Jefferson's Sons (32 page)

Burwell ran out from the great house. “Peter!” he yelled. “Run tell Davy Hern to go for the doctor.”

“No need to fuss,” Master Jefferson said. His face was pale, nearly gray. He swayed. Eston caught him. Peter ran for Davy Hern. By the time he'd returned to the great house, Master Jefferson was inside and the door closed tight.

Peter hesitated on the portico. Eston had gone back to working on the steps. “We'd best stay outside,” he said to Peter. “There's plenty of people taking care of him. Mix some mortar, will you?”

Peter mixed mortar and watched Eston lay bricks.

“Is he hurt bad?” Peter asked.

“I don't know,” Eston said. “Broken arm, you saw that. I didn't see any bones sticking out, which is good. But at his age anything could be bad.”

The doctor reset the broken bones, splinted them, and gave Master Jefferson laudanum for the pain. News of the accident spread fast. Before nightfall there were double the usual number of visitors, all of them eager for the details of Master Jefferson's accident. Newspapermen came to write about it.

Miss Martha forbade them the house. “The president has a slight fever, but is resting comfortably,” she said. “Thank you for your concern.” She shut the door in their faces, dismissing them.

A few of the newspapermen didn't leave. They wandered down Mulberry Row instead. Peter tailed them. He was curious about newspapermen. They came to the blacksmith shop, where a group of overseers and townsfolk stood gossiping while their work was being done, and one of the newspapermen asked Peter's daddy how he liked having Mr. Jefferson for a master.

The pack of white men fell silent, waiting for Peter's daddy to answer. Daddy straightened up from his anvil, because he never talked and worked at the same time. He paused a moment, and then said, “As long as Master Jefferson is alive, his people know we'll be treated just fine.”

It was a fine answer, Peter could tell. All the men relaxed and smiled. The newspapermen wrote the answer down. “Glad to know you appreciate him,” one said.

“Yes, sir,” Peter's daddy replied.

Later, after all the men had left, Peter said, “What's
appreciate
mean?”

Daddy put down his hammer and said, “It means, we know we've got it good.”

Peter thought about that. “We've got it good, then?”

“Better than some,” Peter's daddy said.

Peter thought some more. “As long as Master Jefferson is alive.”

“That's right. That's exactly right. You have hit upon the crux of it.”

His daddy set to making spoons from a pot of pewter he had melted on the forge. He ladled the pewter into the spoon molds, slow but not too slow, so the mold would fill without any air bubbles, and the pewter would harden in one piece, without layers. When he finished filling the molds he put the ladle back into the melting pot, and Peter knew it was okay to speak again. “So what happens,” he asked, “when Master Jefferson dies?”

His daddy took a deep breath. “That is an important question,” he said. “I do not know the answer.” He opened each mold and popped the still-hot spoons onto the edge of the forge. One had a chunk missing out of the handle, where air had been trapped in the mold. Daddy shook his head, and threw the misshapen spoon back into the melting pot with his tongs.

Peter waited. He knew his daddy had more to say.

“There's the farms, they're worth something,” Daddy said. “That's on the one hand. On the other hand are the debts, and folks talk like those are terribly high. Miss Martha might be the one to inherit, but it might be Mister Jeff or Mister Jeff plus some of the other grandchildren. Whoever it is, they get the good with the bad, the property and the debts. It's hard to say how it's going to work out. I asked Miss Sally once; she said she didn't think he'd written a will.

“That's a piece of paper,” Daddy said, before Peter could ask, “that says what you want done with your things after you die. If he dies without a will, merciful heavens, we'll have a mess on our hands.”

Peter looked at the row of gleaming spoons. “People don't die from broken arms,” he said.

His daddy shrugged. “A man his age doesn't need a reason to die.”

Master Jefferson didn't die, but Peter guessed the accident must have shook him up, because not too long afterward, he gave Poplar Forest away.

Maddy and Eston told Peter about it, one day in the woodshop. Master Jefferson's grandson Francis Eppes, who they said was Miss Maria's boy, had gotten married, and Master Jefferson gave him the whole of Poplar Forest as a wedding present.

“Why Francis Eppes?” Peter asked. He knew a swarm of Master Jefferson's grandchildren, but he didn't know anyone named Francis Eppes.

“I guess Master Jefferson wants to divide things between Miss Martha and Miss Maria,” Maddy explained. “Miss Maria was his daughter too. She died back when Beverly was a little boy. Francis was her only child that survived.”

“But how come he gets all of Poplar, just him?” asked Peter. He was helping them sand some boards. He liked to sand wood. “Mister Jeff works here and lives here. When he got married, nobody gave him his own farm.” Mister Jeff worked hard—harder than the overseers, harder than any of the other white men on the farm.

Maddy shrugged. Eston said, “I guess it was just what Master Jefferson wanted to do. He's always paid for everything for Miss Martha's children, and he never paid for anything for Francis.”

“He didn't have to,” Maddy explained. “Francis's daddy does pretty well.”

Peter knew Miss Martha's husband didn't do much. Everyone knew that. He ran Edgehill, but James said it wasn't a profitable farm. “So he's splitting his property between his children,” Peter said.

In a flat voice Eston replied, “Some of them.”

“Oh, right.” Peter waved his hand. He forgot sometimes that Maddy and Eston were Master Jefferson's children too.

“What do you—” Maddy started to ask him.

“I think I'd leave that alone,” Eston said, cutting Maddy off.

“Will you still get to go there?” Peter asked. “Will Francis Eppes need carpenters at Poplar Forest?”

“I doubt it,” Eston said. “If he does, it won't be us.”

“I'm sorry,” Peter said.

Maddy sighed. “It was my favorite place in the world.”

 

Maddy and Eston told Peter it was past time he learned to read. They brought out their battered old primer, and every time he came by the woodshop they opened the thing up and stuck it under his nose, and made him repeat,
ay, bee, cee
.

Peter's mama and daddy and even James said he needed to learn to read, but Peter would rather sweep the shop. “You're not trying,” Maddy said. “You're not even letting the letters sink in.”

“Maybe I'm stupid,” Peter said.

“Maybe you're not.” Maddy shut the book with a sigh. “Maybe you are too young. We can hold off a bit, still, but you've got to learn. You've absolutely got to learn to read.”

 

It seemed to Peter that for a long time then, everything on the surface stayed the same. Nobody left, nobody took sick, nobody was born, nobody died. The sun shone bright on the mountaintop. Eagle whinnied when he saw Peter in the mornings, and Master Jefferson, his arm healed, rode away humming a tune.

Yet somehow Peter could feel a change, like a shifting in the pattern of the wind, or a melody from Eston's violin sliding into minor key. The happiness on the mountaintop began to feel strained around its edges. Peter thought that if he were a horse, he'd be standing at the highest point of the pasture, looking all around him between mouthfuls of grass.

“Is something wrong?” he asked Maddy at last.

Maddy was heading down the mountain to put in a new gate on one of the outlying farms. Peter's daddy had forged the hinges for it. Maddy borrowed a farm wagon, and Peter helped him hitch.

“Is some—” Peter began to ask again.

“Sst,” Maddy said. He jerked his head sideways, toward an overseer walking to the blacksmith shop. Peter shut his mouth. When the horses were hitched Maddy heaved the gate into the wagon bed. He motioned to Peter to climb aboard.

Once they were away from Mulberry Row, Maddy asked, “What do you mean? Wrong in what way?”

Peter squirmed. “Just everywhere. Just not right. Something's not right.” He struggled to think of a reason. “Miss Martha's unhappy.” Peter knew that was nothing new.

Maddy sighed. “I think I understand what you mean, but it's not anything in particular, not any new thing. The money problems are worse than ever. Yesterday a merchant from Charlottesville came to the front door of the great house. He wanted payment for his past due bills, right then and there, in cash. That's never happened before.”

“Did he get paid?”

Maddy shook his head. “Master Jefferson didn't have the money. He acted all astonished, that someone in his position would be dunned by his creditors, but the man didn't back down. He went away angry. He'll tell the whole town.”

“How do you know all this?” Peter asked.

Maddy shrugged. “Burwell told Mama. Mama told me.”

They rode for a bit.

Maddy didn't say anything else. Peter thought about the story, but it didn't seem enough to him, to explain the feeling of worry he had. One little tradesman wanting to be paid? That wasn't a big problem.

 

The next day Peter went to his daddy. It was Sunday, so Daddy didn't have to work, but he'd fired up the forge and was making pot hooks out of scraps, to sell.

“Something's wrong,” Peter said.

Daddy blew out a big deep breath like the bellows.

“I know it is,” Peter said, “I just don't know what it is.”

Daddy smiled at him. “You're a smart boy,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“So you can see, Master Jefferson's getting older. He's not going to live forever.”

Peter leaned against his daddy's leg. He wished his daddy gave out hugs, the way his mama did. “You said that before,” he said.

“Yes, I did,” Daddy said. “But the longer he lives, the closer he comes to dying. I guess everyone's worried because they don't know what will happen then. We're worried, and up at the great house, Miss Martha and her family are worried too.”

Tap, tap, tap
. Daddy pounded the side of the pot hook perfectly flat, then grabbed one hot end with his tongs and twisted it into a perfect curve. Peter stepped out of the way so Daddy could douse it in the water bucket. “But Maddy said it was about the money.”

Daddy nodded. “Sure. If there were plenty of money, nobody would be worried.”

Peter laughed. “But we have plenty of money,” he said. “We've got that whole big jar!”

“That's true,” Daddy said.

“How much is in that jar?”

“Three hundred sixty-five dollars and eighteen cents.”

Three hundred! Peter laughed again. After a moment his daddy laughed too. Peter never realized they had as much as that. He guessed he was wrong to be worried. They didn't need to worry, not with three hundred sixty-five dollars and eighteen cents.

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.”

This made Peter mad. “I know how to behave,” he said. “I have jobs to do.”

“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.”

Nothing Peter could do would make Maria a better cook, but he knew better than to say so.

 

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.

James said, “Mama, Mary and I are getting married.”

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.

Peter said, “He hates baby talk. He thinks it's dumb.” Mama said, “Peter!”

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.

“Nah,” Peter said.

“Don't ‘Nah' me. I held you all the time.”

“Why'd you stop, then?”

James scooped Peter up with his other arm. “I didn't stop. See? I can still hold you just like I used to.”

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?”

James whispered back, “I don't have to. I want to.”