Sally of Monticello: Founding Mother
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77
           My nephew Jamey Bowles was back after running away ten

years ago. He was Critta’s son, a man twenty-eight now.
When I asked why he returned, he shrugged and said, “I don’
know, Auntie.”
“Where’d you go? What did you do?”
“Been all over. Didn’ do nothin’ much.”
Looking down, he dug a shoe toe in the dirt. Then he fell into
silence and stared at the fall colors of the neighboring mountains.
So, that was all I would learn on that subject.
No doubt he would run off again. Thomas was so easygoing, he
wouldn’t care. He might give Jamey money to help him go.
When Jamey disappeared years back, Thomas bade us send
word through the grapevine, he needed his carpenter back to help
finish the house. Jamey ignored the entreaties. Now he was back, but
the house was as done as it would ever be—or so I wanted to believe.
I’d been out along Mulberry Row this mid-October morning of
1815, scouting for a cabin we might occupy. Beverly, Harriet,
Madison, and Eston were growing to where our space at the house was
too tight to move around. Coming out of a cabin, I recognized my
missing nephew strolling, a knapsack over his shoulder.
After Jamey’s initial nonresponses, I asked, “What’s your plan?”
“You in charge now? Keep an eye on everythin’? I thot
Grandmama—”
“She died. Surprised you hadn’t heard. We all move on, and
frankly we thought we’d never see you again. Does Critta know you’re
back?”
“I been lookin’ for her. The way it ’pears, she goes aroun’ all
over. Bet she don’ do floors no more.”
“She does floors.”
Jamey lowered the knapsack to the ground and reached in.
“Foun’ this on the groun’, fu’ther up that-away.” He pointed west and
held up a small round object made partly of glass. “Had dirt on it. I
cleaned it some.”
When I turned the thing over in my hand, I grew suspicious. It
looked too clean to have been on the ground.
Years ago Thomas complained his telescope eyepiece was
missing. He mentioned it again last month. He’d gone with the Abbé
Correia and Dr. Gilmer to measure elevations of the Peaks of Otter and
said he wished he could have had his favorite scope along.
“Take this to the house,” I said, “and give it to the Master. It
belongs to one of his scientific instruments. He’ll be pleased you found
it.”
“I c’d tell from your look, you thot I stole it.”
“It crossed my mind when I saw how clean it was. But I know
you didn’t. You were gone from the mountain before he bought the
telescope.”
Jamey grumbled when he returned the eyepiece to his knapsack.
Something about not liking my suspicion.
“After you ran off,” I said, “you didn’t send word to my sister
what was going on in your life. She was heartsick. Don’t you be
complaining, hear? I’m trusting you to get your rump over to the house
and give that to Mr. Jefferson. Then go find Critta.”
Jamey’s demeanor changed when he heard my tone. I could tell
he understood I wouldn’t brook any back talk.
I continued checking the cabins for who was moving out, who
was trading quarters or combining households after jumping the
broom. I’d thought of angling for Mama’s old place, but I didn’t want
to appear domineering simply because I was the highest-ranking slave
on Thomas’s plantations.
I returned to the house and went straight to Thomas’s suite. I
found him reattaching the eyepiece to his telescope, looking like a boy
at play. His grey hair was wild, probably from riding without a hat.
“Jamey Bowles was here,” he announced, “and brought me this
piece for the Borda. He’d found it lying on the ground. I gave him a
two-dollar reward.”
Some nonslaveholding visitors to Monticello who heard of
runaways thought the system worked by rules—that when a slave ran
off, his Master or overseer ordered him found and brought back,
perhaps punished him.
Not so. Not here, anyway.
There were mitigating factors, not least of which was Thomas’s
hatred of slavery as degrading to both blacks and whites. Where
Wayles descendants and Hemingses were involved—and there were
scores like Jamey on the mountain—we were dealing with “family.”
The laws and “rules” bent easily under pressure of blood kinship.
Mixed sentiments always cropped up on Mulberry Row. For
every slave grumbling about being a slave, there was another believing
he might starve or go naked without a Master to supply him.
At Monticello many slaves, dark or light, received training at
skills they would value if they ever bought freedom. To the
amazement and dismay of other plantation owners, Thomas paid them.
Mama had often observed, from plantation to plantation the
destiny of slaves depended on their Master’s personality. If he was
mean-spirited, they would suffer. If he was like Thomas— Well, too
few were like Thomas.
Another assault on perceptions was what happened to freed
slaves. An understanding of Virginia law was that they were supposed
to leave the state, but that didn’t always happen. Sister Critta was
married to a free man of color, Zachariah Bowles, who owned a
ninety-six-acre farm north of Charlottesville. He was accepted as a
permanent resident, as was my friend Nancy West, also a freed slave.
I asked Thomas, “Weren’t you surprised to see Jamey? He’s
been gone more than ten years.”
“Surprised?” He shook his head. “He’ll run off again, that one.”
“And it doesn’t bother you? Did he at least tell you where he’d
gone? I couldn’t get a thing out of him.”
“We didn’t discuss it.”
“Oh, Thomas. For a man with curiosity about everything, you’re
sometimes so detached you drive me crazy.”
“Come look through this scope.” He bent to position the
instrument and focus it.
I sat and watched him tinker with his restored toy.
I said, “When the children go free and they’re out of touch, and
if I outlive you and Martha lets me walk away, where should I go?”
“I have a squirrel’s nest in perfect view, but I haven’t spotted
any of the creatures.”
I sighed. “Should I go to Ohio? Or Canada? But it’s probably too
cold in Canada.”
Thomas fiddled with the lens, then peered through again. He left
off to jot notes, humming under his breath. Then he changed the
position of the telescope and looked through once more.
I might as well not even have been in the suite. I tried a new
tack, moving casually over to the bed.
“Thomas, I want to make love. I’m truly lusting for you, Old
Man. Leave off and come here, please.”
Still distracted, he mumbled, “Not just yet. Whatever you like.
Start without me.”
I giggled myself into a state of involuntary farts, an
uncontrollable fate of many mothers like me rounding forty.
All right then, forty-two.