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 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.