The Jefferson Letters

He had trevelled through France and Italy and along most of the American Eastern seaboard, but he'd never seen as lovely a place as Williamsburg, Virginia, at four o'clock in the mroning: the fog rising from the cobblestones on Nicholson Street; the enveloping quiet of a town asleep; the peaceful solitude of eighteenth century buildings seen by dim street lamps; everything ordered; white picket fences separating private gardens, the entire town arranged in pleasing and human proportions, both with its individual buildings and as a whole, each structure relating to the others as if they were family; which in a profound way, they are: separate entities, complete in themselves; but dependent on each other for a greater life and destiny. In Merchant's Square, he stopped at the sign of Parker's Rare Books. A ginger-colored cat sat in the window out on the Duke of Gloucester Street. Its eyes seemed to follow him as he walked past. He stopped. He wasn't certain, so he went back to the window. he stuck out his hand to the glass, with his index finger extended. The cat came over and sniffed at the window where he was pointing. The cat saw him and seemed to sense his mood. Then, the man smiled for the first time since he had seen those cursed letters. He knew, as much as anyone can know such things, he was going to come back to this bookshop and he would receive help here. He found it ironic he was about to go and see a bookseller for help with his problem. He walked back down the Duke of Gloucester Street toward the Capitol. The sun had not yet risen. Still, it was turning the sky into ever lightening shades of grey. The man had much to think about and much to decide, but the ginger-colored cat inn the bookshop window had given him hope.