“Can’t stand the things! They’re dirty,” he snorted. “I’ll get everything packed, Patsy. These boys will help me. You go along home and get a good fire going to thaw out my old bones after that long three days in that drafty coach.” “You will never finish packing,” she fussed. “You’ll find some book or paper you haven’t seen in a long time and spend hours poring over it. I know you, Thomas Jefferson. You gentlemen bring in all those boxes and, Burwell, see that Mr. Jefferson’s trunks and carpetbag are packed. This baggage will be taken off the barge at Shadwell, Father, and we’ll have wagons sent down to carry it to Monticello.” “Nothing must be lost!” worried Jefferson. “Nothing! Every paper and pamphlet I’ve saved is important. They contain the history of an era, the story of the birth of this nation.” “Then,” said Martha, “it would seem that most of them should be in the Library of Congress.” “Never, while they house that library in such makeshift quarters,” he argued. “Patsy, my dear, I beg of you, go on to Monticello as we planned. I shall arrive later with everything I own intact. Just remember that your father has knocked about the world on his own for a long time, and I am not yet senile nor decrepit.” “But you will admit that you are tired to the bone,” she persisted, “and that long trip in this cold weather is not going to be easy.” “I’ll admit anything, only get out of here now so that I can get out of this dressing gown and into my breeches! Burwell, see that my satin breeches and the broadcloth coat are well aired before you pack them. It will be a long day before I shall want to be dressed up and elegant again.” “You were quite the beau at that dance last night,” Martha remarked. “Several women said to me that they had never before seen you so witty and gay. And more than one remarked that it was a great pity that you were leaving Washington.” “They had never seen me before without the sad old albatross of responsibility hung on my back,” he retorted. “When I gave it over to Jemmy Madison, I felt twenty years younger in twenty minutes and even several pounds lighter. Once I’m back on my own mountain you’ll see, I shall be merry as a grig—whatever a grig is.” “In my youth, when you were feeding me huge, nauseous doses of Plato and Livy, you would have ordered me to go and look that word up,” Patsy reminded him. “I can hear you very sternly directing me never to use a word unless I knew its exact meaning. Fortunately, I know what a grig is.” “It’s a cricket,” spoke up one of the aides. “My granny told me a long time ago, a grig is a cricket. When I was a young-un, sir.” “It’s a kind of grasshopper,” disputed the other aide. “A little grasshopper that fiddles tunes with its hind legs, Mr. President, sir.”