“You know I would not. I know you, what you are—born woodsman. No, I trust you to care for yourself in any wild country, my son, and to come back. And then—to go back again into the forest. When will it be, my son? Tomorrow? In two days, or four, or six? Sometime you will go to the wilderness again. It draws you, does it not?”
She turned her head slightly toward the west, where lay the forest from which the boy had but now emerged. He did not smile, did not deprecate. He was singularly mature in his actions, though but eighteen years of age.
“I did not desert my duty, mother,” said he at length.
“Oh, no, you would not do that, Merne!” returned the widow.
“Please, mother,” said he suddenly, “I want you to call me by my full name—that of your people. Am I not Meriwether, too?”
The hand on his forehead ceased its gentle movement, fell to its owner’s lap. A sigh passed his mother’s set lips.
“Yes, my son, Meriwether,” said she. “This is the last journey! I have lost you, then, it seems? You do not wish to be my boy any longer? You are a man altogether, then?”
“I am Meriwether Lewis, mother,” said he gravely, and no more.
“Yes!” She spoke absently, musingly. “Yes, you always were!”