Granddaddy said, “We owe this humble tiller of the soil a great deal. Mr. Darwin hailed them as one of the most important animals in the history of the world, and he was right. Most plants on earth are indebted to the worm, and we in turn rely on the plants for our very existence. Think on the number of plants you ate at breakfast this morning.”
I’d had flapjacks with syrup, so no plants there. I was about to say so but I could tell from his expectant expression that this would probably be wrong.
I stopped and thought. Flapjacks. Ah, made from flour, which came from ground-up wheat, so there was one plant. And the syrup came from tapped maple trees in New England, which we flavored with our own pecan extract, so there were two more.
“My whole breakfast was plants,” I said, “except for a little butter, which comes from cows, who eat plants. So I suppose when we say the blessing, we should also give thanks to the worm, right?”
“It might be fitting,” he said. “Without the lowly annelid, our world would change for the worse.”
When we were through, I ran to Travis and showed him my work. “Look,” I said. “Did you know a worm has five hearts? These little pale pink things right here are the main blood vessels. Isn’t that interesting?”
He looked and said, “Uh … sure.”
“And this is its brain, this little gray dot next to the mouth. Can you see it?”
Now, I admit it was rather dried out by that point and perhaps not the prettiest sight in the world, and maybe it smelled a little bit, but I didn’t expect him to turn pale and back away.
I said, “Don’t you want to see it? And look at these nerves, these tiny gray strings. Pretty interesting, huh?”
He turned paler and said, “Uh, I think I forgot to feed Bunny.” And with that, he dashed away.
CHAPTER 8
A BIRTHDAY CONTROVERSY
A small sea-otter is very numerous; this animal does not feed exclusively on fish, but, like the seals, draws a large supply from a small red crab, which swims in shoals near the surface of the water.
OCTOBER, THE BIG BIRTHDAY MONTH, loomed ahead. We called it that because Sam Houston, Lamar, Sul Ross, and I shared it as our birthday month, and we all looked forward to it with breathless anticipation.
There was no forgetting the marvelous mayhem of the previous year when all four of our parties had been combined into one grand bash to which the whole town had been invited, with every kind of pie and ice cream known to man, and root beer floats, and pony rides, and croquet and horseshoes and sack races and prizes, and a towering cake aflame with forty-nine candles (the sum of our years), and birthday hats and crepe paper streamers, and even fireworks at twilight. A splendid day all around.
But there was still no news about when Father and Harry might return. Word came that they spent long weary days working like slaves from can’t-see to can’t-see, clearing the roads of debris, pushing the horses and themselves to exhaustion. They labored alongside volunteers and hired men who’d poured in from all over the South to restore some semblance of order. There was talk of building a seawall to protect the town from future floods. There was talk of raising every house still standing onto ten-foot stilts, an astounding feat of engineering never before contemplated in the entire State of Texas.
The newspaper headlines I sneaked a peek at read: Looting Controlled. Rebuilding Continues. Thousands Still Missing. Bodies Buried at Sea.
I resolved to read no more.
Despite the good news about our relatives, a pall of anxiety still hung over the house, causing me to worry that there might be no celebration this year. And if we took the unprecedented step of skipping birthdays, what about Halloween? And Thanksgiving? What about—oh Lord—what about Christmas? Could one possibly skip Christmas? Was that even legal? Gah. It was too depressing to think about.
But think about it I did, and I called a meeting on the front porch with the other celebrants, Sam Houston, Lamar, and Sully.
Lamar arrived late and demanded rudely, “What do you want? You’re interrupting my reading.”
(“Reading,” in this case, referred to dime novels, those cheaply printed books packed with lurid and predictable tales of derring-do involving a brave and strong young man saving the day for the Pony Express, or a brave and brawny young man saving the day for the Texas Rangers, or a brave and strapping young man saving the day for the Pinkerton Detectives. Endlessly enthralled by these stories, my brother could be accused of many things but not an excess of imagination.)
“Lamar, you really are the limit.” I turned my attention to the others. “Has it not occurred to any of you birthday boys that maybe we won’t have a party this year?”
I was not prepared for the level of general outrage this provoked.
“What?”
“Why not?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think?” I said, amazed at their obtuseness. Were all boys like this or just the ones I was unfortunate enough to be saddled with? “Mother is sad about Father and Harry being gone, and Uncle Gus and Aunt Sophronia losing their house, and her friends still missing, and all the people in town in mourning.”
Sam Houston said, “That’s true. She’s drinking more than usual of her tonic. She takes her normal dose and then she takes another dose when she thinks no one’s looking.”
“But why should that mean no party?” demanded Lamar.
“Because you don’t celebrate when people are in mourning. And because it’s such a lot of work for Mother and Viola and everybody,” I said. “I guess you were too busy having fun last year to notice how much work it was.”
Silence fell. I could see we were all thinking the same thing but no one wanted to say it.
The pill finally said it: “So, what about it? How do we make sure we get a party?”
“And presents?” said Sam Houston.
“And cake?” said Sul Ross, who was about to turn nine and who always, always, got sick on cake.
They stared at me as if I had caused the problem.
“You can’t blame me for this,” I said. “I’m only bringing it up.”
“What do we do?” Sam Houston asked. More silence.
Finally I said, “I’m not really sure there’s any fixing it.”
Sul Ross said plaintively, “Can’t you talk to her, Callie? She’s a girl and you’re a girl, maybe she’ll listen to you.”
Lamar grunted. “Callie’s a dumb girl—don’t forget that part. And Mother’s never listened to her before, so why should she now? I’ll do the talking.”
“No!” I shouted. “You’ll botch it for sure.”
“All right then, Miss Smarty, you fix it. And don’t you botch it or I’ll push you down in Petunia’s sty.”
“I’d like to see you try it.”
Despite my brave talk, I wouldn’t have put it past him to chuck me into the pig wallow. Lamar seldom thought of consequences, as in, for example, the endless heck to pay if he actually did such a thing.
We agreed to meet again in an hour, and I went to my room to gather my wits before facing Mother. I finally decided that the strongest pleading would be to point out how much the boys were missing Father and Harry (although, in truth, I didn’t see that much evidence of it), and that it would cheer us all up to have a celebration. Now, this wasn’t an out-and-out lie, but it wasn’t really the truth, either. And the more I thought about it, the less like the truth it sounded, and the more insistently the nontruthful part of it elbowed its way into my conscience, filling it with a gloomy gray fog.
Buck up, Calpurnia. Time to locate your target.
I made my way downstairs. In the dining room I noticed, as if for the first time, the portrait of my parents taken twenty years before on their wedding day. I’d never paid much attention to the photo except to remark that the fashions of the time, especially Mother’s ridiculous bustle, were now laughably out-of-date.
Now I stopped and studied the portrait. How tall and proud my father st
ood in his best suit, how beautiful my mother looked in her gown of Brussels lace, her crown of wax flowers, her long veil cascading all the way to the floor like a misty waterfall. Their expressions were severe due to the length of time they’d had to pose frozen in place, but still, there was something of hope for the future in their gaze, the anticipation of happiness in their newly entwined lives.
And they’d been happy, hadn’t they? Why, look how they’d evolved and what they’d become: pillars of the community, parents of seven impressive offspring (all right, six if you didn’t count Lamar), owners of a thriving cotton business and the biggest house in town, esteemed and respected by all. They’d found their own recipe for happiness, and it suited them. Didn’t it?
I went into the parlor. Mother had fallen asleep in her chair with her mending basket at her feet, a torn shirt in her lap. With her chignon askew, she looked disheveled, an unusual state for a woman normally so smoothed down and buttoned up. I studied the deepening lines in her face and the new threads of gray in her hair and felt a surge of pity. When had she started to look so haggard? Her careworn appearance almost derailed me.
She gasped and woke up blinking. “Why, Calpurnia, I must have dozed off. You can do your piano practice now. You won’t disturb me.”
“I can do it later,” I said. “I … I wanted to talk to you about everybody’s birthday.”
Her expression clouded over, which I did not find encouraging. Not at all. But I fumbled ahead with my prepared speech.
“You see, the boys are missing Father and Harry. I thought perhaps … that is, we thought … well, a big birthday party would cheer us all up.”
She frowned. I hurried on. “It would give us all heart, don’t you think, and we could—”
“Calpurnia.”
“Invite only our closest friends. We wouldn’t have to invite everyone in town like last year, since it was such a lot of work, I know it was, really, and we could—”
“Calpurnia.”
Her voice, low, quiet, dispirited, stopped me in my tracks.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Do you think it right and proper that we should have a celebration when so many lives have been lost? Can you really stand there and tell me that?”
“Uh…”
“It would be unseemly in the extreme.”
“Uh, well…”
“What with so many dead, and so many survivors living in wretched conditions, and poor Uncle Gus and Aunt Sophronia and Cousin Aggie having lost everything. It’s beyond imagining, what they must have gone through. And think what your father and brother must be going through. Such a nightmare. So much sadness.”
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to. Hives of shame popped up on my neck. “You’re right, Mother. I’m sorry. You’re right.”
She picked up her mending, signaling the end of our parley. I crept away, feeling about three inches high. I clawed at the horrible prickles erupting on my neck and met the boys on the porch.
Lamar took one look at me and said, “You botched it up good, I can tell.”
“I did my best.”
“Well, it obviously wasn’t good enough.”
“You should have been there, Lamar. You should have seen the look on her face.”
“‘The look on her face’? That’s all it took for you to cave in? You’re some kind of lousy negotiator. That’s what we get for sending a dumb girl to do a man’s job. I’ll do it myself next time.” He hawked and spat in the dust.
It was all so unfair I could have smacked him, but he wheeled and stalked off. Sam Houston and Sul Ross looked back and forth at us doubtfully and then straggled after him.
I yelled, “She said it was unseemly!”
They ignored me. And to top it off, I’d become a giant walking hive. At the horse trough, I pumped cool water onto my pinafore and applied it as a compress. I paced in circles and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. This resulted in only partial subsidence of the hives and my temper, so I decided there was only one other treatment open to me: a soothing application of Granddaddy.
I found him working in the laboratory with the burlap flap pinned aside to let in light and fresh air.
He greeted me with, “Hives again? What is it this time?”
I stared at him and said, “Am I that predictable?”
“Generally not, but your dermis is, yes.”
“Oh. Well, don’t say a word, but I’m thinking about running away from home.” I smiled weakly to show him I was joking. Mostly.
He received this bit of news with equanimity. “Is that right? Where will you go? What will you do for money? Have you considered these things?”
“I’ve saved up twenty-seven cents.”
“I doubt you can buy your independence with all of twenty-seven cents.”
“Yes.” I sighed. “It’s a pitiful sum to run away on. The train fare to Austin is more than that. But if I do save enough, will you come with me? I can’t go without you, you know.” I kissed him on the forehead, adding, “But you’ll probably have to pay your own way.”
“It’s most kind of you to invite me, but I do most of my traveling in the library these days. A seated man can travel far and wide with nothing more than a globe and an atlas. And I find all the adventure I need at this stage in life through the lenses of the microscope and telescope. There is world enough for me right here with my specimens and books.”
I thought about it and realized that I, too, was an explorer. Hadn’t I crossed the wide ocean to England with Mr. Dickens? Hadn’t I drifted down the great Mississippi with Huck? Didn’t I travel in time and space every time I opened a book?
Granddaddy said, “What, may I ask, has precipitated this sudden desire to escape our town?”
“I didn’t behave very nicely to Mother. But it wasn’t all my fault. My brothers put me up to it.”
“Brothers will do that,” he said gravely, then listened to my tale of woe and agreed with me that life was not fair. Then he asked how old I was turning.
“Thirteen.”
“Thirteen, eh? Soon you’ll be a young lady.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because girls get to do little enough in this world, and, from what I can tell, young ladies get to do even less.”
“Hmm, there’s some truth in that, although I don’t know why it should be so. It seems to me that any girl or young lady with a brain in good working order should be allowed to achieve whatever she might.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, Granddaddy, but not everyone does, especially around here.”
“Speaking of birthdays and travel, I have something for you in the library that I think you’ll like. Come with me.”
I took his hand as we walked to the house, glad that a girl can never be too grown-up to hold her grandfather’s hand.
He unlocked the library door and pulled back the heavy bottle-green drapes for better light. Then he took a book from his cabinet, saying, “Before he wrote The Origin of Species, Darwin spent five years sailing around the world on a small ship, HMS Beagle. Five whole years, collecting specimens and exploring distant lands.” Granddaddy stared into the distance, eyes agleam. The decades magically dropped from his face, and I could see the boy he once had been.
“An epic journey! Think of it! What I would have given to be at his side tracking the puma and the condor in Patagonia, observing the vampire bat of the Argentine, collecting the orchids of Madagascar. Why, look there, on the shelf.”
He pointed to the thick glass carboy containing the bottled beast that Darwin himself had sent him years before.
“He collected that cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, off the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage was arduous and short on creature comforts, and several times almost cost him his life, but it cemented his love of the natural world and started him along the path to thinking about evolution. I think you’ll find this book smoother sailing than Origin.”
He hande
d me the leather-bound book, The Voyage of the Beagle. “Happy birthday,” he said, “and bon voyage.”
Oh, the pleasure, the wonder, the anticipation of a new book. I thanked him with a hug and a kiss on his whiskery cheek, then hid it beneath my pinafore and ran with it to my room, for who knew what desecration Lamar might be capable of in a fit of rage?
I read well into the night, accompanying Mr. Darwin to the Galapagos Islands, Madagascar, the Canary Islands, Australia. Along with him, I marveled at the loud shocking click made by the butterfly Papilio feronia, a type of insect the world had previously thought mute. We watched the spermaceti whales leaping almost clear of the water, their splashes booming like cannon fire. Together we wondered at the Diodon, or puffer fish, a spiky fish that inflated itself into an inedible ball when threatened. (And although Mr. Darwin’s description of this oddity was vivid, I yearned to see one in real life.) Together we hid from panthers and pirates, and dined with savages and grandees and cannibals, although not, one hoped, on human flesh.
My dreams that night were filled with the creak of the rigging, the swaying of the deck, the pressure of the wind. Not bad for a girl who’d never seen the ocean. A bon voyage, indeed.
CHAPTER 9
THE MYSTERY ANIMAL
In this northern part of Chile … an arrow-head made of agate, and of precisely the same form with those now used in Tierra del Fuego, was given me.
WE ENDED UP HAVING a birthday celebration of sorts, although it was not the one Lamar wanted. Nor I, for that matter. Viola made a fruit punch and I helped her make a pecan cake. Unfortunately, I frosted it before it had completely cooled; the icing pooled in a hollow on top and dribbled down the sides, giving it a truly pitiful look. Viola decorated it with a sparse handful of tiny candles, rather meager and depressing, nothing like the conflagration of the year before. Mother smiled bravely and made a short speech about how we must all do our bit to support the refugees, even those of us who stayed behind and whose part involved only standing by. Her words filled us with such guilt that we smiled weakly and pretended we were satisfied with our lot, even Lamar, who’d never been blessed with much in the way of tact.
The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate Page 7