Page:The Bloom of Monticello (1926).pdf/21



"The ground above the spring being very steep, dig into the hill and form a cave grotto. Build up the sides with stiff clay. Cover this with moss. Spangle it with translucent pebbles from Hanovertown and beautiful shells from the shore of Burwell's ferry. Pave the floor with pebbles. Let the spring enter at a corner of the grotto. The figure will be better placed in this. Form a couch of moss. The English inscription will then be better:

Many high ladies and worthy gentlemen of wealth and fashion from old Williamsburg came out for the New Year festivities, which lasted for days, when Thomas Jefferson, according to the bond, was intermarried with the widow Skelton at The Forest in Charles City County. Tall, beautiful, graceful and full of wit, Martha Wayles Skelton had not lacked for suitors. She had chosen Thomas Jefferson, and after much feasting they drove in modest manner, behind a single pair of ponies, in the snow to Monticello, there to live, he records, in "unchequered happiness."

Farming then became his profession; but Thomas Jefferson, the farmer, with his constant study of seed, soils and crops and improved machinery, often the product of his own hand, is another story.

Married two years or more, a little daughter running around the house, and another due in a month or so, he is found, according to his custom, in his kitchen garden, in