prayers on the mother's part; and perhaps of some naturally prideful
hopes on Caleb's. When a man touches forty before his firstborn is put
into his arms, he is likely to take the event seriously. Martha Gordon
would have named her son after the great apostle of her faith, but Caleb
asserted himself here and would have a manlier name-father for the boy.
So Thomas Jefferson was named, not for an apostle, nor yet for the
statesman--save by way of an intermediary. For Caleb's "Thomas
Jefferson" was the stout old schoolmaster-warrior, Stonewall Jackson;
the soldier iron-master's general while he lived, and his deified hero
ever afterward.

When the mother was able to sit up in bed she wrote a letter to her
brother Silas, the South Tredegar preacher. On the margin of the paper
she tried the name, writing it "Reverend Thomas Jefferson Gordon." It
was a rather appalling mouthful, not nearly so euphonious as the name of
the apostle would have been. But she comforted herself with the thought
that the boy would probably curtail it when he should come to a
realizing sense of ownership; and "Reverend" would fit any of the
curtailments.

So now we see to what high calling Thomas Jefferson's mother purposed
devoting him while yet he was a helpless monad in pinning-blankets; to
what end she had striven with many prayers and groanings that could not
be uttered, from year to year of his childhood.

Does it account in some measure for the self-conscious young Pharisee
kneeling on the top of the high rock under the cedars, and crying out on
the girl scoffer that she was no better than she should be?