THE
EVOLUTION
OF
CALPURNIA
TATE
JACQUELINE KELLY
THE
EVOLUTION
OF
CALPURNIA
TATE
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
Table of Contents
TITLE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
CHAPTER 2: THE MEASURE OF THE MORNING
CHAPTER 3: THE POSSUM WARS
CHAPTER 4: VIOLA
CHAPTER 5: DISTILLATIONS
CHAPTER 6: MUSIC LESSONS
CHAPTER 7: HARRY GETS A GIRLFRIEND
CHAPTER 8: MICROSCOPY
CHAPTER 9: PETEY
CHAPTER 10: LULA STIRS UP TROUBLE (BUT DOESN’T MEAN TO)
CHAPTER 11: KNITTING LESSONS
CHAPTER 12: A SCIENTIFIC STUDY
CHAPTER 13: A SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE
CHAPTER 14: THE SHORT HOE
CHAPTER 15: A SEA OF COTTON
CHAPTER 16: THE TELEPHONE COMES
CHAPTER 17: HOME ECONOMIES
CHAPTER 18: COOKING LESSONS
CHAPTER 19: A DISTILLERY SUCCESS, OF SORTS
CHAPTER 20: THE BIG BIRTHDAY
CHAPTER 21: THE REPRODUCTIVE IMPERATIVE
CHAPTER 22: THANKSGIVING
CHAPTER 23: THE FENTRESS FAIR
CHAPTER 24: HARRY WOOS AGAIN
CHAPTER 25: CHRISTMAS EVE
CHAPTER 26: WORD COMES
CHAPTER 27: NEW YEAR’S EVE
CHAPTER 28: 1900
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter are from
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10010
www.HenryHoltKids.com
Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Copyright © 2009 by Jacqueline Kelly
All rights reserved.
Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelly, Jacqueline.
The evolution of Calpurnia Tate / Jacqueline Kelly.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In central Texas in 1899, eleven-year-old Callie Vee Tate is instructed to be a lady by her mother, learns about love from the older three of her six brothers, and studies the natural world with her grandfather, the latter of which leads to an important discovery.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8841-0
ISBN-10: 0-8050-8841-5
[1. Nature—Fiction. 2. Family life—Texas—Fiction. 3. Grandfathers—Fiction. 4. Naturalists—Fiction. 5. Texas— History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K296184Evo 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008040595
First Edition—2009 / Designed by April Ward
Printed in April 2009 in the United States of America by Quebecor World, Martinsburg, West Virginia, on acid-free paper. ∞
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THE
EVOLUTION
OF
CALPURNIA
TATE
CHAPTER 1
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
When a young naturalist commences the study of a group of organisms quite unknown to him, he is at first much perplexed to determine what differences to consider . . . for he knows nothing of the amount and kind of variation to which the group is subject. . . .
BY 1899, WE HAD LEARNED to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat. We arose in the dark, hours before sunrise, when there was barely a smudge of indigo along the eastern sky and the rest of the horizon was still pure pitch. We lit our kerosene lamps and carried them before us in the dark like our own tiny wavering suns. There was a full day’s work to be done before noon, when the deadly heat drove everyone back into our big shuttered house and we lay down in the dim high-ceilinged rooms like sweating victims. Mother’s usual summer remedy of sprinkling the sheets with refreshing cologne lasted only a minute. At three o’clock in the afternoon, when it was time to get up again, the temperature was still killing.
The heat was a misery for all of us in Fentress, but it was the women who suffered the most in their corsets and petticoats. (I was still a few years too young for this uniquely feminine form of torture.) They loosened their stays and sighed the hours away and cursed the heat and their husbands, too, for dragging them to Caldwell County to plant cotton and acres of pecan trees. Mother temporarily gave up her hairpieces, a crimped false fringe and a rolled horsehair rat, platforms on which she daily constructed an elaborate mountain of her own hair. On those days when we had no company, she even took to sticking her head under the kitchen pump and letting Viola, our quadroon cook, pump away until she was soaked through. We were forbidden by sharp orders to laugh at this astounding entertainment. As Mother gradually surrendered her dignity to the heat, we discovered (as did Father) that it was best to keep out of her way.
