The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

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.