There stood waiting near the gate one of Mr. Jefferson’s private servants, Samson, who took the young man’s rein1, grinning with his usual familiar words of welcome as the secretary dismounted from his horse.
“You-all suttinly did warm old Arcturum a li’l bit dis mawnin’, Mistah Mehywethah!”
Samson patted the neck of the spirited animal, which tossed its head and turned an eye to its late rider.
“Yes, and see that you rub him well. Mind you, if Mr. Jefferson finds that his whitest handkerchief shows a sweat-mark from the horse’s hide he will cut off both your black ears for you, Samson—and very likely your head along with them. You know your master!” The secretary smiled kindly2 at the old black man.
“Yassah, yassah,” grinned Samson, who no more feared Mr. Jefferson than he did the young gentleman with whom he now spoke3. “I just lookin’ 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 [Pg 37]with one of his rare smiles, then turned, with just a flick4 of his gloves on his breeches legs, and marched up the walk to the door of the mansion5.
At the step he turned and paused, as he usually did, to take one look out over the unfinished wing of stone still in process of erection. On beyond, in the ragged6 village, he saw a few good mansion houses, many structures devoted7 to business, many jumbled8 huts of negroes, and here and there a public building in its early stages.
The great system of boulevards and parks and circles of the new American capital was not yet apparent from the place where Mr. Thomas Jefferson’s young secretary now stood. But the young man perhaps saw city and nation alike advanced in his vision; for he gazed long and lingeringly before he turned back at last and entered the door which the 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 plantation9 servants whom he had brought to Washington with him. Then—for such was the simple fashion of the ménage, where Meriwether Lewis himself was one of the President’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 coffee at the mill—but, early as it was, he knew he would find at his desk the gentleman who now turned to him.
“Good morning, Mr. Jefferson,” said Meriwether Lewis, in the greeting which he always used.
[Pg 38]
“Good morning, my son,” said the other man, gently, in his invariable address to his secretary. “And how did Arcturus perform for you this morning?”
“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 new multigraph could write a dozen letters all at once—and on as many different themes, my son—we might perhaps get through. I vow10, if I had the money, I would have a dozen secretaries—if I could find them!”
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, and sandy, almost auburn, hair. His long, thin legs were clad in close-fitting knee breeches of green velveteen, somewhat stained. His high-collared coat, rolling above the loosely-tied stock which girded his neck, was dingy11 brown in color, and lay in loose folds. He was one of the worst-clad men in Washington at that hour. His waistcoat, of red, was soiled and far from new, and his woolen12 stockings were covered with no better footwear than carpet slippers13, badly down at the heel.
Yet Thomas Jefferson, even clad thus, seemed the great man that he was. Stooped though his shoulders were, his frame was so strong, his eye so clear and keen, though contemplative, that he did not look his years.
Here was a man, all said who knew him, of whose [Pg 39]large soul so many large deeds were demanded that he had no time for little and inconsequent things—indeed, scarce knew that they existed. To think, to feel, to create, to achieve—these were his absorbing tasks; and so exigent were the demands on his great intellectual resources that he seemed never to know the existence of a personal world.
He stood careless, slipshod, at the side of a desk cluttered14 with a mass of maps, papers, letters in packets or spread open. There were writing implements15 here, scientific instruments of all sorts, long sheets of specifications16, canceled drafts, pages of accounts—all the manifold impedimenta of a man in the full swing of business life. It might have been the desk of any mediocre17 man; yet on that desk lay the future 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 give the 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 not elsewhere heard used, except by his mother. “Look what we must do today!”
The young secretary turned his own grave eye upon the cluttered desk; but it was not dread18 of the redoubtable19 tasks awaiting him that gave his face all the gravity it bore.
“Mr. Jefferson—” he began, but paused, for he could see now standing20 before him his friend, the man [Pg 40]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 jaws21 set 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 it could assume at times. “You must not—you must not yield to this, I say. Shake off this melancholy22 which so obsesses23 you. I know whence it comes—your father gave it you, and you are not to blame; but you have more than your father’s strength to aid you. And you have me, your friend, who can understand.”
Lewis only turned on him an eye so full of anguish24 as caused the older man to knit his brow in deep concern.
“What is it, Merne?” he demanded. “Tell me. Ah, you cannot tell? I know! ’Tis the old melancholy, and something more, Merne, my boy. Tell me—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—it is wrong to cheat the years of life—and you approach thirty now, my son. Why linger? Listen to me. No young man may work [Pg 41]at his best and have a woman’s face in his desk to haunt him. That will not do. We all have 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—and her—and me?”
“No! Never would I do that, Mr. Jefferson, believe me. But now I must beg 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 went on hurriedly:
“I must say good-by to you, best and noblest of men. Indeed, I have said good-by to—everything.”
“As you say, your case is hopeless?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah, well, we have both been planning for our Western expedition these ten years, my son; so why should we fret25 if matters conspire26 to bring it 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, and all the others failed me. They never saw the great vision. There it lies, unknown, tremendous—no man knows what—that new country. I have had to hide from the people of this republic this secret purpose which you and I have had of exploring the vast Western country. I have picked you as the one man fitted for that work. I do not make mistakes. [Pg 42]You are a born woodsman and traveler—you are ready to my hand as the instrument for this magnificent adventure. I cannot well spare you now—but yes, you must go!”
They stood there, two men who made our great adventure for us—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, if need 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 I still am wondering what our friends are doing yonder in France,” said he. “That is the question. Livingston, Monroe, and the others—what are they doing with Napoleon Bonaparte? The news from France—but stay,” 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 the arm. They passed down the hall, out by the rear entrance and across the White House grounds to the brick stables which then stood at the rear.
Mr. Jefferson paid no attention to the sleek27 animals there which looked in greeting toward him. Instead, he passed in front of the series of stalls, and without excuse or explanation hurriedly began to climb the steep ladder which led to the floor above.
[Pg 43]
They stood at length in the upper apartment of the stable buildings. It was not a mow28 or feed loft29, but rather a bird loft, devoted to the use of many pigeons. All about the eaves were arranged many boxes—nesting places, apparently30, although none of the birds entered the long room, which seemed free of any occupancy.
Mr. Jefferson stood for a moment, eagerly scanning the rear of the tier of boxes. An exclamation31 broke from him. He hurried forward with a sudden gesture to a little flag which stood up, like the tilt32 of a fisherman on the ice, at the side of the box to which he pointed33.
“Done!” said he.
He reached up to the box that he had indicated, pressed down a little catch, opened the back and looked in. Again an exclamation escaped him.
He put in a hand gingerly, and, tenderly imprisoning35 the bird which he found therein, drew it forth36, his long fingers eagerly lifting its wings, examining its legs.
It could easily be seen that the box was arranged with a door on a tripping-latch, so that the pigeon, on entering, would imprison34 itself. It was apparent that Mr. Jefferson was depending upon the natural homing instinct of his carrier pigeons to bring him some message.
“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 cylinder37 of paper covered with tinfoil38 and tied firmly [Pg 44]in its place. It was the first wireless39 message ever received at Washington. None since that time has carried 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 Louisiana Purchase, by virtue40 of which this republic—whether by chance, by result of greed warring with greed, or through the providence41 of Almighty42 God, who shall say?—gained the great part of that vast and incalculably valuable realm which now reaches from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. What wealth that great empire held no man had dreamed, nor can any dream today; for, a century later, its story is but beginning.
Century on century, that story still will be in the making. A home for millions of the earth’s best, a hope for millions of the earth’s less fortunate—granary of the peoples, mint of the nations, birthplace and growing-ground of the new race of men—who could have measured that land then—who could measure it today?
And its title passed, announced in seven words, carried by a bird wandering in the air, but bound unerringly to the ark of God’s covenant43 with man—the covenant of hope and progress.
Thomas Jefferson stretched out his right hand to [Pg 45]meet that of Meriwether Lewis. Their clasp was strong and firm. The eye of each man blazed.
“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. That bird—a white one, with slate-blue tips to its wings—never needed to labor44 again, for Mr. Jefferson kept it during its life, and long after its death.
“Come now,” he said, as he began to descend45 the ladder once more. “The bird was loosed yesterday, late in the afternoon. It has done its sixty or seventy-five miles an hour for us, counting out time lost in the night. The ship which brought this news docked at New York yesterday. The post stages carrying it hither cannot arrive before tomorrow. This is news—the greatest of news that we could have. Yesterday—this morning—we were a young and weak republic. Tomorrow we shall be one of the powers of the world. Go, now—you have been held in leash46 long enough, and the time to start has come. Tomorrow you will go westward47, to that new country which now is ours!”
Neither said anything further until once again they were in the President’s little office-room; but Thomas Jefferson’s eye now was afire.
“I count this the most important enterprise in which this country ever was engaged,” he exclaimed, his hands clenched48. “Yonder lies the greater America—you lead an army which will make far wider conquest [Pg 46]than all our troops won in the Revolutionary War. The stake is larger than any man may dream. I see it—you see it—in time others also will see. Tell me, my son, tell me once more! Come what may, no matter what power shall move you, you will be faithful in this great trust? If I have your promise, then I shall rest assured.”
Thomas Jefferson, more agitated49 than any man had ever seen him, dropped half trembling into his chair, his shaggy red mane about his forehead, his long fingers shaking.
“I give you my promise, Mr. Jefferson,” said Meriwether Lewis.
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收听单词发音
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1
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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2
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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3
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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4
flick
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| n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动 | |
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5
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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6
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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7
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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8
jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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9
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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10
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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11
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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12
woolen
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| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
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13
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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14
cluttered
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| v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满… | |
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15
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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16
specifications
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| n.规格；载明；详述；（产品等的）说明书；说明书( specification的名词复数 )；详细的计划书；载明；详述 | |
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17
mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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18
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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19
redoubtable
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| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
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20
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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21
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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22
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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23
obsesses
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| v.时刻困扰( obsess的第三人称单数 )；缠住；使痴迷；使迷恋 | |
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24
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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25
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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26
conspire
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| v.密谋，（事件等）巧合，共同导致 | |
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27
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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28
mow
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| v.割（草、麦等），扫射，皱眉；n.草堆，谷物堆 | |
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29
loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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30
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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31
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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32
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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33
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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34
imprison
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| vt.监禁，关押，限制，束缚 | |
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35
imprisoning
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| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的现在分词 ) | |
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36
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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37
cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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38
tinfoil
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| n.锡纸，锡箔 | |
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39
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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40
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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41
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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42
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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43
covenant
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| n.盟约，契约；v.订盟约 | |
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44
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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45
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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46
leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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47
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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48
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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