The Magnificent Adventure Part 14

I ought by this statement to have cash in hand $183.70 But I actually have in hand 293.00 So that the errors of this statement amt to 109.20

The whole of the nails used for Monticello and smithwork are omitted, because no account was kept of them. This makes part of the error, and the article of nails has been extraordinary this year.

There was a curious accuracy in the a.n.a.lytical tests which Mr.

Jefferson applied to all the ordinary transactions of life. It was not enough for him to know exactly how many dollars and cents he had expended; he must know what should be the average result of such expenditures. In the middle of a life of tremendous and marvelously varied activities he finds time to leave for us such records as these:

Mr. Remsen tells me that six cord of hickory last a fireplace well the winter.

Myrtle candles of last year out.

Pd Farren an impudent surcharge for Venetn blinds, 2.66.

Borrowed of Mr. Maddison order on bank for 150d.

Enclosed to D. Rittenhouse, Lieper's note of 238.57d, out of which he is to pay for equatorial instrument for me.

Hitzeimer says that a horse well fed with grain requires 100 lb. of hay, and without grain 130 lb.

T. N. Randolph has had 9 galls. whisky for his harvest.

My first pipe of Termo is out--begun soon after I came home to live from Philadelphia.

Agreed with Robt. Chuning to serve me as overseer at Monticello for 25 and 600 lb. pork. He is to come Dec. 1.

Agreed with ---- Bohlen to give 300 _livres tournois_ for my bust made by Ceracchi, if he shall agree to take that sum.

My daughter Maria married this day.

March 16--The first shad at this market today.

March 28--The weeping willow shows the green leaf.

April 9--Asparagus come to table.

April 10--Apricots blossom.

April 12--Genl. Thaddeus Kosciusko puts into my hands a Warrant of the Treasury for 3,684.54d to have bills of exchange bought for him.

May 8--Tea out, the pound has lasted exactly 7 weeks, used 6 times a week; this is 8-21 or .4 of an oz. a time for a single person. A pound of tea making 126 cups costs 2d, 126 cups or ounces of coffee--8 lb. cost 1.6.

May 18--On trial it takes 11 dwt. Troy of double refined maple sugar to a dish of coffee, or 1 lb. avoirdupois to 26.5 dishes, so that at 20 cents per lb. it is 8 mills per dish. An ounce of coffee at 20 cents per lb. is 12.5 mills, so that sugar and coffee of a dish is worth 2 cents.

As to the code of official etiquette which we have seen to exist in Was.h.i.+ngton, the President himself was responsible for it, for we have, written out in his own delicate hand, the following explicit instructions:

The families of foreign ministers, arriving at the seat of government, receive the first visit from those of the national ministers, as from all other residents. Members of the legislature and of the judiciary, independent of their offices, have a right as strangers to receive the first visit. No t.i.tle being admitted here, those of foreigners give no precedence. Difference of grade among the diplomatic members gives no precedence.

At public ceremonies the government invites the presence of foreign ministers and their families. A convenient seat or station will be provided for them, with any other strangers invited, and the families of the national ministers, each taking place as they arrive, and without any precedence.

To maintain the principle of equality, or of pell-mell, and prevent the growth of precedence out of courtesy, the members of the executive will practise at their own houses, and recommend an adherence to the ancient usages of the country of gentlemen in ma.s.s giving precedence to the ladies in ma.s.s, in pa.s.sing from one apartment where they are a.s.sembled into another.

And so on, through reams and reams of a strange man's life records.

Why should we care to note his curious concern over details? The answer to that question is this--obviously, Thomas Jefferson's estimate of a man must also in all likelihood have been curiously exact. He did not make public to the world his judgment of Colonel Aaron Burr, at that time Vice-President of the United States; but in his diary, written in frankness by himself for himself, he put down the following:

I have never seen Colonel Burr till he became a member of the Senate. His conduct very soon inspired me with distrust.

I habitually cautioned Mr. Madison against trusting him too much. I saw that under General W. and Mr. Adams, where a great military appointment or a diplomatic one was to be made, he came post to Philadelphia to show himself, and in fact he was always in the market if they wanted him. He was indeed told by Dayton in 1800 that he might be Secretary at War, but this bid was too late. His election as Vice-President was then foreseen. With these impressions of Colonel Burr, there never has been any intimacy between us, and but little a.s.sociation.

A certain plan of this same Colonel Burr's now went forward in such fas.h.i.+on as involved the loyalty of Meriwether Lewis, the man to whom, of all others of his acquaintance, Thomas Jefferson gave first place in trust and confidence and friends.h.i.+p--the young man who but now was making his unostentatious departure on the great adventure that they two had planned.

His garb ill cared-for, his hair unkempt, his face a trifle haggard, working on into the day whose dawn he had seen arise, the tall, gaunt old man set aside first one minor matter, then another, leaving them all exactly finished. At last he wrote down, for later forwarding, the last item of his own knowledge regarding the new country into which he had sent his young friend.

I have received word from Paris that Mr. Broughton, one of the companions of Captain Vancouver, went up the Columbia River one hundred miles in December, 1792. He stopped at a point he named Vancouver. Here the river Columbia is still a quarter of a mile wide. From this point Mount Hood is seen about twenty leagues distant, which is probably a dependency of the Stony Mountains. Accept my affectionate salutations.

This was the last word Meriwether Lewis received from his chief. As the latter finished it, he sat looking out of the window toward that West which meant so much to him.

He did not at first note the interruption of his reverie. Long ago he had made public his announcement that the time of Thomas Jefferson belonged to the public, and that he might be seen at any time by any man. He hesitated now but a moment, therefore, when old Henry, his faithful black, threw open the door and stated simply that there was "a lady wantin' to see Mistah Jeffahson."

"Who is she, Henry?" inquired the President of the United States mildly. "I am somewhat busy today."

"'Tain't no diff'rence, she say--she sho'ly want see Mistah Jeffahson."

The tired old man smiled and shrugged his shoulders. A moment later the persistent caller was ushered into the office of the nation's chief executive. He rose courteously to meet her.

It was Theodosia Alston, whom he had known from her childhood. Mr.

Jefferson greeted her with his hand outstretched, and, her arm still in his, led her to a seat.

"My dear," said he, "you will pardon our confusion here, I am sure.

There are many matters----"

"I know it is an intrusion, Mr. Jefferson," began Theodosia Alston again, her face flus.h.i.+ng swiftly. "But you are so good, so kind, so great in your patience that we all take advantage of you. And yet you are so tired," she added impulsively, as she caught sight of his haggard face.

"I was not so fortunate as to find time for sleep last night." He smiled again with humorous, half twisted mouth.

"Nor was I."

"Tut, tut! No, no, my dear, that sort of thing will not do." He looked at her in silence for some time. "Perhaps, my dear," said he at last, "you come regarding Captain Lewis?"

"How did you know?" she exclaimed, startled.

"Why should I not know?" He pushed his chair so close that he might lay a hand upon her arm. "Listen, Theo, my child. I am an old man, and I am your friend, and his also. I had need to be very blind had I not known long ago what I did know. I am, perhaps, the only confidant of Captain Lewis, and I repose in him confidences that I would venture to no other man; but he is not the sort to speak of such matters. It is only by virtue of exceptional circ.u.mstances, my dear, that I know the story of you two."

She was looking straight into his face, her eyes mournful.

"I was glad to send him away, sorely as I miss him. But then, you said, you come to me about him?"

"Yes, after he is gone--knowing all that you say--because I trust your great kindness and your chivalry. I come to ask you to call him back!

Oh, Mr. Jefferson, were it any other man in the world but yourself I had not dared come here; but you know my story and his. It is your right to believe that he and I were--that is to say, we might have been--ah, sir, how can I speak?"