Virginia, opened down in Charlottesville. Peter was surprised by all the fuss people made about it. Maddy said Master Jefferson had planned the whole thing, had pushed the state government to make it happen—Peter didn’t understand that part at all—and had even designed some of the buildings.

“It’s his last big achievement,” Maddy said. “He’s spent years on it. He’s proud. And it’s a good thing—education is a wonderful thing. This school is just as fine as the ones up north in New England. It’s as good as William and Mary.”

The school was for white men only, for rich white men who already knew how to read but wanted to learn some more. Peter snorted. “If it’s not for us, what do we care?”

Maddy said, “I’m not telling you I care. I’m telling you why other people care. You don’t need to care about the university, but you should care about education. What you learn can’t be taken from you.”

Peter rolled his eyes. He’d finally learned his alphabet, but he didn’t love reading, and the last thing he wanted was Maddy pulling out the primer again. Fortunately, Maddy was too busy. The roof of the great house had been leaking awhile, but it had finally gotten so bad Master Jefferson decided to have it fixed. All summer Maddy and John and Eston replaced the old, rotten wooden shingles with new shingles covered in tin.

Miss Virginia was angry that Master Jefferson was spending money on a new roof. She wanted his money spent differently. She was getting married at Monticello in September, and she wanted John and Maddy to fix the peeling paint and rotten walkways and windowsills instead. Miss Martha told her they couldn’t afford new paint.

Miss Virginia rolled her eyes. Peter felt sorry for her new husband. “Of course we can do both,” she said. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Oh, and I want a new piano for a wedding gift. Grandpa’s old one is so worn out it’s nearly useless.”

“Certainly,” Miss Martha replied, but Miss Virginia’s wedding came and went, without paint, walkways, or a new piano.

The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in November. He was visiting Monticello as part of his first trip to America since the Revolutionary War, fifty years ago. Everyone at Monticello was in a tizzy about him, and Peter didn’t understand why. He didn’t even know what a marquis was.

Dukes were nobility, Miss Sally said. They were big shots who owned lots of land, and people had to do what they said.

Miss Sally was old, older than Mama, but she was still pretty when she laughed. “No,” she said. “Not masters.”

She told Peter that the marquis loved freedom. He had come to America all on his own as a young man, to fight in the war against England. “Without him we never would have won,” she said. “He was as important to us as Master Jefferson was.

“I saw him once,” she added. “At a party in Paris I took Miss Martha to. He was very handsome, tall, elegant, and strong. He was a wonderful dancer.”

Miss Martha insisted the whole house be turned out, even cupboards and cabinets the marquis would never see. Burwell muttered his way through the wine cellar and storerooms, and Peter’s mama planned and practiced the finest meals. Miss Sally cleaned and mended Master Jefferson’s best suit of clothes, and said she would make him wear it too. No one painted the house, Peter noticed. But Wormley raked the dead leaves from the front lawn, and John replaced the most obvious of the rotten windowsills. By the day of the marquis’s arrival, Monticello was looking pretty fine.

Everyone gathered at the front of the great house, waiting for Master Jefferson’s landau to bring the marquis from Charlottesville. Some of the Charlottesville people followed it up the mountain. Peter could hear them coming, laughing and cheering and singing songs. On the front porch Master Jefferson steadied himself on his cane.

The landau pulled up to the house. Israel Gillette jumped down and opened the door. Peter saw a long stockinged leg come out of the carriage and slowly reach toward the ground, and then a hand grip the doorframe, and then, finally, an enormously fat man ease himself through the narrow doorway.

He was entirely bald, and as round and pale as a dumpling. He looked up toward the house, his fat chin wobbling, his eyes watering in the sun. Master Jefferson leaned forward. His eyes watered too, and his lips moved. His skinny legs shook. He took an uncertain step forward with his cane.

Peter waited for the marquis to come out of the carriage behind the fat man. But the fat man didn’t move. He stared up at Master Jefferson, and Master Jefferson stared down at him. Finally the fat man croaked, “Jefferson?” and Master Jefferson said, “Lafayette?”

Peter never saw grown men cry before. He didn’t know what to think. The fat old marquis hobbled up the front walk. Master Jefferson hobbled down the porch steps. They looked at each other from a few feet away, and then they fell onto each other’s shoulders and bawled. Peter had to look away. Miss Martha had tears streaming down her cheeks, and so did old Miss Sally. The marquis and Master Jefferson tottered up the steps and went into the parlor. The crowd cheered and wiped their eyes, and then, to Peter’s relief, began to leave.

Maddy took Peter’s hand. “Come with me.” They went through the side door of the house. Maddy peeked into the entrance hall. It was empty. He led Peter inside. He picked Peter up and held him in front of one of the glass-framed squares on the wall, the one with writing in it instead of a picture.

“Okay.” Maddy set him down. “Just listen. Part of it says, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“Master Jefferson wrote that,” Maddy said. “It’s why our country fought a war. It’s why Lafayette helped.”

Maddy said, “We think all people are equal, that God gave everybody the right to live, be free, and try to be happy.”

“But it says all people are free,” Peter said. “Not all white people. Right?” He frowned at the paper. “Read it again.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” read Maddy, “that all people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Maddy paused. “That means—it means, this is so true everybody ought to know it. It’s plain truth. It’s obvious.”

“I didn’t read it to you to tell you that,” Maddy said. “I read it so you’d understand what those two old men were crying about. They believed this a long time ago, when almost nobody else did, and Master Jefferson wrote it down, and they made a whole new country around it. And now they’re so old they’re almost dead, and they’re crying for what they did a long time ago.”