Jefferson's Sons Read Online Free PDF Page B

Miss Martha’s boys aren’t.”
    â€œAh,” said Mama. “Then why would this boy be a slave?”
    Beverly didn’t know what Mama wanted them to say. He took Maddy’s hand and rubbed it. “He’s kind of dark,” Beverly said. “I mean, not really, but his skin is a little bit darker than mine.”
    â€œSo, dark skin is what makes you a slave?” Mama said. “Everyone with dark skin is a slave.”
    Well, that wasn’t right. “No,” Beverly said. “Jesse Scott’s got dark skin, and he’s not a slave.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Mama said. “So here’s a baby, and he’s not a slave because he’s a boy, or because of the color of his skin. Why do you say he’s a slave?”
    â€œBecause we just know,” Harriet said.
    â€œPretend you don’t know,” Mama said. “Pretend you’re walking down a road you’ve never been on before, so you don’t know who lives on it, and you see this little baby sitting on the side of the road. This boy, our Maddy, only you’ve never seen him before. How would you know whether or not he was a slave?”
    Beverly looked at Mama. She waited. “You wouldn’t know,” he said, thinking it out. “You couldn’t ask the baby. He can’t talk. So you wouldn’t know until somebody else came along and told you.”
    â€œThat’s right!” Mama said. She swooped down and kissed Beverly, then took Maddy back on her knee and dressed him. “You remember that, both of you. Nobody is a slave on their own. There is nothing inside either one of you, or anyone else—Joe Fossett or Uncle John or me or anyone—that makes you a slave, that says you have to be one, that says you’re different from somebody who isn’t a slave. The difference is other people—people who make laws and put other people into slavery and work to keep them there.”
    Mama’s eyes blazed. “But you aren’t really slaves either,” she said. She rocked Maddy back and forth in her arms. “You remember that. You’ll never be sold and you’ll never be beaten, and when you turn twenty-one you’ll be free. Both of you, and Maddy too. That’s a promise. A promise your father made me about all the children we might have. You’ll be free .”
    â€œHow can he promise that?” Beverly asked. “He can’t just make us free.”
    Mama paused, frowning. “He can,” she said.
    â€œBecause he’s the president?”
    â€œBecause he owns us,” Mama said. “He owns all of Monticello. The buildings and the farms. The people too.”
    Harriet asked, “You mean, because he’s our daddy?”
    Mama shook her head. She said, “Because he’s Master Jefferson.”

Autumn 1805

Chapter Four
    James Hubbard’s Back
    When Uncle Peter slapped him for dipping into the sugar jar, Beverly thought Mama had lied when she said he wouldn’t be beaten. He told her so. Mama said there were smackings and then there were beatings, and if he didn’t understand the difference now, he would someday, most likely someday soon. Mama was right. Beverly was up on the new roof of the great house when word came that James Hubbard had been brought back to the mountain.
    It was September. The heat of the summer was over, and the air was cool and clear. Master Jefferson had come and gone. Once he’d called Beverly into his room and listened to him play, and twice he’d happened to stop by Jesse Scott’s house just when Beverly was taking a lesson. Master Jefferson had stayed until Beverly was done. He’d smiled at Beverly and said he was glad to see him working hard. Beverly thought Master Jefferson’s smile was his favorite thing in the world.
    Now Master Jefferson was gone, and the great house was shut up again, except for the workmen finishing the new