“Ah. And we have all enjoyed the fruits of your labor.”
“You don’t have to say that,” I said unhappily.
We sat in silence, and I felt an unseen mosquito feasting on my ankles, adding to my general misery. I couldn’t see it until it had bitten me several times, and in its own gluttony, had transformed itself into a visible flying droplet of my own blood. It settled on the porch near my feet, and I stamped at it. It tried to fly, too engorged to escape. I caught it with the edge of my shoe and a tiny fountain of my blood spurted against the gray paint of the porch. I thought about this. Apparently too much of a good thing could kill you, like the old song said. Look at the smeared evidence. The mosquito was a clear success in terms of getting plenty of food, but a failure in terms of living to a good old age and expiring peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by her many keening grandchildren. So was she fit or unfit? Although it might not matter, depending on what Granddaddy had to say next. Would he commute my life sentence of domestic drudgery?
Travis spotted the first firefly and claimed the ribbon at the other end of the porch. I cleared my throat. “Grandfather. . . .” And then I faltered.
“Yes, Calpurnia?”
“Girls . . . girls can be scientists, too.” We both pretended not to hear the quiver in my voice. “Can’t they?”
He took a long puff on his cigar and then tapped the ash clean.
He said, “Have you asked your mother this? Or your father?”
“What?” I said. “No, of course not. Why would I do that?”
“Because they may have something to say about the matter. Has that occurred to you?”
“Oh,” I said bitterly, “I know what they have to say about the matter. Why do you think I never get out of the kitchen anymore? That’s why I’m asking you.”
“I see,” he said. “Do you remember when we sat by the river some months ago and talked about Copernicus and Newton?”
“I remember.” How could I ever forget?
“Did we not talk about Mrs. Curie’s element? Mrs. Maxwell’s screech owl? Miss Anning’s pterodactyl? Her ichthyosaur?”
“No.”
“Miss Kovalevsky’s equations? Miss Bird’s travels to the Sandwich Islands?”
“No.”
“Such ignorance,” he muttered, and quick tears pricked my eyes. Was I such an ignorant girl? He went on. “Please forgive my ignorance, Calpurnia. You have made me well enough acquainted with the primitive state of your public education, and I should have known you would be left in the dark about certain matters of Science. Let me tell you about these women.”
I soaked up what he told me like a living sponge. It was galvanizing information. But was there something in his voice, some hesitation, some reservation I hadn’t heard before? We were interrupted by Mother herding the children inside for bed. Lately, it seemed that all my talks with Granddaddy were interrupted. Lately, it seemed that there wasn’t any time.
By unanimous vote, my brothers and I retired the Fentress Firefly Prize at bedtime, declaring the season of 1899 officially over.
Travis’s firefly was, in fact, the only one spotted that night. Although I knew the fireflies would return in a year, it felt like the extinction of a species. How sad to be the last of your kind, flashing your signal in the dark, alone, to nothingness. But I was not alone, was I? I had learned that there were others of my kind out there.
Chapter 22
THANKSGIVING
One of the most remarkable features in our domesticated races is that we see in them adaptation, not indeed to the animal’s or plant’s own good, but to man’s use or fancy.
I WOKE EARLIER than usual the next morning and knew, before I was completely awake, that something was different. I came fully awake and realized that I was cold. I was cold! The temperature had dropped a good forty degrees in the night in one of those unpredictable fronts that swept down from the Amarillo plains. I reached out a goose-fleshed arm to pull up a quilt, but of course there wasn’t one. Our household had been caught unprepared, so long had the heat hung over us like a suffocating shroud. I flung back my thin cotton sheet and stretched my arms to the ceiling and luxuriated in the chill air. I wondered, If I lay there long enough, would I start to shiver? But there wasn’t time for this kind of experiment. A lovely day waited to unroll before me.
I came downstairs dressed in my summer clothes because I had nothing else in my press to wear. Viola was singing “The Willow Bends Her Boughs for Me” as she stoked the kitchen stove. Idabelle was tucked tightly in her basket. Mother came down in her dressing gown, over which she’d thrown her prize cashmere shawl, which reeked of camphor. Father had bought it for her on their honeymoon in Galveston, a city into which an unimaginable profusion of fabulous goods flowed every day.
“Soft as a baby’s bottom,” Father always said about the shawl when she wore it, twinkling at Mother, who would flush. She fought a running battle against mouse and moth for possession of her shawl, and kept ahead by such heavy and diligent applications of mothballs that the smell wafted about in her wake like some vile perfume. By spring the smell would fade, but by then she’d have to pack it away again.
Viola made pecan sticky buns served with hot syrup, and we fell on them like ravenous beasts. Granddaddy celebrated the day by briefly giving up his shabby frock coat to SanJuanna to allow her another futile stab at making it presentable; the benzene had little effect except to make him smell like a walking laboratory.
On the back porch, the Outside Cats were curled into themselves. Ajax and the other dogs snuffled and pranced in the grass. Everyone had a brighter eye. Tempers were soothed, gladness filled our souls. We could go on.
That day on the way to school, my brothers and I raced each other for the first time in months. Miss Harbottle was in such a good mood that no one got the switch, and no one had to stand in the Corner of Shame. Lula Gates and I celebrated by jumping rope all the way home. It had been too hot for months to even think about it. When I tripped myself up, I realized that I had grown taller over the summer.
I stopped in at the gin on the way home, and since Father was engaged in a meeting with some other planters, I went to Mr. O’Flanagan’s office and asked him to cut me a longer length of jump rope.
“Certainly, certainly. Come in and say hello to Polly,” he said, getting up from his desk. Polly looked happy and healthy enough standing on his cage, but he still gave me the evil eye.
“Old Polly’s a good bird, aren’t you?” Mr. O’Flanagan said, and affectionately ruffled the feathers on his back the wrong way. I watched in alarm, but instead of ripping Mr. O’Flanagan’s scalp off with his talons, Polly winked slowly in obvious pleasure and leaned into his hand.
“Polly’s a good boy,” said the bird in its disquieting nasal counterfeit of a human voice.
“Yes, he is,” cooed Mr. O’Flanagan, “yes, he is. Here, Calpurnia, you can pet him while I get some rope.”
Not likely. I stood well across the room. Polly and I looked at each other. He raised and lowered his crest and then I swear he hissed at me like a feral cat. I was backing out of the room when Mr. O’Flanagan returned with a length, saying, “Let’s see, how long should we cut this?”
I was glad to see him back. I was glad that Polly had found his proper place in the world but gladder still that it was not with us.
When I got home, I joined my brothers and SanJuanna and Alberto in carrying quilts and winter clothing outside for airing. The lighter patchwork quilts were hung over the clothesline, and we set to beating them with all our might. It was one of those rare times that we were actually encouraged to be boisterous, and it was grand. The heavier feather quilts were spread out on clean sheets in the sun, and we took turns shooing the inquisitive dogs and cats and chickens away from them. Mother put a dilute solution of vinegar in a Flit gun and misted everything. She believed firmly in the disinfectant qualities of vinegar and sunshine, and who’s to say she was wrong? It’s practically all we had. Diphtheria, polio, typhus lurked everywhere, and we had no weapons against them, although living in the country instead of Austin gave us some protection.