ial
residence of his chief and patron, President Jefferson.

CHAPTER IV

PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY

There stood waiting near the gate one of Mr. Jefferson's private
servants, Samson, who took the young man's rein, 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
kindly 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 spoke. "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 with one of his rare
smiles, then turned, with just a flick of his gloves on his breeches
legs, 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 look
out over the unfinished wing of stone still in process of erection. On
beyond, in the ragged village, he saw a few good mansion houses, many
structures devoted to business, many jumbled 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 plantation servants whom he had
brought to Washington with him. Then--for such was the simple fashion
of the menage, 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 kne