“So that’s why someone said the other day that you believed that all the Indians were originally Russians!” Patsy laid the pages in neat piles. “Papa, you continually astound me! With all the frightful responsibilities you’ve had all these years—buying Louisiana, the country continually in a row with England and France and this bank business, not to mention Aaron Burr—you’ve found time to learn Indian languages.” “I haven’t learned many—only a few words here and there. It kept my mind off unpleasant things, like having all the Federalists hate me vehemently and make no bones about it.” He quirked his long mouth in an ironic grimace. “Do you know that at this moment there are half a dozen banquets being eaten in this city where the Federalists are proposing insulting toasts to the despised ‘Virginian,’ gloating over my departure, telling each other, ‘Thank God, at last we’re rid of Jefferson!’?” “Papa, please don’t remember those things,” pleaded his daughter. “Leave every bitter memory right here on the shores of this dirty Potomac. Up on the Rivanna on your mountain the children are already counting hours, eager for Grandfather to come home. Now, can’t we lay all these papers in a box so this bed can be used for the purpose for which it was intended? I’ll call Burwell. I could drag your boots off myself but it’s hard for me to stoop or bend over in these murderous stays. Back home I shall never wear them, no matter if my fashion-minded daughters faint with horror.” “Don’t tell me the Misses Randolph have deserted dolls and toad houses built of mud and gone running after fur-belows! Maybe I had too many mirrors sent home from France.” He began obediently to lay the papers in a stout wooden box. “Come in, Burwell. The tyrannical Madam Patsy Randolph says this ex-president has to go to bed.” “With a hot posset and a warm brick at his feet, Burwell,” Martha instructed the faithful servant. “I wonder if anybody in the future history of this nation will ever get this old barn of a mansion really warm? There are more goose-pimples than dimples and beauty patches on those bare shoulders downstairs this minute and Dolly Madison whispered to me that she wished that protocol demanded ermine capes with velvet linings for officials in this country such as the kings and lords wear in England. Well, good night, Papa. I’ll see you in the morning before I leave. I do have to hurry home. Remember there is a large family of small people there all in need of discipline before you get back to spoil them all outrageously.”