CHAPTER IV
A STATESMAN'S APPRENTICESHIP
The year 1782 was for Jefferson a year of trial and suffering. A child was born to Mrs. Jefferson on May 8; she never recovered fully and soon it appeared that she was irrevocably doomed. This tragic, touching story had better be told in the simple words of his daughter Martha, then nine years of age:
As a nurse no female had ever more tenderness nor anxiety. He nursed my poor mother in turn with aunt Carr and her own sister—sitting up with her and administering her medicines and drink to the last. For four months that she lingered he was never out of calling; when not at her bed-side, he was writing in a small room which opened immediately at the head of her bed. A moment before the closing scene, he was led from the room in a state of insensibility by his sister, Mrs. Carr, who with great difficulty, got him into the library, where he fainted, and remained so long insensible that they feared he never would revive. The scene that followed I did not witness, but the violence of his emotion, when, almost by stealth, I entered his room by night, to this day I dare not describe to myself. He kept his room three weeks, and I was never a moment from his side. He walked almost incessantly night and day, only lying down occasionally, when nature was completely exhausted, on a pallet that had been brought in during his long fainting fit. My aunts remained constantly with him for some weeks—I do not remember how many. When at last he left his room, he rode out, and from that time he was incessantly on horseback, rambling about the mountain, in the least frequented roads, and just as often through the woods. In those melancholy rambles I was his constant companion—a solitary witness to many a burst of grief, the remembrance of which has consecrated particular scenes of that lost home beyond the power to obliterate.
In Jefferson's prayer book is found this simple entry:
"Martha Wayles Jefferson died September 6, 1782, at 11 o'clock 45 minutes A.M."
She was buried in the little enclosure in which rested already three of her children; on a simple slab of white marble her husband had the following inscription engraved:
To the memory of
Martha Jefferson,
Daughter of John Wayles:
Born October 19th, 1748 O.S.
Intermarried with
Thomas Jefferson
January 1st 1772;
Torn from him by death
September 6th 1782
This monument of his love is inscribed