The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Yes, that was fine. We wandered on and found one of the regular deer paths dotted with droppings. We sat down and waited in silence. A white-tailed doe came by, making no sound. I could almost reach out and touch her. How could such a large creature move so silently through the snapping underbrush? She turned her long neck and looked right at me, and for the first time I understood the expression “doe-eyed.” Her deep brown eyes were huge, her gaze gentle and melting. Her large ears flicked in all directions, independent of each other. A shaft of sunlight caught the blood-rich ears and turned them a brilliant pink. I thought she was the most gorgeous creature I’d ever seen, until a few seconds later her spotted fawn meandered into view. Oh, the fawn broke my heart with its sweet, dished face, its absurdly fragile legs, its still-fuzzy coat. I wanted to scoop it up in my arms and protect it from its inevitable future of coyotes, starvation, hunters. How could anybody shoot such a beauty? And then the fawn did this miraculous thing: It folded up its front legs, then its hind legs, and sank to the ground where it . . . disappeared. The white spots scattered over its brown back mimicked the dappled light so that one second a fawn lay there, and the next second there was nothing but undergrowth.

Granddaddy and I sat motionless for a good five minutes and then quietly collected our things and moved on. We followed the river until the shadows grew long and then we arced through the scrub and made for home. On the way back, he spotted the rarest and most delicate object in the wild, an old hummingbird’s nest, fragile and expertly woven, smaller than an eggcup.

“What extraordinary good luck!” Granddaddy said. “Treasure this, Calpurnia. You may go through your whole life and never see another one.”

The nest was the most intricately constructed thing, like something built by the fairies in my childhood tales. I almost said so aloud but caught myself in time. Members of the scientific community did not say such things.

“How can we carry it home?” I said. I was afraid to touch it.

“Let’s slide it into a jar for now. I have a glass box in the library that will be the right size. You can keep it on display in your room. It would be a shame to hide it away in a drawer.”

The library was so much Granddaddy’s territory that even my parents seldom went in there. SanJuanna was allowed to dust once a quarter. Granddaddy usually kept it locked. What he didn’t know was that on those rare occasions when there were no adults around, my brothers would sometimes boost each other over the transom. My second-oldest brother, Sam Houston, once got a long look at Mathew Brady’s book of battlefield photographs and breathlessly reported to us the butchered horses lying in the mud and the shoeless dead men staring at the sky.

We got back to the house around five o’clock. Jim Bowie and Ajax ran out to greet us as soon as they saw us coming up the drive.

“You’re in trouble, Callie,” J.B. puffed. “Mama’s really mad.” He ignored Granddaddy. “Mama says you missed your piano practice today.”

This was true. Our lessons had started again, and I knew I’d have to make up the practice, plus an additional half hour as punishment. That was the rule, but I didn’t care. The day had been worth it. The day had been worth a thousand extra hours at the piano.

We went into the house, and Granddaddy put the hummingbird’s nest in a tiny glass box and gave it to me. Then I left him pottering about in the library and went off to plead my case before Mother, to no avail.

I managed to cram my piano punishment in before dinner, playing with a light heart and a sure, spirited touch, if I do say so myself. I went to bed that night exhausted and exhilarated, the hummingbird nest in its neat glass box on my dresser next to my hairpins and ribbons.

A week later, my morning list looked like this:

5:15 a.m., clear and fine, winds from the south

8 rabbits (7 cottontail, 1 jack)

1 skunk (juvenile, appears lost)

1 possum (notched left ear)

5 cats (3 ours, 2 feral)

1 snake (grass-type, harmless)

1 lizard (green, same color as lily stems, vy hard to spot)

2 red-tailed hawks

1 buzzard

3 toads

2 hummingbirds (Rufous?)

assorted untallied Odonata, Hymenoptera, Arachnidae

I showed it to Granddaddy, who nodded his approval. “It’s amazing what you can see when you just sit quietly and look.”

CHAPTER 3

THE POSSUM WARS