The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

This gave him pause. “Is that so? I don’t understand the modern educational system at all.”

“Neither do I. We have to learn sewing and knitting and smocking. In Deportment, they make us walk around the room with a book on our heads.”

Granddaddy said, “I find that actually reading the book is a much more effective way of absorbing it.” I laughed. I’d have to tell Lula that one.

“What are we going to study today?” I asked.

“Let us examine pond water for algae. Van Leeuwenhoek was the first man to have seen what you will see today. He was a wool merchant, much as I was a cotton merchant.” He smiled. “So, you see, there is something to be said for the inspired amateur. What he saw was unimaginable. Ahh, I remember well my first look. It was like falling through the lens into another world. Do you have your Notebook? There will be much to record.”

“Got it.”

We walked to the river. On the way, we stirred up a herd of deer that crashed away through the underbrush and disappeared in two seconds flat. This of course raised the subject of deer and something Granddaddy called the food chain and each animal’s place in the natural order.

We came to a shallow blind inlet ringed by a thick fringe of mossy green growth. The cooler air and stagnant water smelled of mud and rot. Frantic tadpoles zigzagged away from our shadows; some good-sized creature splashed into the water upstream from us, an otter, maybe, or a river rat. A pair of swallows rushed by, skimming for insects a few inches above the water.

We set down our satchels, and Granddaddy unpacked the microscope and assembled the barrel and the lenses, each of which had a cunning nesting place in the velveteen-lined box. He showed me how the pieces fit together. “Here, you do it,” he said. The brass cylinder felt cool and heavy in my hands. I knew I was being trusted with something precious. Then he placed the case on a flat rock and balanced the microscope on top of it.

“Now,” he said, handing me two thin pieces of glass, “choose your droplet of water.”

“Any droplet?” I asked.

“Any one will do.”

“There are so many to choose from,” I said.

He smiled. “You will see more interesting things the closer your sample is to the green river plants growing here.”

I bent and dipped my fingertip into the water, picking my droplet, then let it fall on one piece of glass. He instructed me to put another slip of glass on top.

“Now place it here on the platform,” he said. “That’s right. The tricky part is to turn this reflector so that it catches the sunlight at the best angle. You want enough light to illuminate your subject but not so much that the details get washed out.”

I fumbled with the reflector and put my eye to the barrel, sure that something momentous was about to appear. What I saw could only be described as a field of pale gray fog. It was supremely disappointing.

“Um, Granddaddy . . . there’s nothing here.”

“Take the focus knob, here”—he took my hand—“and slowly turn it away from you. No, don’t look up. Keep looking while you turn.”

An awkward exercise.

“Do you have enough light?” he said. “Don’t forget your reflector.”

Then it happened. A teeming, swirling world of enormous, wriggling creatures burst into my vision, scaring the daylights out of me.

“Ook!” I cried and jumped back, almost overturning the whole apparatus. “Hewww,” I said, steadying the microscope. I looked up at Granddaddy.

“I take it you saw your first microscopic creatures,” he said, smiling. “Plato said all science begins with astonishment.”

“My goodness,” I said and looked through the eyepiece again. Something with many tiny hairs rowed past at high speed; something else with a lashing tail whipped by; a tumbling barbed sphere like a medieval mace rolled past; delicate, filmy ghostlike shadows flitted in and out of the field. It was chaotic, it was wild, it was . . . the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

“This is what I swim in?” I said, wishing I didn’t know. “What are these things?”

“That’s what we’ll find out. Perhaps you should sketch a few of them so we can identify them later from the texts.”

“Sketch them? But they’re moving so fast.”

“In truth, it’s a challenge. Here’s a pencil.”

I perched next to the scope and looked and sketched and looked and sketched as best I could. After a while, I noticed that some of the creatures started reappearing, which made drawing them easier. Granddaddy hummed Vivaldi and puttered nearby with his straining net. I chewed my pencil and frowned at my artwork, which consisted of awkward, blobby forms scattered across the page.

“I’m sorry to say that these aren’t much good,” I said, showing my page to Granddaddy.

“As artwork goes, you are entirely correct in your appraisal. But the more important point is this: Are these representations true enough so that you can match them with the examples in the atlas once we get back to the library? If that is the case, then you have done an acceptable job.”

“I think I might be able to tell,” I said, “but I’m not sure I can ever swim in the river again.”