ten? Do I not
know--your mother? Why should not your mother know?"

He looked around at her rather gravely once again, unsmilingly, for he
rarely smiled.

"How do you know, mother? What do you know? Tell me--about myself!
Then I will tell you also. We shall see how we agree as to what I am
and what I ought to do!"

"My son, it is no question of what you ought to do, for that blends
too closely in fate with what you surely will do--must do--because it
was written for you. Yonder forest will always call to you." She
turned now toward the sun, sinking across the red-leaved forest lands.
"The wilderness is your home. You will go out into it and
return--often; and then at last you will go and not come back
again--not to me--not to anyone will you come back."

The youth did not move as she sat, her hands on his head. Her voice
went on, even and steady.

"You are old, Meriwether Lewis! It is time, now. You are a man. You
_always_ were a man! You were born old. You never have been a boy, and
never can be one. You never were a child, but always a man. When you
were a baby, you did not smile; when you were a boy, you always had
your way. My boy, a long time ago I ceased to oppose that will of
yours--I knew that it was useless. But, ah, how I have loved that will
when I felt it was behind your promise! I knew you would do what you
had set for yourself to do. I knew you would come back with deeds in
your hand, my boy--gained through that will which never would bend for
me or for anyone else in the world!"

He remained motionless, apparently unaffected, as his mother went on.

"You were always old, always grown up, always resolved, always your
own master--always Meriwether Lewis. When you were born, you were not
a child. When the old nurse brought you to me--I can see her black
face grinning now--she carried you held by the feet instead of lying
on her arm. You _stood_, you were so strong! Your hair was dark and
full even then. You were old! In two weeks you turned where you heard
a sound--you recognized sight and sound together, as no child usually
does for months. You were beautiful, my boy, so strong, so
straight--ah, yes!--but you never were a boy at all. When you should
have been a baby, you did not weep and you did not smile. I never knew
you to do so. From the first, you always were a man."

She paused, but still he did not speak.

"That was well enough, for later we were left alone. But your father
was in you. Do