Jefferson's Sons

  Then it hit him, square in the pit of his stomach.

  To be a lady, Harriet would have to be white.

  He went to Mama.

  She was bent over, stoking the fire in the hearth of their cabin. She had a new shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and for a moment Beverly wanted to bury his face in it, and have her rock him the way she did when he was a little boy, but he knew he was too old. Instead he sat on the edge of the bed and pushed his cold feet closer to the fire.

  “Beverly.” Mama sat beside him and pulled him toward her. “What’s the matter?”

  He turned so his face was just a little bit against her shawl, and told Mama what he’d figured out.

  “The things you think about,” Mama said. “I swear you were born with an old soul. You’re not even ten years old, Beverly. You don’t have to worry about this yet.”

  “But you want her to be white, don’t you?” he said. “That’s what you mean by being a lady.”

  “She is white,” Mama said.

  “She’s not. ’Course she’s not.”

  “What does she look like?” Mama said. “If you saw her down in Charlottesville, dressed like one of Miss Martha’s girls, wouldn’t you think she was white?”

  It was like the time Mama had taken off Maddy’s clothes, and asked them if he looked like a slave. Harriet’s skin was not quite as light as Miss Martha’s, but it was much lighter than everyone else’s on Mulberry Row, except Beverly’s. Harriet’s hair was like Mama’s, soft and straight, not tightly curled like most slaves’ hair.

  “You’ve got to be black to be a slave,” Beverly said at last.

  “Well,” Mama said. She looked at him for a moment. “The law says, if your mama is a slave, then you are too. The law also says white people can’t be slaves, so you’re right, if you’re a slave, then you are legally black. That’s the law. But let me show you something.” She reached forward and grabbed the poker. “Here’s Harriet.” She drew a line with the poker in the cool ashes on the edge of the hearth. “Here’s me, Harriet’s mama, and here’s Master Jefferson, her father.” Mama drew two more lines, sprouting off the first one. “Above me, we put my mama and daddy, that’s Grandma Elizabeth and Master John Wayles, a white man. Okay?”

  Beverly nodded. His grandma was dead now, but he remembered her.

  “Above your papa we put lines for his mama and daddy, both white. Now, above Grandma Betty we put two lines for her mama and daddy, that’s Parthenia and the sea captain, Captain Hemings. One black, one white. You with me?”

  Beverly didn’t completely follow her, but he nodded again anyway. “Lines for Master Wayles’s mama and daddy,” said Mama, “and for your papa’s four grandparents. Got that? Eight lines, for you and Harriet and Maddy’s eight great-grandparents.”

  “Okay.” Beverly said. He did understand that much.

  “How many of those eight were black, and how many were white?”

  “Well, Grandma Betty—”

  “No, no,” Mama said patiently. “Just look at that last line of eight. How many white, how many black?”

  Beverly counted. “Seven white,” he said. “One black.”

  Mama nodded. “The law says that any slave’s children are always slaves, but it also says that any person who has seven out of eight white great-grandparents is legally white. So you and Harriet and Maddy are white people. You’re slaves, but you’re white.”

  “Nobody acts like I’m white,” Beverly said.

  “No. They won’t, because you’re a slave. But think on it, Beverly. Someday you won’t be a slave. You’ll be a free white man.”

  Beverly thought of the white people he knew. They got to be the bosses, mostly, and they lived in nicer houses than the black people he knew. Still. “I don’t want to be white,” he said. “White people are mean.”

  “Not all of them,” Mama said. “And the ones that are mean to black people aren’t always mean to other white people.” She looked at him steadily. “It’s easier to be white,” she said. “It’s safer.”

  Beverly guessed that was true. Harriet did look like a white person. Maybe he did too. “So when I change into a free man, I just change into a white man?” he asked Mama. “I just tell everybody, look at these seven-eighths? I want to be called a white man now?”

  Mama laughed and cuddled him closer. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “If you go down to Charlottesville, where people know you and know your family, and you tell them you used to be black but now you’re white, what do you think they’ll say?”

  Beverly thought. “They’ll tell me to get out of town,” he said. “They won’t listen. They won’t change how they think about me.”

  “That’s right,” Mama said. “I’m sorry for it, but you know it’s true.”

  “So, Mama, what’s the use?”

  Mama laughed again. “You won’t stay in Charlottesville,” she said. “You’ll go where nobody knows you. And they’ll see you, and say to themselves, ‘That looks like a white man.’ And you won’t tell them any different—why should you? You are white, by law. You’ll just go about your business, and Harriet will too. What you don’t tell people, they’ll never know.”

  “But I’m black by law too,” Beverly said. “Because you said slaves have to be black. I can’t be black by law and white by law, both.”

  “You can,” Mama said. “The law says both things.” She paused, and put her hands around his face. “You’re kind of caught in the middle of the law. It doesn’t matter, though. You’ll be free and you’ll look white, so you’ll be a free white man.”

  “I’m going to have free papers?”

  “Of course not,” Mama said. “Papers are for black people. You’ll be white.” Mama took Beverly’s hands. “Listen. Neither part of you is better, not the black part nor the white part. They’re both what you are. But right now the white people make the laws in this country. They make the rules. It’s easier to live like a white person here.”

  “I’m never leaving Monticello,” Beverly said, “so I don’t care.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Mama said. “It’s a long time from now.”

  “Harriet can go,” Beverly said. “I’ll stay. I want to be with you.”

  Mama didn’t say anything. She took the hearth broom and brushed away the lines. Seven white great-grandparents, one black.

  “I don’t like secrets, Mama,” Beverly said.

  “Might as well make friends with them,” Mama said. “They’re here to stay.”

  Summer 1808

  Chapter Ten

  A Carpenter’s Apprentice

  Beverly’s baby brother, Thomas Eston Hemings, was born May 21, 1808. Papa—Master Jefferson—named him, after one of his friends, a white man, Thomas Eston. Mama called the baby Eston from the start. She said it wouldn’t do to call him Thomas. The only Thomas at Monticello was Master Jefferson.

  “But our first baby was named Thomas,” Beverly protested. “My big brother. You said so.”

  Mama stroked baby Eston’s cheek. “He died so soon,” she said. “He hardly breathed before he was gone. We never gave him a real name. I call him Thomas, but just to you all and in my heart.”

  Beverly frowned. “Do you still miss him, Mama?”

  “I do,” she said softly. “Of course I do.”

  Master Jefferson wasn’t home to see the baby; he’d come and gone for his spring trip, and now he was in Washington until July. He and Mama had discussed baby names before he left. “One more year,” Mama said now. “Next summer he’ll come home to stay.”

  “Really?” said Beverly. This was the first he’d heard such a thing—or maybe he’d heard it but not paid attention. “He’s going to quit being president?”

  Mama laughed. “He can’t be president forever,” she said. “He’ll have finished two terms—eight years, that’s plenty. He’s earned his retirement.”

  “Is he going to go to France again, or anywhere like that?”

  “No,”
said Mama. “He’s going to just stay here. He won’t work anymore. He might visit to his farm near Bedford sometimes, but that’ll be all.”

  Beverly bit his lip to hold back his smile. He imagined life at Monticello with Master Jefferson always there. They wouldn’t have nearly as many visitors—no Miss Martha, at least not most of the time. The mountaintop would be quiet the way it was now. Master Jefferson would ride his horse, write his letters, and eat dinner every day at three o’clock. But he’d also have time to be with them, his other family.

  “Maybe he’ll teach me,” Beverly said, thinking of his violin. “He won’t want to keep paying Jesse Scott, not when he’s here and doesn’t have anything better to do.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” said Mama.

  “He liked my playing,” Beverly continued. Master Jefferson had listened to him one day in April. “He said—he said he was proud.”

  “I know he’s proud,” Mama said, “But, Beverly—”

  “Of course I’ll be busy too,” he said. “I’ll be working. But we’ll have time, if he’s here always. Won’t be any kind of rush.”

  It was a sore spot with him, that he’d turned ten and still not been given a real job. He was old enough to be a nail boy, but Joe Fossett didn’t have room for him at the anvils. If Joe kicked an almost-grown boy out to make room for Beverly, the boy would have to go to the ground, which meant he would be sent to work in the fields. Fieldwork was hard, hard, and once you started there, you never did anything else. Joe hoped he could persuade Master Jefferson to let some of the current nail boys continue working on the mountaintop, so he had told Beverly to be patient and wait his turn.

  A year, Beverly thought now. One year until Master Jefferson would be home to stay. It felt like forever. He would be patient, because he had no choice.

  “I know you need a job,” Mama was saying. “More than that, you need a trade. A way to earn a respectable living, once you’re free and on your own. It’s time we started thinking about it. What do you like to do? I never saw you for a blacksmith.”

  Beverly blinked. He’d never thought about what he wanted to do. He’d never thought beyond being a nail boy. Mama was right—he didn’t really want to be a blacksmith.

  “What do you like?” Mama persisted. “What feels good under your hands? Horses? Plants? Wood?”

  Beverly thought she meant firewood, and shook his head. “And not dishes either,” he said.

  Mama sighed. “Who do you like working with, besides Joe Fossett?”

  Beverly thought. He liked helping Burwell when Burwell was in a good mood, but not when Burwell was cranky. He liked Wormley—but he didn’t like weeding the garden, and plants didn’t make him happy.

  “Uncle John,” Beverly said. Uncle John always seemed patient and calm. His hands were wide and strong. Beverly loved to watch John carve curves and angles into golden pieces of wood. He loved smooth boards, and the smell of fresh shavings.

  Mama nodded. “When Master Jefferson comes this summer, I’ll speak to him,” she said. “For now go help Uncle Peter. And don’t you give me that look.”

  Little baby Eston learned to smile before Master Jefferson’s summer visit. He smiled at Master Jefferson—Mama snuck them all into Master Jefferson’s room early one morning, so they could help her show Master Jefferson the baby—and Master Jefferson laughed. Beverly felt a bolt of jealousy. It was silly to be jealous of his baby brother, but he felt jealous all the same.

  But then Master Jefferson turned to Beverly. “So,” he said, “I hear it’s time we put you to work. Time you learned a trade, your mama says.”

  Beverly stood tall. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “She tells me you have an aptitude for woodworking,” Master Jefferson said.

  Beverly didn’t know what aptitude meant, but it sounded good. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Master Jefferson smiled. His smile looked so much like baby Eston’s that Beverly smiled back without even thinking.

  “Good,” Master Jefferson said. “Carpentry’s a fine craft, a respectable occupation for any man. We’ll put you with John, shall we? He’ll be working on his own now, head carpenter. Dismore’s going back to Ireland.”

  Beverly felt a small thrill. His father wanted him to have a respectable occupation. His father cared. “I’ll work hard,” he promised. He wanted to add, I’ll make you proud, but, before he could, Mama had taken his arm, and hustled them all away.

  At first being a carpenter’s apprentice felt exactly like being an errand boy. All he did was sweep wood shavings and fetch and carry for Uncle John. It was true that working with Uncle John had a steady pleasantness to it. Unlike Uncle Peter, Uncle John never lost his temper and snapped angry words. He whistled sometimes, especially when he was particularly pleased with his work, but even on days he didn’t whistle he seemed content. Every morning, his eyes lit up a little bit when Beverly came into the shop, and Beverly started to treasure that look, that small glow of happiness. It was nice to know Uncle John liked having him there.

  Still, he wanted to do useful work, cutting and sawing and fitting together. When he said so, Uncle John smiled. “Sweeping up the shavings is about as useful as it gets,” he said. “Awful mess, those shavings make. They blow into all the carpets and bedrooms, Miss Martha like to has a fit.”

  They were working on something called cornices, which were a kind of fancy wood trim around the top of the walls, doorways, and windows. Master Jefferson and Uncle John together had designed them.

  “I don’t know why Miss Martha cares,” Beverly said. “It’s not her business. It’s not her house—”

  “I’m mighty glad she comes here,” Uncle John said with a soft smile.

  Beverly looked at him in wonderment. Who on earth was glad to see Miss Martha? All her fuss—then Beverly understood. Uncle John’s wife, Aunt Priscilla, belonged to Miss Martha. She took care of all Miss Martha’s children. When Miss Martha was gone from Monticello, Aunt Priscilla was gone too. “Well, sure,” Beverly said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, I know you didn’t,” Uncle John said. “But it’s like they say, no great loss without some gain. I do the gaining, when Miss Martha’s here.”

  Miss Edith and Joe Fossett’s son, James, had grown to be a great big boy, as much of a handful as Maddy. Maddy and James spent the whole month of July digging in dirt piles and terrorizing chickens. Maddy sobbed when James went back to Washington. Harriet wasn’t very happy, either. It had become her job to take care of Maddy whenever Mama was busy, which, with the new baby, was much of the time, and Maddy was easier to manage when he had James.

  One day in early fall Beverly was sweeping the parlor floor for the third time that day when Maddy bolted into the room. “Bev’ly!” he shouted. “Bev’ly!”

  “Maddy!” Beverly grabbed him. Maddy’s little feet were still tender, and Beverly didn’t want him catching a splinter. “What are you doing here? Where’s Harriet?”

  “No Here-yet,” Maddy said. He couldn’t say Harriet.

  “No here yet?” Beverly teased him. “Harriet’s not here?”

  Maddy laughed, even though he didn’t really understand. Beverly swung him around, and Maddy laughed again.

  “More!” he shouted. “More, Bev’ly! Swing me again!”

  Beverly swung him around and around. When he stopped the walls kept going. He sat down, Maddy on his lap, laughing and breathing hard.

  “Maddy, come here.” Harriet marched into the room looking cross. “Mama wants you. Naptime.” Now that Miss Martha and her children were gone, Harriet had dropped her ladylike ways and reverted to looking wild, her hair escaping in curling locks out of her two braids, her bare feet and arms smudged with dirt.

  “No,” Maddy said.

  “Yes.” Harriet held out her arms.

  “No, no, NO!” Maddy shouted. He threw himself against Beverly.

  “Yes!” said Harriet. “I told you, Mama said!”

  “Nooo!” Maddy wailed, clinging
to Beverly.

  “Here, now.” Uncle John set down his chisel and came up behind them. “Come to Uncle John, Maddy boy.”

  Maddy let go of Beverly’s shirt and launched himself at Uncle John. He buried his head against Uncle John’s chest. “No nap,” he said.

  “No, no,” Uncle John said, soothing. “I’ll just take you on home now, to your mama, and maybe we’ll lay down for a spell. Give Beverly a kiss.” Maddy kissed Beverly wet on the mouth. Harriet laughed. “Come with me, Miss Harriet,” Uncle John said. “Beverly, you can finish that floor. Come, Maddy, my sweet boy.” Uncle John’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Come, we’ll walk, we’ll lay down.” He went out with Maddy cradled in his arms.

  Uncle John and Aunt Priscilla didn’t have any children of their own. It was, Mama said, the world’s greatest shame.

  Beverly looked at Harriet. “Go on,” he said. “Go with them. Uncle John said.”

  Harriet tossed her braids. “I’m tired of watching Maddy,” she said. “He’s being awful today. He will not behave.”

  “I’ll watch him,” Beverly said. “You can stay here and do my work instead. It’s harder than playing with Maddy, that’s for sure.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, hard work,” she said. “I’ll tell Mama you said sweeping the floor was hard.”