The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate

by Jacqueline Kelly

  “When are you going to talk to Dr. Pritzker? It needs to be soon. We don’t have a whole lot of time. We’re supposed to look at the puppies on Saturday. If we end up getting one, there might not be a place for Scruffy.”

  “All right. I’ll ask him tomorrow afternoon.”

  But before tomorrow afternoon came, unlucky fate struck, and it struck in the unlikely form of Viola.

  We were finishing breakfast when we heard a muffled boom from the back of the property.

  “What was that?” said Mother.

  “Sounds like the twenty gauge,” said Father. The shotgun was kept on a hook on the back porch for varmint control.

  A minute later, Viola came into the dining room. “Shot a coyote, Mr. Tate, in the weeds between the corncrib and the henhouse. Maybe sick, from the way it was limping.”

  Travis and I stared at each other, horrified disbelief dawning between us. He leaped up, knocking over his chair, and sprinted from the room. I jumped up in hot pursuit, ignoring the confused cries and general hubbub in the dining room. I pelted out the back door at top speed behind him, yelling, “Maybe it’s not him! Maybe it’s really a coyote!”

  We reached the corncrib and followed a bloody trail through the tall weeds. All I could think was, It’s too much blood, there’s too much blood. And there on the ground lay the “coyote.” Only, of course, it was not a coyote. But it was alive. Panting and whimpering, but alive.

  “No!” Travis cried in anguish, staggering at the sight of blood on Scruffy’s hindquarters.

  Oh, Travis, not now, I prayed. Don’t go all wobbly on me now. “Don’t look at the blood. Get the wheelbarrow and hurry.”

  He turned away and ran to the garden shed. I ran to the barn and grabbed a saddle blanket.

  By the time we met back at Scruffy, Father and Harry and Lamar had arrived and were shouting confused questions and orders at us: “That doesn’t look like a coyote.” “Why does it have a collar?” “Don’t touch it—it’s probably rabid.” “Where’s the shotgun? I’ll put it out of its misery.”

  “No, you can’t,” I cried. “It’s Travis’s dog.” I put the blanket over Scruffy to keep him warm and to hide the blood.

  “Travis doesn’t have a dog,” Father said.

  “Yes, I do,” Travis said through his tears. Now that he didn’t have to look at the blood, fortitude returned to his frame.

  “Yes, he does,” I said. “Help me lift him into the wheelbarrow. We have to take him to Dr. Pritzker.”

  “That thing?” said Lamar. “It’s only a mongrel. Father, shall I get the shotgun?”

  “His name is Scruffy,” Travis cried.

  They stared at us in confusion. Scruffy whined from under his blanket.

  Father grumbled something about a man not knowing what was going on under his own roof, and disobedient sons, and too many animals, and no more pets. He looked deeply troubled, but I could not tell if it was due to Travis’s sobbing or Scruffy’s yelping. Surely the mangled dog reminded him of Ajax, and just as surely, it reminded him of Travis’s long string of terrible pets.

  Lamar said, “That thing’s not worth saving. Heck, it’s barely worth shooting.” He and Father turned and headed back to the house. Were they heading for the gun? Or for help? I thought I knew the answer but there was no time to dwell on it.

  “Help me,” I said to Travis and Harry, but Harry only held up his hands and backed away.

  No help there. I reached slowly for Scruffy’s collar because you never knew what a dog in pain—even the best-behaved dog in the world—would do. But he did not snap, only yelped as Travis and I lifted him into the wheelbarrow. A bloody hind leg slipped out. Travis reeled and squeezed his eyes shut, and I quickly adjusted the blanket to hide it.

  “Good boy,” I said, whether to Travis or Scruffy I wasn’t sure. “You can look now. Hurry, before Father gets back.” We each took a handle and pushed off toward the drive. Harry, who hadn’t said a word, watched us go. He wasn’t going to help but he wasn’t going to hinder us, either. Perhaps that was the best we could hope for under the circumstances, but still, the part of me that had always been his pet knew I would not forget this moment.

  It was tough going in the gravel drive, the front wheel foundering in a slow-motion nightmare. Travis checked his blubbing and saved his breath for the hard work at hand. When we made the street, he fell and we almost dumped the wheelbarrow over. He got up with skinned hands and knees without a word of pain, grabbed his handle, and we were off again, breaking into a clumsy trot and pushing our burden for all we were worth. No noise issued from under the blanket. I pushed grimly and could only think, What if Dr. Pritzker’s not there, what if he’s out on a call, what if he’s not there?

  We rounded the corner with our makeshift ambulance right as the doctor was unlocking his door. Relief flooded my heart as never before. He looked at us in surprise as we raced up.

  “We need your help,” I wheezed. “Our dog’s been shot. It was a mistake. Viola thought it was a coyote.”

  “It’s not a coyote, it’s our Scruffy,” Travis gasped.

  “Bring him in, bring him in,” Dr. Pritzker said, holding the door for us. But the wheelbarrow was too wide to fit through, so Travis and I had to lift him from the barrow. The blanket fell off as we carried him to the table. Blood dripped on the floor. But Travis did it. He did what needed to be done. We managed to arrange Scruffy on the table, and then he said, “I think … I think I’ll just sit down for a little bit.” He plopped down in a chair and dropped his head between his knees.

  Dr. Pritzker gave him a funny look and said to me, “Is he all right?”

  “He’s, uh … yeah. I’ll explain later. Can you save this dog?”

  Dr. Pritzker frowned at the patient, who was panting at a frightening rate.

  “What was he shot with?” he said.

  “Twenty gauge,” I said, “birdshot.”

  “Good,” he said, “better than buckshot.”

  Travis surfaced long enough to mumble, “You can save him, right?”

  Feeling oddly calm, I said, “I’ll get the anesthetic.” Now that we were there, now that I knew help to be at hand, and now that I had a part to play in providing that help, most of my fear subsided.

  “Muzzle first,” Dr. Pritzker said. I helped him buckle on a leather muzzle. Scruffy made no protest.

  “He’s never bitten anyone,” Travis said, head still down.

  “Doesn’t matter. All injured dogs get a muzzle. One of my rules of practice. Ready with the chloroform?”

  I slipped the cone over the muzzle and applied the anesthetic. Scruffy’s eyelids sagged, and his breathing slowed. Dr. Pritzker slowly explored the matted, bloody fur on his hindquarter and grunted.

  “What’s wrong?” said Travis, quickly looking up and just as quickly averting his gaze.

  “Nothing wrong with the hip. But part of the lower leg is shattered. He’ll probably never walk on it again.”

  “But you can save him, right?” Travis said.

  Dr. Pritzker frowned. “I may have to amputate at the stifle—that’s the knee—but that’s no kind of life for him. He’s not a purebred so he’s not worth anything. Besides, who wants a three-legged dog?”

  “I do,” said Travis. “I want him.”

  “Me too,” I said in unity with my brother. I unrolled the instrument pack, readied the sutures, and waited for Dr. Pritzker.

  He looked at the two of us. After a moment he sighed, “All right.”

  He probed and sewed and debrided, and extracted chips of bone before saying, “Well, I’ll be. The popliteal artery is intact. Talk about good luck. Maybe I can save the leg, but I make no guarantees, understood?”

  “Yessir,” Travis mumbled.

  Dr. Pritzker had just finished sewing up the fascia when Father and Harry came through the door.

  “Ah, Alfred,” Dr. Pritzker said, “I’m just closing up here. I’ll be done shortly. Step carefully, there’s blood everywhere.”


  Travis moaned.

  “Oh,” added Dr. Pritzker, “and you might take your boy outside. He’s looking a little green around the gills.”

  Father harrumphed, but he and Harry each took an arm and led Travis to the bench outside.

  I could hear Travis taking deep breaths. Father gave him a moment and then said, “Young man, what’s the meaning of all this? Out with it.”

  Travis explained the story of Scruffy, haltingly at first, then picking up steam. About how he was part terrier and part coyote, and how the dogs didn’t want him, and the coyotes almost killed him, and how Mr. Holloway tried to drown him, and how Mr. Gates and now Viola had shot him, and that he, Travis, was his only friend in the world and would not let him down now.

  Father said, “It’s half coyote? No, no, we can’t have a creature like that about the place. It’s just not safe. Look, my boy, I’ve decided to take one of Priscilla’s new pups and turn it into a hunting dog. They’re seven weeks old and ready to wean. You can pick out one for yourself and raise it as your very own dog. You can even have the pick of the litter.”

  Travis grew louder and more vociferous. “I don’t need a puppy. I already have a dog, and his name is Scruffy. He’s the only one I want.”

  He continued to argue his case. I regretted that I wasn’t out there to help him, but I was too busy handing the doctor bandages. Poor old Scruffy, lying there in a pool of blood. He didn’t look much like a dog, or a coyote, or a coydog. He didn’t look like much of anything except a bloody mess. But he was still breathing.

  We applied a dressing to the leg and then I remembered his other old wounds.

  “Dr. Pritzker, there’s an old fistula here. Would you take a look at it? Since he’s under? I’ll pay.”

  “Calpurnia Virginia Tate,” he sighed, “you don’t have to pay me.”

  I handed him a probe, and he dug around for a minute before triumphantly extracting a deformed slug of metal half the size of my little fingernail. Then another. And another.

  “Look at that,” he said. “He’s been shot before, and more than once. He’s a tough little scrapper, and a lucky dog to boot. Maybe you should call him Lucky instead.”

  “No,” I said, “he has a name. His name is Scruffy.”

  * * *

  FATHER REMAINED UNHAPPY about the situation for some time. Travis was allowed to keep his pet, but it had to live at the gin, and he was under strict instructions not to bring it home. Travis washed him and brushed him and taught him how to fetch and shake a paw.

  After the wounds healed, we took turns walking him and exercising him a little more each day. The muscles around his good hip grew strong in compensation, and he developed a comic hitching gait that served him well. He got to the point where he could run like blazes, at least over the short distance.

  Then came the day when he caught a rat at the gin and fortuitously delivered it to the loading dock, where Father happened to be smoking a cigar. Scruffy laid the dead rat at his feet and looked up expectantly at Father, who looked at it in surprise. He puffed his cigar and appeared thoughtful, probably thinking about how the rats plagued his business. Then he bent down and patted the reddish-brownish head, saying, “Good dog.”

  And just like that, Scruffy transformed himself from an outcast coydog to an extremely valuable working dog. Father himself brought him home that night, where he settled in on the front porch so quickly you’d have thought he always lived there. And from the porch, he and Travis initiated their stealthy joint campaign to turn him from an Outside Dog into an Inside Dog and eventually even an On The Bed Dog, previously unheard of in our house.

  So Scruffy became part of the Tate family pack. Travis had finally found the right pet.

  That was the happy ending to the story of Scruffy, one of the most exciting things to happen in our house that year. We couldn’t know that yet more excitement lay ahead.

  CHAPTER 25

  A PUFFER FISH OF ONE’S OWN

  [I]f your view is limited to a small space, many objects possess beauty.

  ONE EVENING OVER DINNER, Mother smiled and said, “Tomorrow is Aggie’s eighteenth birthday. Tomorrow, she becomes a real adult.”

  Did Aggie blush a little? I think she did.

  “I suppose,” Mother went on, “we shall have to get used to calling you Agatha, since you’ll be a proper young lady.”

  “Oh no, Aunt Margaret, I’ve been called Aggie my whole life, and I’m used to it.”

  “It’s a shame your parents can’t be here, but we’ll all do what we can to make up for their absence.”

  Later, when I kissed Mother good night, she whispered, “I want you to buy a nice birthday present for Aggie.”

  “Uh,” I said, contemplating my bank balance and wondering how much I’d be expected to spend. I hated the thought of spending my hard-earned cash on fripperies; I’d even stopped buying myself any candy at all. Talk about sacrifice!

  “Here’s a dollar. Buy her something nice, mind.”

  “Sure!” That cheered me up no end. The next day, I went to the general store and bought some lilac sachets and a tin of scented talc, appropriate gifts for a brand-new grown-up lady.

  For her birthday dinner, Viola made Aggie’s favorite, beef Wellington, and a dessert of angel food cake. Father opened a bottle of champagne with a resounding pop and poured her a half glass.

  “Oh, it tickles!” She giggled after taking her first sip. I don’t think I’d ever heard her giggle before. She looked flushed and—dare I say it?—almost beautiful in the chandelier’s flickering candlelight. She opened her gifts and exclaimed over them kindly. She read aloud a letter from her loving parents, which included a substantial check, and the news that they hoped to send for her in another month or so. We gathered around the piano and sang to her, then I floundered my way through a new tune called “The Blue Danube” by Mr. Johann Strauss. Was it my imagination, or did Mother’s teeth click every time I hit a sour note?

  When I was through, Mother said, “That was lovely, Callie, and I’m sure it will be even nicer once you actually learn the piece. Aggie, dear, perhaps you’d care to play us something?”

  Aggie took my place at the keyboard and launched into a perfect rendition of the same tune. Not only was her playing note-perfect, she was what they call lyrical, and we all swayed along to the music. Fortunately, my own sense of self-worth was not invested in musical performance, so I did not begrudge her praise. We applauded her enthusiastically.

  Really, it was the nicest time in the house since news of the Flood.

  I wondered how it was that one magically changed from child to adult at the stroke of midnight. I wondered if Aggie suddenly felt different at the striking of the clock. I wondered if she felt like Cinderella, only in reverse.

  * * *

  I PROBABLY WOULDN’T have woken up at all if a mosquito hadn’t insisted on biting me on the eyelid. Half awake, I heard a faint rustling. Probably the snake again. I rolled over on my pallet and was about to drift off when I realized that Aggie was moving stealthily across the room. I could see her in the faint moonlight, feeling her way to the wardrobe.

  “Aggie,” I whispered, “are you okay?”

  She froze.

  “I can see you, you know,” I whispered.

  “You have to be quiet,” she whispered back, and I was surprised to hear an undertone of pleading in her voice.

  “What are you doing? You can light a candle if you like.”

  “No candles!” she muttered hoarsely. “Be quiet and go back to sleep.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  She opened the wardrobe and, to my surprise, took out her carpetbag. She placed it on the bed and then fumbled her way back to the wardrobe and began pulling out her clothes.

  “Okay,” I said, “now you really have to tell me. Or I’ll wake Mother and Father.”

  “No, you mustn’t,” she begged.

  “Then you better tell me.”

  Althoug
h I couldn’t see her expression, her long pause told me she was wrestling with what to say next. Finally she said, “I’m going to meet Lafayette Lumpkin. We’re running away to Beaumont. We’re going to get married.”

  “Oh, Aggie!” The boldness of her scheme took my breath away. Nice girls from nice homes did not do such things. “You’ll get in so much trouble.”

  “Hush! Keep your voice down. We’ll be all right if we can get married before anyone catches us. I’m eighteen. I can marry.”

  “But what about your parents? You’ll break their hearts. What about my parents? They’ll be furious.” What she was doing was audacious beyond belief and would heap shame upon our family.

  “There’s a letter on the dresser that explains everything.”

  “What about your money?”

  She patted her bag and said, “I took it all out of the bank today. With my savings, we can set him up in business. He says there’s lots of oil in Beaumont, and a man who gets his foot in the door early can make a lot of money. We’re going to be rich.”

  I thought this pretty unlikely but said nothing. I watched her stuff her clothes into her bag and tiptoe to the door. She turned with her hand on the knob and said, “He’s waiting for me on the road to Lockhart. Please don’t say anything until breakfast. I’ll send you a present if you don’t. Please, Callie.”

  I realized I held her future in the palm of my hand. One outcry from me, one word of alarm, and all her plans would fall apart.

  I considered: On the one hand, no sisterly love had bloomed between us. On the other, we had grown to tolerate each other’s ways. And she had taught me some valuable lessons.

  I protested, “I’ll get in such trouble.”

  “No, you won’t. Just pretend you didn’t hear me. You can tell them you slept through the whole thing.”

  I weighed the chances of such an argument holding water and said, “They’ll kill me.”