A Partial Sun E-Book

Lawrence Reid Bechtel

• Herausgeber: BQB Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Author Lawrence Reid Bechtel has captured the story of Isaac Granger, a slave from Thomas Jefferson's plantation as told through the eyes of amateur historian Reverend Charles Campbell.

In 1852, after much searching through the Black districts of Petersburg, Virginia, the amateur historian Charles Campbell finally located Isaac Granger, a former slave of the late Thomas Jefferson. Though disinterested at first in sharing his memories, Isaac was at last persuaded by the persistent Reverend to tell the full story of his time in Philadelphia as a young man in the early 1790s. It was supposed to have been a simple story: he would apprentice with a Quaker tinsmith and then return to Monticello to produce tinware for sale in such abundance that "Old Master" might pay down his plantation's crippling debts.

But Isaac was impressionable and more thoughtful than Mr. Jefferson knew. Philadelphia was a big city, home to a thriving African-American community, and Isaac met all manner of characters, both tragic and comic. Isaac got himself into difficulties, contemplated his place in the world, and was challenged to do more than just serve. Conflict was inevitable.

Leseprobe

A Partial Sun (Book 1 in The Tinsmith’s Apprentice series)

©2019 Lawrence Reid Bechtel

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying, or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

While this book is based on true events and real people, the story itself is a work of fiction.

Published in the United States by BQB Publishing

(an imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company)

www.bqbpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-945448-39-3 (p)

978-1-945448-40-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019940384

Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

Cover design by Rebecca Lown, www.rebeccalowndesign.com

First editor: Caleb Guard

Second editor: Michelle Booth

PRASIE FOR LAWRENCE REID BECHTEL AND A PARTIAL SUN

“Isaac’s adventures and misadventures highlight the complexities and nuances of slavery, even in the North. Bechtel’s deep research brings gravity and authenticity to that twisted American social culture. Isaac’s harrowing adventures on his trip to Philadelphia are worth the price of the book. I was truly sorry to find myself at the end of Isaac’s journey, and I welcome the author’s promise of a sequel.”

- Rod Barfield, author

America’s Forgotten Caste

Thomas Day, Free Black Cabinetmaker

“[The author does] a wonderful job shaping Isaac’s character and sculpturing a plot that’s thoroughly engaging. [His] characters, good and bad, are all convincing, and the atmosphere and setting feels vivid and realistic.”

- Ed Falco, Professor

English Department

MFA Creative Writing Program

Virginia Tech

This book is fondly dedicated to the memory of Nannie B. Hairston (1921-2017) “Praise the Lord!”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many persons have been instrumental in the writing of this book, which originated with a sculpture project of mine in 2008; namely, portrait busts of Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Isaac Granger Jefferson. In 2017, Terri Leidich, of BQB Publishers, lifted me from my largely solitary labor of writing the manuscript into the dynamic process of getting it into print and marketed. My developmental editor, Caleb Guard, helped me immeasurably in transforming the narrative’s structural form, and copy editor Michelle Boothe significantly assisted in improving the prose. My brother, the freelance nonfiction writer Stefan Bechtel, shared the lessons of his experience with publishers, listened attentively to my reading of Part I, and offered valuable suggestions on titles. The Pennsylvania Historical Society, in Philadelphia, provided key pieces of information, and access to editions of the Philadelphia Gazette from the eighteenth century. Dr. Edward Falco, head of the Creative Writing Program at Virginia Tech and his colleague Dr. Virginia Fowler, my graduate professor for Victorian Literature, offered comments and encouragement of early draft segments. Becky Cox, who had typed out my first novel, The Favorite, which I wrote while teaching at Virginia Tech, came to my aid once again in preparing, organizing, and proofreading the first complete digital version of this book. Dr. Rodney Barfield, author of America’s Forgotten Caste, film maker James Crawford of Swinging Gate Productions, and Thomas Orman Knight, a longtime friend and book lover, read and perceptively commented on versions of the full manuscript. Dr. Wornie Reed, Director of the Race and Social Policy Center at Virginia Tech, and Bennett Johnson, President of PATH Press Inc., provided invaluable advice and counsel regarding use of the word “nigger.”

I love reading aloud to audiences and there is no better method for gauging whether a story “works,” and two audiences have favored me with their warm attention and valuable comment: a reunion of Wheaton College friends in Blacksburg, in the summer of 2015, and the “noble band” of Etaturk XLVIII, at the Wytheville House in Virginia.

Of the many books which informed and enhanced my writing of A Partial Sun, three deserve particular mention: Jefferson at Monticello: Recollections of a Monticello Slave and of a Monticello Overseer, edited by James A. Bear, which contains Isaac Granger Jefferson’s recollections of his time in Philadelphia; Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community 1720-1840, by Gary B. Nash, which provided indispensable details for some of the episodes I enlarge upon; and Lucia Stanton’s, “Those Who Labor for My Happiness”: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Ms. Stanton’s rich, nuanced understanding of Jefferson and slavery, gained from a lifetime of scholarship, was vital to me.

I cannot close these acknowledgements without expressing my gratitude to the late Carmen Gaudio, of Chicago, under whose rare tutelage and protection, in the mid-to late ‘70’s, I was able to work and live in an African American neighborhood on the Near West Side, where I drew inspiration for two characters fundamental to the development of my protagonist.

At my side and having my back through everything has been my spouse and closest friend, Ann Morris Shawhan. Without her sustaining encouragement, extraordinary patience, thoughtful commentary, and general management of our affairs, I could never have written this book.

Finally, I thank you, my Dear Readers. May the sun in your firmament prove not to be partial but full of light!

NOTICE TO THE READER*

Isaac Granger, Thomas Jefferson, James Hemings, Mr. Bringhouse (or “Bringhurst,” as he is listed in Philadelphia records), Billey Gardner, the Reverend Richard Allen, Reverend Charles Campbell, and certain other characters which appear in this novel were real people, and certain historical events which inspired the plot really happened, but the book itself is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously; all other characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real, or to be read as history. The language used in the book includes crude idioms and epithets that reflect what the author believes would have been authentic to the period and characters. The author intends no offense, disparagement, or hurt.

*I am indebted to Ross Howell, Jr., author of Forsaken, for the substance of this Notice.

* “We know that as early as the 17th century, ‘negro’ evolved to ‘nigger’ as intentionally derogatory . . .” (quoted from Arizona State University Dr. Neal A. Lester, who twice taught courses on the n-word; Teaching Tolerance, (Teaching Tolerance is italicized) Issue 40, Fall 2011, tolerance.org)

* “. . . W.E.B. Dubois announced to the world in 1898, ‘I believe that eight million Americans are entitled to a capital letter.’ Dubois was not the first to raise the point that the spelling of Negro with a small ‘n’ was a gratuitous insult, but it was a long time before white publishers and editors abandoned the practice.” (from a preview of journal article, “Some Notes on the Capital ‘N’,” by Donald L. Grant and Mildred Bricker Grant, published in Phylon, (italicized) Vol. 36, No. 4; previewed in JSTOR, jstor.org)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

INTERLUDE

PART II

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

INTERLUDE

PART III

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

INTERLUDE

PART IV

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

POSTSCRIPT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY LAWRENCE REID BECHTEL

INTRODUCTION

by Reverend Charles Campbell

In the year 1847, to distract my grief from events which even now cause me to shudder, I cast about for a fresh historical subject upon which to concentrate my attention, one that would be of interest to the reading public and offer the chance of an income, of which I was desperately in need. Providentially, I chanced to hear of an old Negro, one Isaac Granger Jefferson by name, working as a blacksmith in Petersburg, Virginia, who had for most of his life been bound a slave to the late Thomas Jefferson. It was said that this fellow could ruminate at length upon his experiences at Monticello, sprinkling his reminiscences with rare glimpses of the great man.

So excited I became at the prospect of speaking with this venerable gentleman, and gleaning from him more of these rare glimpses, and assembling this material in a book, that I packed my portmanteau and notebooks that very day and set off by coach for Petersburg. I shall not trouble you, dear Reader, with details of my journey, which included a broken axle, violent thunderstorm, and attempted robbery, but will instead present myself as having arrived, weary but unharmed, at my destination, a city which sits astride the Appomattox River, about twenty-four miles south of Richmond. I found it bustling with activity, and peopled with a remarkable number of Negroes, many living as Free Blacks, and engaging in all manner of trades. After numerous inquiries, and vain searches, I located Isaac Granger’s workshop on Plum Street, one block back from the railroad line. It was a modest structure between a cobbler’s stand and a cooper’s stall. The door was open, and Isaac, his back to me, was working at his forge. I entered and stood quietly to one side and watched. He was at that time about seventy-one years of age, and though somewhat stooped, still remarkably robust, with large shoulders and muscular forearms, and, I noticed, the end of one finger missing on his left hand. At last, he put down his hammer and tongs, turned to me, and in a deep and resonant voice inquired what business had brought me to his door. His face, black as coal, creased with lines, and glistening with sweat, wore an expression deeply somber, as though it registered all the sufferings of his race. I expressed to him my fervent hope that he would share with me his memories of Thomas Jefferson, and Monticello, that I might publish these for the edification of the citizenry. Having completed my entreaty, I stood uncomfortably waiting for his response, as he watched me with his deep-set eyes. Finally, he said that “Old Master” had been dead twenty years or more, and that he, Isaac, had already spoken of him and life at his plantation to white men on several occasions, and saw no reason to bring up the business yet again. Then he spread open his arm to show a cluttered work bench, and said he was “full up with work,” as I could plainly see.

Fearful that he would turn me away, and that my hopes would come to naught, I begged him to forgive my intrusion upon his business, and said that I expected my anticipated book of his recollections would turn a tidy profit, and that I would dispense to him a percentage, if he would only be so good as to humor my questions and allow me to take down his answers. His grave expression visibly softened at this, and we managed to come to terms. There in his rude shop we made ourselves comfortable on two stools, and he began to talk, and I to write in my notebook—a difficult enterprise, I found. Having warmed to his subject, he was animated and voluble, and I was obliged to my pencil fairly flying along the page to keep up. I returned a second day to complete the transcript of his reminiscences, and we then parted amiably, with a firm handshake and my promise to notify him when the book was in print.

Alas, I could find no willing publisher. I was told the material was curious, but antique; that the modern reader was no longer interested in pedestrian details about the Patriarchs of the Republic; that books of practical advice were wanted, commentary on topics of the day, and for ladies, novels—always novels, full of romance and intrigue, sufficiently weighted with instruction on probity and good manners. I despaired, and the manuscript languished in my cupboard desk for nearly five years, until early in 1852. By then, abolition was the hue and cry, and southern states were marshaling arguments in defense of their “peculiar institution.” A lively market for slave narratives emerged. In these narratives, the protagonist typically detailed his many excruciating ordeals and grisly injustices under a cruel slave master, before escaping at last to the bounties of liberty. While browsing one of these, I suddenly recalled, from Isaac’s recitation to me, his brief account of having been taken by Thomas Jefferson to Philadelphia, where he had been apprenticed to a tinsmith, “one Bringhouse by name.” Though I had passed over this scanty account with little thought while writing it down, because it had little to do with Mr. Jefferson, it now awoke an idea in me: might it be enlarged, and made into a kind of slave narrative? For Isaac had been verily transported from one world to another and altogether different one. From the proscribed world of a Virginia plantation, where he could have expected to live and die as a slave, to the busy, prosperous world of a northern city—and not just any city, but the capital of the country at that time, extolled as the “Athens of America,” seat of a thriving and dynamic Negro community of some two thousand souls; a city, and a state, founded upon Quaker ideals which included an aversion to slavery. It was to such a world that Isaac had been suddenly admitted, at the impressionable age of fifteen, and where he remained for nearly four years, growing into his manhood, with all its attendant desires: philosophical, moral, and sensual.

What, pray tell, had he seen, and heard, and felt, in such a world, and at such a time of life? Philadelphia was a well-known destination for escaped slaves. Had he met one of these? Conceived his own ideas of escape? The tinsmith, James Bringhouse, was likely Quaker, and if so, had Isaac ever attended a Friends Meeting? Pennsylvania had passed a law providing for the gradual abolition of slavery—the first such law in all the nation. Had Isaac learned of this law, somehow? The city housed the first African Methodist Episcopal church in the country. Had Isaac ever attended this church? Surely, I thought, the sum total of these and other circumstances, and the novel experiences which arose from them, must have had a profound effect on Isaac as a young enslaved man. Yet in the end he had returned south, whether by force or personal volition. Returned to Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, returned to the proscribed life of a lifelong slave, having left behind all the opportunities which must have beckoned him in Philadelphia. How had he faced this? Did he ever have regrets? Had he struck some kind of bargain with Mr. Jefferson?

Oh, how I wished to know the answers to these questions! I believed that a healthy number of sensitive readers would also wish to know. Though not perhaps distinguished by beatings and torture, followed by a wild escape, the story I foresaw would be uncommonly interesting, intimate and full of particulars, featuring a young Negro of conscience and sensitivity, who would stir in the attentive reader the deepest concern. However, to bring such a story to the publisher, one which was credible and attractive, I knew that I would need to visit again with Isaac and get from him the full story of his time in Philadelphia. Yet when I arrived at his door once again, with deep apologies for my long absence and failure thus far, but with enthusiasm for this new enterprise, I found him deeply reticent. Therefore, I took lodgings in the city, and visited with him nearly every day for three weeks, imploring him to cooperate, until at last he relented, not, I think, on account of my importuning, but from the simple fact that he was now clearly ailing, and no longer the vigorous man I remembered from my first visit. He knew his days were numbered.

“My story won’t do me no harm nor good when I am laid in my grave,” he said. “Might as well get it off my chest.” He expressed a wish that his percentage of any monies gained from the book go to his “poor Mrs.,” who suffered from gout. This I ardently promised to do, and with that assurance—he in a ladder-back chair, and I, with my notebook open and seated at a plain deal table—Isaac told me his story. He sometimes cried, and often laughed, or shook his head, as it all came back to him, as vividly as life itself, though it were so many years gone by. In this way, meeting as his work would allow, over a period of three months, he completed his recitation, and I my notes-taking. On one point only, Isaac and I vigorously disagreed; namely, in regards to his inclusion of the word ‘nigger’ when quoting the speech of the despicable Daniel Shady. “The word is coarse,” I objected, “an emblem of bigotry, and will offend the gentle ears of my readers!” He only laughed at my objection. “Let it offend!” he retorted. “If I have been required to bear the sting of that word upon my ears time and again all these years, then your readers must learn to bear it too, in all its savagery! Besides, I have been considerate of your readers more than you know, for if I were to include every instance of its use, why this proposed book of yours would require fumigation upon every readin’!” He watched for my reaction and then smiled. “So sweeten your pages for me, will you? Put a capital letter at the front of the word, Negro.” It was a request I heartily agreed to. Over the following two years, as ominous clouds of impending conflict began to darken our nation’s skies, I labored to assemble those notes into a passable narrative and submit them for the publication of the book which you now hold in your hands.

With these remarks, I shall conclude this introduction, begging you, kind Reader, to forgive any errors or inaccuracies as being solely mine. It is my fervent wish that this narrative will preserve some moving semblance of Isaac Granger Jefferson’s life and experience. A thousand, thousand enslaved persons have lived and died, with no record kept of their time on earth. May it please God that I have given this good man his due opportunity to speak and be heard.

Composed on this fifth day of June 1855.

—Reverend Charles Campbell

PART I

“Now then, Reverend Campbell!” Isaac began, leaning back in his chair, the cane bottom creaking under his weight, “so you have come to hear about my adventures in the great city of Philadelphia, have you?”

“Yes, and record them for posterity,” I added, lifting my pen over the notebook which lay open before me.

“Well,” he said with a slow smile, “I can remember as if it were yesterday, though in truth it was now more than sixty years ago, when I set off down Master Jefferson’s mountain on old Beulah, my travel satchel tied on behind, one fine September month in the year of seventeen and ninety.”

I bent over my notebook, taking down every word, excited to begin recording the narrative I had so long anticipated, and knew would be historic.

“But this is too hasty a beginnin’!” he said.

I looked up at him, baffled, and for a moment my spirit wilted within me, fearing that he had for some reason changed his mind, and would after all not share with me his recollections. Then he turned in his chair, pulled open a small drawer under his workbench, and took out an oiled paper. This he unfolded and lifted up in his thick fingers something which looked like a piece of old leather, dark with age, crinkled, and roughly eight inches square. “Break you off a piece,” he said. “Go ahead!”

I put down my pen, reached out, and somewhat tentatively did as he commanded.

At once, my nostrils were filled with the strong, intoxicating, and unmistakable odor of tobacco.

Isaac then broke off a corner, too, and held it up. “This,” he said, “is tobacco leaf grown on Master Jefferson’s main plantation, under the watchful eye of my own father, who managed the crop that year from planting to harvest. He was the only black man ever to be appointed overseer by Master Jefferson.”

“What an honor that must have been for him,” I said.

“Oh, it was a hellish honor, Reverend Campbell, hellish! Pinched as he was by the demands of Mr. Jefferson, and the hatred of the field hands, who could not abide the rule of a black man like themselves.”

I looked again at the piece of tobacco in my hand, as if its veined surface were somehow inscribed with that anguish.

“Now crumble it up,” Isaac said, “and put it on your tongue.”

I watched him crumble up his piece, open his lips—noticing as he did so that he was only missing but one tooth—and lay it on his pink tongue. Then he closed his lips and massaged the tobacco around in his mouth. “Come on, now,” he said.

But I was loath to, for I was opposed to the use of intoxicants of any kind. Yet I had come a long way to record Isaac’s recollections. This small transgression against my principles was a small price to pay, I told myself, and so I crumbled up the piece, seeing as I did so that it stained my fingertips with a color dark as umber. Then, begging God’s forgiveness, I opened my lips and dropped those crumbles upon my tongue. Instantly, my whole mouth burned with the taste. It stung, it bit, it seized the very seat of my perceptions with a terrible intensity. Only by sheer force of will was I able to keep my mouth closed and look at Isaac a moment and prove to him irrevocably by my cooperation that I was committed to our enterprise.

“In this pungent plant,” he said, looking at me calmly, “is contained much travail of the slave.”

Momentarily, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of revulsion for that unfathomable travail, and then I broke from my chair, pushed open the door, and retched in the gutter. I thought my guts would come up. I spat repeatedly and rinsed my mouth with water from the well pump before I at last felt reasonably restored to myself, returned to my seat, and took up my pen. Isaac watched this whole miserable experience I had endured without a word, then calmly spat his wad of tobacco in a small tin and neatly wiped his lips with one finger.

“Now my father,” he said, taking a deep breath, “was George Granger. Great George, he was called. Sometimes King George. Not only because he was great of stature, but because he was great in his capacities and responsibilities. He rose from leadman to foreman and then to overseer—the only Negro ever to attain that station under Master Jefferson, as I have said, with the duty to supervise half of all his farms and hands, the raising of crops, especially tobacco, the money crop, from planting to harvesting to shipping in their hogsheads to market. My father’s tobacco brought top dollar, for it was clean, fully dried, and of a good color. He was loyal to Master Jefferson, my father was, and worried himself sick to please him. Certain hands hated him, whether he was light with the lash or heavy, for they expected he should go easy on them, even if it meant leaving good leaf to rot in the field. It was on account of him that I did not toil in the tobacco fields, worked to death, dawn to dark, under the active lash of an overseer like Mr. Paige, neither me nor my brothers.

“My mother was Ursula, known as Queen, for her grandmother had been a true queen back in the mother country, and the title of royalty naturally passed down, and she was spoken to as such by the field hands, for it was understood she had powers, both to heal and to harm. She was so beloved of Master Jefferson’s wife, Martha, that she had him fetch her back from a man in Goochland County, who’d bought her when Ms. Jefferson’s first husband, Batter Skelton, died from an accident. My father was also bought special by Master Jefferson, and brought back to Monticello, for he was married to my mother, but bound slave to a different master than she was. My mother was in charge of the pastry kitchen, a vital position, believe you me, for Master Jefferson he did love his pastries! She had responsibility for the laundry, too, and preservation of the meat, and she was the only person Master Jefferson would trust with the making and bottling of cider. She was wet nurse to Master Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Patsy, at the same time she suckled me.”

“Excuse me, Isaac,” I interjected, “but I am skeptical that your mother suckled both you and Patsy Jefferson. You claimed this likewise in your first narrative, and I calculated out the dates, which simply do not bear the correspondence, as she was born in 1772 and you in 1775.”

“Young man,” he said, taking from his bench a small-headed hammer, each head rounded, like a half-ball, “were you there, or was I?”

Stung by his rebuke, mild though it was, I apologized for my intrusive question, yet making clear that I considered factual accuracy as vital, and a duty to readers and to myself as historian.

In response to my remarks, he briefly smiled. “This here,” he said, “is a hollowing hammer.” Then he held his hand out flat. “It works like so.” He pounded lightly on his hand with the hammer, gradually curling up his fingers into a cup as he did so. “You got to be careful so as not to thin the tin sheet unevenly and weaken it.”

I supposed his action with the hammer held some message for me, but what it was I could not ascertain. So I merely nodded, dipped my quill pen, and waited. He put the hammer down, settled more comfortably in his chair, smiled for a moment all to himself, and then continued with his narrative, lapsing into the amiable and unlettered speech of his youth as he did so.

Oh, I was all on fire that mornin’ I set off on old Beulah for the great city of Philadelphia to become a tinsmith. I could hardly wait to get there and begin work! I knew I could make Old Master Jefferson proud. Had to. For I was a Granger, and that meant somethin’, and I aimed to prove it.

But I was not a Hemings, who of all the bound families was closest to Master Jefferson, Sally most of all, as you may have heard. So I knew full well, as I walked up through the quarter that mornin’, with a cloth satchel packed by Mama’s own hands slung over my shoulder, that I would be up against it with James Hemings. For he was manservant to Mr. Jefferson at that time and would for that reason also be going to Philadelphia. I hated that I should have to travel with him all that way. Even Mama’s warm, buttered corn cakes wrapped in oil paper tucked in my satchel didn’t help my mood much. And sure enough, when I came up to the grand east door of the Big House, there sat James high and mighty up on the coachman’s seat, the team all harnessed up and ready to go, with Master Jefferson’s riding horse, Odin, tied on behind. He was eatin’ a jam muffin and sippin’ coffee from a mug. He was a handsome man and knew it. “About time you got here, Granger,” he said. “We near ready to ride off.”

James was just being irksome, as usual, for I saw no sign of Mr. Jefferson, who was likely havin’ his regular morning foot bath just then, and after that a proper breakfast, which he lingered over. He was a man of order and habit.

James bobbed his head toward an old cart horse, tied to a post and switchin’ her tail. “Take your mount,” he said. “You’re not riding in the Master’s coach, that’s sure.”

“Beulah?” I said, in consternation. Why, she was the boniest old thing you ever seen, sunken where she ought to be thick, bumpy where she ought to be trim. “Did Master Jefferson assign me to ride that animal?” I needn’t have asked, of course.

James inspected his fingers. “She’s saddled, ain’t she?”

“You sure this animal can make it all the way up to Philadelphia?”

“I would say you had better make damn sure she does, because if she don’t, you walk.”

“I don’t like this arrangement,” I said.

James shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”

For a moment, I thought to bolt back down to our cabin and bring Mama back with me. Now, she would give James what for, be he a Hemings or not. But then the thought of her carryin’ on in my defense, and apt to draw the whole breakfast party, napkins still tucked under their chins, out onto the porch, Master Jefferson included, to see what the devil was going on, was altogether too embarrassin’ to contemplate. So I said nothin’, lest I should give James one more chance to rib, and simply walked on over to old Beulah just as indifferent as could be. I tied on my satchel, took her loose from the post, led her out onto the gravel drive, and climbed on. She went about five paces, then put her head down and kicked up her hind legs. Right off I went, bangin’ my left knee, and got up hobblin’. Still to this day that knee bothers me on a cold mornin’.

James poured the dregs of his coffee into the grass. “You’re a fine horseman,” he said. “Fine.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” I said, and got back up on Beulah. Or tried. Got one foot in the stirrup and went to pull myself up, but she did a two-step away, and I had to hop after, on the one foot that was still aground, and so went hopping about and couldn’t get that one foot out, nor swing the other up. Worst of all was James up on his high seat, laughin’ like a lunatic. I am no horseman.

Finally, he called out: “Click of the tongue, boy, click of the tongue! I have had all the fun I can stand for one morning.”

I hated that he called me “boy,” but click I did, and sure enough if Beulah didn’t stop. I got on. She stood still. Well, that was progress. But she did not move. I snapped the reins. She paid no attention.

“Dig in your heels,” said James. “Make it hurt. Persuade that animal that the pain of your heel is worse than the pain of going forward.”

I didn’t want to hurt poor old Beulah, but I didn’t want to look the fool, either, so I done as James said. Beulah began to move, and I hung on tight lest she buck.

“Don’t stop now,” said James, waving his hand, “keep a-going. We shall be along shortly, after Mr. Jefferson finishes his breakfast.”

“Which way?”

“Down. Down the mountain, what other way is there? Then toward town.”

I was only too happy to get away from James, so down the mountain we went, me and Beulah.

“If you see Mr. Rattiff, tell him we on our way.”

Beulah was as rough and awkward a ride as a man could well endure, besides stoppin’ every so often to stamp her foot and shake her head until I got her nudged into action again. Yet when we had wound far enough down the road that I could turn around and not see Old Master’s house, and the road ahead was empty and all my own, with the sun beginnin’ to light the world and the trees in color, my spirits began to rise. I was well and truly pleased to be travellin’ away to a far country and the big city.

Then all at once Beulah came to a dead stop, and no heel nor click of the tongue could make her go. She did not share my cheerfulness about a long journey. But this would not do! For wouldn’t I look the fool, when James showed up, high on his coachman’s seat, driving the matched pair, with Mr. Jefferson looking out to see what had brought their progress to a stop. So I climbed down off Beulah and considered this animal which was to carry me, and now had decided not to. She turned her head and looked at me with her big watery eyes. I reached out my hand to rub along her neck, but she nipped at me.

“Beulah,” I said. “You and me got to come to an understandin’. We got a long road ahead, and you got to carry me the whole way, like it or not. Now, I’d rather not ride. I’m better on my feet, yes ma’am, I am, and would stay on ’em and off your back, except that is not how it’s supposed to be. If we stay stuck here long, why, Old Master will come along and bump up against us and we both be in trouble. So the sooner you get me to Philadelphia, the sooner I can get off your back, you hear?”

Beulah she switched her tail and shifted her ears and bobbed her head. I reached out a hand again, and this time was able to stroke down along her neck all the way, and she did not try to nip. I kept my hand goin’ to her scratched and bony rump, where the hair was all worn off from the traces, and then as my hand moved down over her thin belly, I began to feel the burden of her animal life, which she had borne soundless, until all the spirit was beat out of her, nearly. I supposed she wanted no more than to be put to pasture, where she could lay down in the long grasses and warm sun, and there bob her head a time or two and breathe her last. Instead of that, here she was a-carryin’ me, how far she got no idea, only every step of it pain.

I took her whiskered ear in both hands. “Beulah,” I whispered. “You old beast. You pitiful, you know that? Pitiful!”

I got out from my sack one of Mama’s buttered corn cakes, broke loose a fair portion, laid it in my open hand, and let Beulah gobble it up, to the last crumb, in her slobberin’ way. I broke loose another bite, and she gobbled that, too. “Now,” I said, “let’s you and me get on down the road.”

Then I hoisted myself into the saddle and onto her back once again, and but lifted the reins. With no heel nudge at all, forward she went at a decent pace. “Hallelujah,” I shouted out. “Oh, hallelujah!”

Beulah and me went on together happy from there, all the way to the bottom of Master Jefferson’s Little Mountain, and so I decided to keep right on into town and wait there. Wouldn’t James be surprised, I thought with satisfaction. But we no sooner hit the public road, when here came a white man, in a long travellin’ coat, atop a big bay gelding, with a box tied on behind his saddle.

“Hold there, nigger,” he said.

Oh, I held, believe me, as the man rode his horse up close. Beulah, though a good two hands shorter, was not spooked, and showed her teeth, and the man’s horse backed up a step.

“You got your pass this morning, nigger?” said the man.

I dropped my eyes. “Sorry, Marse. I got no pass, this mornin’. Forgot it, silly me.”

“Forgot it? Don’t you know it’s a crime not to have your pass, nigger? Why, I could have you arrested. Who do you belong to?”

“Mr. Thomas Jefferson, he my Master. He sent me to scout the road ahead,” I said, which wasn’t bendin’ the truth too awful much. I gave him a foolish grin. “We on our way to Philadelphia.”

“Oh!” he said, pushin’ his hat back. “Why didn’t you say so, nigger? Save me all this bother arguing with you. I shall be traveling with Mr. Jefferson and his party. Goin’ up the mountain just now to meet him for breakfast. Now I’m late, thanks to you.”

“Sorry, Marse.”

“Address me as Mr. Rattiff.”

“Yes, Marse.”

“Did you not hear? Address me as Mr. Rattiff.”

“Mr. Rattiff.”

“Rattiff. Mr. Rattiff, in the French manner.”

“Mr. Rattiff in the French manner,” I said, all in one go. That got his goat, as intended.

“No, no, goddamn it. Just Mr. Rattiff.”

“Mr. Rattiff.”

“Finally!” he said, slapping his pant leg. “God, I hate to deal with dumb niggers. Breakfast is probably cold by now, with all this frittering around.” He broke his horse into a trot and turned up the mountain road. “Don’t you be going on farther without your pass,” he called back. “You ought to know that much at least.”

Just as the man got out of sight, Beulah lifted up her bushy tail and peed. Then shat.

“Thank you,” I said, pattin’ her neck. “My sentiments exactly.”

But it was true what he said about havin’ no pass, so I got down off Beulah, tied the reins to a branch, and set myself on a tree log close beside. I would just have to wait ‘till Mr. Jefferson showed. He and James and Mr. Rattiff. Beulah pushed her nose around in the leaves to forage.

I watched her. “You may be happy to just stand around and eat,” I said, “but it galls me to set here idle. For I am full of adventure for the road!”

Beulah lifted her head, and took a good look at me, but kept her big teeth grindin’ away, grass stems hangin’ from her lips. When she had done, she dropped her head and pushed around in the leaves with her nose for more.

“Any chance you get, you eat,” I said, disgusted. “You know that?”

But watchin’ her made me hungry, so I got from my sack another of Mama’s corn cakes, and nibbled away at it, little by little, so it would last. The cake was still just a tad warm and smelled of her hearth, which sent a pang of homesickness through me. And here I was barely started. So I began to consider the long road ahead in a more resolute manner. Except tiredness crept over me, for I had lain awake a long while the night before, thinking of this very morning. Now that I was in it, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Figurin’ that Mr. Jefferson would not be along for some time, I pulled my coat around me, slid back off the tree log and lay in the deep leaves, lookin’ up through the tree branches and red leaves to the blue sky where slow clouds drifted peaceably by.

So on that deep bed of leaves, in the quiet morning, I fell asleep. Shouldn’t have, but I did. Slept deep and dreamed. Dreamed myself right back to where this expedition had all begun, one sunny afternoon three months before. I was pumpin’ the bellows in my brother’s smithy. Little George—my brother—he was at the forge fire, hammer in hand. We was forgin’ chain. Then all of a sudden in walked Master Jefferson. Walked in and came over right close to me, saying not a word, only watchin’ just exactly how I pumped the bellows, what color flame I kept, how much charcoal was left. Every little detail counted with him, and I was terribly afraid there must be some detail I had wrong, only I didn’t know which. Then he went over and watched my brother real close up, same as he done me, and got out his stick rule and measured to the inch how much iron rod we had used, to figure wastage, and wrote in his vest pocket notebook with a stub pencil. I could see the sweat on Little George’s brow, for Master Jefferson he did not like wastage.

Then he said, in a perfectly usual voice and lookin’ straight at my brother, “Send Isaac up to the house.”

I nearly fell against the bellows. What had I done so very wrong that I must go up to the Big House?

Little George he put his hammer right down. “Yes, suh. Now?”

“When you come to a break point,” said Master Jefferson. He stood a moment longer, inspectin’ us both, then turned out the door, blockin’ the sun as he done so, and was gone.

I looked at my big brother. “I pumped the bellows even as could be, two counts on the downstroke, two counts on the up.”

Little George held open his hand to show a length of iron rod no longer than two thumbs end to end. “This is my only wastage and was going to use it as a door bolt.”

I flung up my arms. “So why does he want me up at the Big House?”

“You tell me. I hope to God you ain’t got us both in trouble. Did you get the wood split?”

“Split and stacked.”

“Carry up the water?”

“Twenty buckets.”

Little George chewed his lip. “You didn’t get into Mr. Jefferson’s ice cream again, did you?”

“No.”

“You ain’t lying to me, is you?”

“I only took a finger swipe.”

“How many times I got to tell you, Isaac,” exclaimed my brother, pushin’ at his sleeves and tuggin’ at his apron as he would do when upset, “stay out of Mama’s pastry kitchen. You know Mr. Jefferson don’t want no black finger in his ice cream. It’s bad luck.”

“Don’t you think I know that by now?” I said, agitated by his tone. “I’m fifteen, or near. Besides, how’s he to know?”

Little George shook his head. “You know as well as I do Old Master seems to know about everything that goes on anywhere on this big ol’ plantation of his.”

I couldn’t argue that.

“Now, pick up your tongs and get a bite on that link.”

So I done, and Little George he forged the link. “Go on then,” he said and waved a hand. “Go on to Old Master, but don’t dawdle.”

I run all the way, hoppin’ over the big rock and swingin’ ’round the sassafras tree just where the path bent, and only when I came to the trim-cut lawn did I slow to a walk and catch my breath. There I stopped a moment to settle my jitters, then stepped around the corner of the Big House. At the east front, under the tall columns, stood Master Jefferson all by himself.

He was still plain dressed in scuffed boots, worn trousers, and open shirt, not yet suited up for dinner. Even so, he had a bearing about him, whatever clothes he wore. I badly wanted to turn right around and run back to the smithy, but said to myself, “stand firm now and take your medicine.” I drew a deep breath and walked slow across the raked drive and right up under the columns and stood quiet to one side, at a respectful distance. He was hummin’, which eased my mind a good deal, and though he saw me come up, kept on hummin’ a while yet.

Then he folded his long arms across his chest and looked over at me. “Isaac,” he said, “I have been studying you.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, nervous as could be. “I hope what you have been studyin’ of me pleased you.”

“It has, Isaac. It has. Among all my young servants, you stand out as the one most diligent and capable.”

I was afraid then he was going to hire me out.

Instead, he asked me a most unlikely question. “How would you like to learn a trade?”

I was caught off guard. “Little George he already teachin’ me to blacksmith.”

“I mean in a formal sense. As an apprentice, under a Master Craftsman. Would you like that?”

I fairly leaped in the air. “Oh, yes sir,” I said, “I would, I truly would!” Then felt how foolish I must appear to him, standin’ there so tall and grave, and settled myself. “If it please you, Master.” For suddenly I wondered what trade it would be, if not blacksmithin’, and just who the Master Craftsman was to be.

“It does please me,” he said, watching me close. “So I have considered what trade. Tinsmithing will do for you, I think.”

“Tinsmithin’?” I asked in surprise. “Anybody ’round here do that?”

He rubbed his hands together. “No, Isaac. Nobody.”

“Who would teach me then?”

Old Master smiled and laid his long-fingered hand on my shoulder. “Isaac Granger, son of Great George and Queen Ursula, faithful servants to me, lo these many years, I have arranged for you to be taught by none other than Mr. James Bringhouse.”

I felt the weight of Old Master’s hand on me. “Never heard of that man.”

“That’s because he lives in Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia!” I said, plain shocked. “But that’s nearly another country, ain’t it?”

“Some would say so,” he said, “with its Quakerism and mercantile obsessions. But I wish you to learn from the best, and James Bringhouse is the best tinsmith in the whole of eastern Pennsylvania.”

That sounded to me like a mighty big territory. “He a pretty important man, then,” I said, hardly able to believe that Old Master would choose out such a man, from such a distance, to teach me in particular his solemn trade.

“An important man, for an important future,” said Master Jefferson, puttin’ out his hands as if to take hold of that future. “Tin ware, my boy, is no longer just for the military. The country is growing, and the demand for tin with it. There’s money to be made in tin and I want you in it. I need you in it.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. “When this Mr. Bringhouse show at your door, I shall be ready to learn.”

Master Jefferson looked at me and smiled. “Oh, he’s too busy to come all the way down here just now, Isaac. I mean for you to work under him at his place of business.”

I am sure my mouth must have dropped open. “You don’t mean up there in Philadelphia,” I stuttered out, “do you?”

“I do,” he said, his face almost radiant with that smile of his.

The prospect scared me. “I could get lost goin’ up there, Master,” I said. “Or nabbed. It’s such a long ways. I never been any such distance all by myself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t send you out on the road alone, you should know that,” he said reassuringly, as if it was no trouble at all, me leavin’ hearth and family and friends and my set ways. “No, you shall go with me, for I must go to Philadelphia, too. Though in truth I should rather not. The dam needs repair. Our farming methods must reform. And I have designs for my house.”

Mr. Jefferson he was never done with his house. Always buildin’ it up and tearin’ it down. Why, Polly, his youngest, she fell through a door one time. Didn’t know the steps was gone.

Old Master he sighed. “It shall be no pleasure, being Secretary of State. But such is duty, Isaac. Duty.”