New York - The Novel

of money,” Master remarked drily. “I hope they can afford it. And may I ask where?”
    “Down on the Potomac River.”
    “The Potomac?” Master looked astonished. “But it’s all swamp down there.”
    “Frankly, I’d sooner a swamp than New York,” said Jefferson, not without relish.
    Could the Virginian be telling the truth? New York was to be abandoned in favor of a swamp? The idea seemed preposterous. Master glanced at his son. But James only nodded.
    “That is the latest word, Father,” he said. “I just heard of it today. Philadelphia will be the interim capital, then everything will move to the new place.”
    For a moment Master could scarcely believe them, as he looked from one to the other.
    “Is this a joke?” he cried.
    “No, Father,” said James. Behind him, Jefferson gave a faint smile.
    And then, his good intentions all forgotten, poor Master burst out in a rage.
    “Then damn your Potomac swamp, sir,” he shouted at Jefferson. “And damn you too!”
    “I think,” said Jefferson to James, in a dignified manner, “it is time that I left.” And he turned. But Master would have the last word.
    “You can do what you like, sir,” he cried, “but I’ll tell you this. New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God, we always shall.”

Niagara
1825
    T HE INDIAN GIRL watched the path. A number of men from the boat had already taken the trail through the woods. She had seen them emerge onto the big platform of grass and rock, and start at the sudden roar of the water.
    She was nine. She had come to the mighty waterfall with her family. Soon they would continue into Buffalo.

    Frank walked beside his father. It was a bright October day. Above the trees the sky was blue. They were alone, but he could tell from the crushed red and yellow leaves on the trail that many people had been that way.
    “We’re nearly there,” said his father. Weston Master was wearing a homespun coat, which he’d unbuttoned. The mist had made it damp, but it was being warmed by the sun. He had tied a big handkerchief around his neck. Today he’d fastened a wampum belt round his waist. It was an old belt and Weston did not wear it often, so as to preserve it. He was carrying a stout walking stick and smoking a cigar. He smelled good.
    Frank knew his father liked to have his family around him. “I don’t remember my mother at all,” he would say. “As for my father, he was away fighting when I was a boy. And after I went to Harvard, I never saw him again.” At home in the evening he’d sit in his wing chair by the fire, and his wife and five children—the four girls and young Frank—would allhave to be there, and he’d play games or read to them. Weston would read amusing books, like Washington Irving’s tale of Rip Van Winkle, or the funny history of New York, told by his invented Dutchman Diedrich Knickerbocker. “Why is he called Diedrich?” he would ask. “Because he Died Rich,” the children would chorus.
    Every summer, the whole family would spend two weeks with Aunt Abigail and her family in Westchester County, and another couple of weeks with their cousins up in Dutchess County. The more members of his family he had around him, the happier Weston Master seemed to be.
    But last month, when the governor had invited him to come north for the opening of the big canal, Weston had said: “I’ll just take Frank with me.”
    It wasn’t the first time Frank had been up the Hudson River. Three years earlier, soon after his seventh birthday, there had been a bad outbreak of yellow fever in New York. There was often some fever in the port. “The ships bring it from the south,” his father would say. “And we’re always at risk. New York’s as hot as Jamaica in the summer, you know.” But when a lot of people in the city had started dying, Weston had taken his whole family upriver to Albany until it was over.
    Frank had enjoyed that journey. On the way up, they’d gazed west at the Catskill Mountains, and his father had reminded them: “That’s where Rip Van Winkle fell asleep.” Frank had liked Albany. The busy town was the capital of New York State now. His father had said this was a good idea, since Manhattan was at the bottom end of the state, and had plenty of business anyway, but Albany was nearer the middle, and growing fast. One day, Weston had taken them all to the old fort at Ticonderoga, and told them how the Americans had taken it from the