The Magnificent Adventure

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER IV

  PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY

  There stood waiting near the gate one of Mr. Jefferson's privateservants, Samson, who took the young man's rein, grinning with hisusual familiar words of welcome as the secretary dismounted from hishorse.

  "You-all suttinly did warm old Arcturum a li'l bit dis mawnin', MistahMehywethah!"

  Samson patted the neck of the spirited animal, which tossed its headand turned an eye to its late rider.

  "Yes, and see that you rub him well. Mind you, if Mr. Jefferson findsthat his whitest handkerchief shows a sweat-mark from the horse's hidehe will cut off both your black ears for you, Samson--and very likelyyour head along with them. You know your master!" The secretary smiledkindly at the old black man.

  "Yassah, yassah," grinned Samson, who no more feared Mr. Jeffersonthan he did the young gentleman with whom he now spoke. "I justlookin' at you comin' down that path right now, and I say to myself,'Dar come a ridah!' I sho' did, Mistah Mehywethah!"

  The young man answered the negro's compliment with one of his raresmiles, then turned, with just a flick of his gloves on his breecheslegs, and marched up the walk to the door of the mansion.

  At the step he turned and paused, as he usually did, to take one lookout over the unfinished wing of stone still in process of erection. Onbeyond, in the ragged village, he saw a few good mansion houses, manystructures devoted to business, many jumbled huts of negroes, and hereand there a public building in its early stages.

  The great system of boulevards and parks and circles of the newAmerican capital was not yet apparent from the place where Mr. ThomasJefferson's young secretary now stood. But the young man perhaps sawcity and nation alike advanced in his vision; for he gazed long andlingeringly before he turned back at last and entered the door whichthe old house servant swung open for him.

  His hat and crop and gloves he handed to this bowed old darky,Ben--another of Mr. Jefferson's plantation servants whom he hadbrought to Washington with him. Then--for such was the simple fashionof the menage, where Meriwether Lewis himself was one of thePresident's family--he stepped to the door beyond and knocked lightly,entering as he did so.

  The hour was early--he himself had not breakfasted, beyond his coffeeat the mill--but, early as it was, he knew he would find at his deskthe gentleman who now turned to him.

  "Good morning, Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis, in the greetingwhich he always used.

  "Good morning, my son," said the other man, gently, in his invariableaddress to his secretary. "And how did Arcturus perform for you thismorning?"

  "Grandly, sir. He is a fine animal. I have never ridden a better."

  "I envy you. I wish I could find the time I once had for my horses."He turned a whimsical glance at the piled desk before him. "If our newmultigraph could write a dozen letters all at once--and on as manydifferent themes, my son--we might perhaps get through. I vow, if Ihad the money, I would have a dozen secretaries--if I could findthem!"

  The President rose now and stood, a tall and striking figure of a man,over six feet in height, of clean-cut features, dark hazel eye, andsandy, almost auburn, hair. His long, thin legs were clad inclose-fitting knee breeches of green velveteen, somewhat stained. Hishigh-collared coat, rolling above the loosely-tied stock which girdedhis neck, was dingy brown in color, and lay in loose folds. He was oneof the worst-clad men in Washington at that hour. His waistcoat, ofred, was soiled and far from new, and his woolen stockings werecovered with no better footwear than carpet slippers, badly down atthe heel.

  Yet Thomas Jefferson, even clad thus, seemed the great man that hewas. Stooped though his shoulders were, his frame was so strong, hiseye so clear and keen, though contemplative, that he did not look hisyears.

  Here was a man, all said who knew him, of whose large soul so manylarge deeds were demanded that he had no time for little andinconsequent things--indeed, scarce knew that they existed. To think,to feel, to create, to achieve--these were his absorbing tasks; and soexigent were the demands on his great intellectual resources that heseemed never to know the existence of a personal world.

  He stood careless, slipshod, at the side of a desk cluttered with amass of maps, papers, letters in packets or spread open. There werewriting implements here, scientific instruments of all sorts, longsheets of specifications, canceled drafts, pages of accounts--all themanifold impedimenta of a man in the full swing of business life. Itmight have been the desk of any mediocre man; yet on that desk lay thefuture of a people and the history of a world.

  He stood, just a trifle stooped, smiling quizzically at the young man,yet half lovingly; for to no other being in the world did he ever givethe confidence that he accorded Meriwether Lewis.

  "I do not see how I could be President without you, Merne, my son,"said he, employing the familiar term that Meriwether Lewis had notelsewhere heard used, except by his mother. "Look what we must dotoday!"

  The young secretary turned his own grave eye upon the cluttered desk;but it was not dread of the redoubtable tasks awaiting him that gavehis face all the gravity it bore.

  "Mr. Jefferson--" he began, but paused, for he could see now standingbefore him his friend, the man whom, of all in the world, he loved,and the man who believed in him and loved him.

  "Yes, my son?"

  "Your burden is grievous hard, and yet----"

  "Yes, my son?"

  But Meriwether Lewis could not speak further. He stood now, his jawsset hard, looking out of the window.

  The older man came and gently laid a hand upon his shoulder.

  "Come, come, my son," said he, his own voice low and of a kindness itcould assume at times. "You must not--you must not yield to this, Isay. Shake off this melancholy which so obsesses you. I know whence itcomes--your father gave it you, and you are not to blame; but you havemore than your father's strength to aid you. And you have me, yourfriend, who can understand."

  Lewis only turned on him an eye so full of anguish as caused the olderman to knit his brow in deep concern.

  "What is it, Merne?" he demanded. "Tell me. Ah, you cannot tell? Iknow! 'Tis the old melancholy, and something more, Merne, my boy. Tellme--ah, yes, it is a woman!"

  The young man did not speak.

  "I have often told all my young friends," said Mr. Jefferson slowly,after a time, "that they should marry not later than twenty-three--itis wrong to cheat the years of life--and you approach thirty now, myson. Why linger? Listen to me. No young man may work at his best andhave a woman's face in his desk to haunt him. That will not do. We allhave handicap enough without that."

  But still Meriwether could only look into the face of his superior.

  "I know very well, my son," the President continued. "I know it all.Put her out of your heart, my boy. Would you shame yourself--andher--and me?"

  "No! Never would I do that, Mr. Jefferson, believe me. But now I mustbeg of you--please, sir, let me go soon--let it be at once!"

  The older man stood looking at him for a time in silence, as he wenton hurriedly:

  "I must say good-by to you, best and noblest of men. Indeed, I havesaid good-by to--everything."

  "As you say, your case is hopeless?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Ah, well, we have both been planning for our Western expedition theseten years, my son; so why should we fret if matters conspire to bringit about a trifle earlier than we planned?"

  "I asked you when I was a boy to send me, but you could not then."

  "No, but instead I sent yonder maundering Michaux. He, Ledyard, andall the others failed me. They never saw the great vision. There itlies, unknown, tremendous--no man knows what--that new country. I havehad to hide from the people of this republic this secret purpose whichyou and I have had of exploring the vast Western country. I havepicked you as the one man fitted for that work. I do not makemistakes. You are a born woodsman and traveler--you are ready to myhand as the instrument for this magnificent adventure. I cannot wellspare you now--but yes, you must go!"

&n
bsp; They stood there, two men who made our great adventure forus--vision-seers, vision-owned, gazing each into the other's eyes.

  "Send me now, Mr. Jefferson!" repeated Meriwether Lewis. "Send me now.I will mend to usefulness again. I will work for you all my life, ifneed be--and I want my name clear with you."

  The old man laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder.

  "I must yield you to your destiny," said he. "It will be a great one."He turned aside, a hand to his lip as he paced uncertainly. "But Istill am wondering what our friends are doing yonder in France," saidhe. "That is the question. Livingston, Monroe, and the others--whatare they doing with Napoleon Bonaparte? The news from France--butstay," he added. "Wait! I had forgotten. Come, we shall see about it!"

  With the sudden enthusiasm of a boy he caught his young aide by thearm. They passed down the hall, out by the rear entrance and acrossthe White House grounds to the brick stables which then stood at therear.

  Mr. Jefferson paid no attention to the sleek animals there whichlooked in greeting toward him. Instead, he passed in front of theseries of stalls, and without excuse or explanation hurriedly began toclimb the steep ladder which led to the floor above.

  They stood at length in the upper apartment of the stable buildings.It was not a mow or feed loft, but rather a bird loft, devoted to theuse of many pigeons. All about the eaves were arranged manyboxes--nesting places, apparently, although none of the birds enteredthe long room, which seemed free of any occupancy.

  Mr. Jefferson stood for a moment, eagerly scanning the rear of thetier of boxes. An exclamation broke from him. He hurried forward witha sudden gesture to a little flag which stood up, like the tilt of afisherman on the ice, at the side of the box to which he pointed.

  "Done!" said he.

  He reached up to the box that he had indicated, pressed down a littlecatch, opened the back and looked in. Again an exclamation escapedhim.

  He put in a hand gingerly, and, tenderly imprisoning the bird which hefound therein, drew it forth, his long fingers eagerly lifting itswings, examining its legs.

  It could easily be seen that the box was arranged with a door on atripping-latch, so that the pigeon, on entering, would imprisonitself. It was apparent that Mr. Jefferson was depending upon thenatural homing instinct of his carrier pigeons to bring him somemessage.

  "I told them," said he, "to loose a half-dozen birds at once. See!See!"

  He unrolled from one leg of the prisoner a little cylinder of papercovered with tinfoil and tied firmly in its place. It was the firstwireless message ever received at Washington. None since that time hascarried a greater burden. It announced a transaction in empires.

  Mr. Jefferson read, and spread out the paper that his aide might read:

  General Bonaparte signed May 2--Fifteen millions--Rejoice!

  In no wider phrasing than that came the news of the great LouisianaPurchase, by virtue of which this republic--whether by chance, byresult of greed warring with greed, or through the providence ofAlmighty God, who shall say?--gained the great part of that vast andincalculably valuable realm which now reaches from the Mississippi tothe Pacific Ocean. What wealth that great empire held no man haddreamed, nor can any dream today; for, a century later, its story isbut beginning.

  Century on century, that story still will be in the making. A home formillions of the earth's best, a hope for millions of the earth's lessfortunate--granary of the peoples, mint of the nations, birthplace andgrowing-ground of the new race of men--who could have measured thatland then--who could measure it today?

  And its title passed, announced in seven words, carried by a birdwandering in the air, but bound unerringly to the ark of God'scovenant with man--the covenant of hope and progress.

  Thomas Jefferson stretched out his right hand to meet that ofMeriwether Lewis. Their clasp was strong and firm. The eye of each manblazed.

  "Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis, "this is your monument!"

  "And yours," was the reply. "Come, then!"

  He turned to the stairs, the pigeon still fondled in his arm. Thatbird--a white one, with slate-blue tips to its wings--never needed tolabor again, for Mr. Jefferson kept it during its life, and long afterits death.

  "Come now," he said, as he began to descend the ladder once more. "Thebird was loosed yesterday, late in the afternoon. It has done itssixty or seventy-five miles an hour for us, counting out time lost inthe night. The ship which brought this news docked at New Yorkyesterday. The post stages carrying it hither cannot arrive beforetomorrow. This is news--the greatest of news that we could have.Yesterday--this morning--we were a young and weak republic. Tomorrowwe shall be one of the powers of the world. Go, now--you have beenheld in leash long enough, and the time to start has come. Tomorrowyou will go westward, to that new country which now is ours!"

  Neither said anything further until once again they were in thePresident's little office-room; but Thomas Jefferson's eye now wasafire.

  "I count this the most important enterprise in which this country everwas engaged," he exclaimed, his hands clenched. "Yonder lies thegreater America--you lead an army which will make far wider conquestthan all our troops won in the Revolutionary War. The stake is largerthan any man may dream. I see it--you see it--in time others also willsee. Tell me, my son, tell me once more! Come what may, no matter whatpower shall move you, you will be faithful in this great trust? If Ihave your promise, then I shall rest assured."

  Thomas Jefferson, more agitated than any man had ever seen him,dropped half trembling into his chair, his shaggy red mane about hisforehead, his long fingers shaking.

  "I give you my promise, Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis.