The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Mr. Hofacket of Hofacket’s Portrait Parlor (“Fine Photographs for Fine Occasions”) was there with his big bellows camera to memorialize the day. He wanted to talk to Granddaddy about the Plant and was disappointed that we still hadn’t heard back. He’d have gabbed about it all day except that Mayor Axelrod pulled him back to his duties as official photographer. We crowded around, spilling off the boardwalk and into the street. Mr. Hofacket set up his camera. Granddaddy gripped my hand. Then Mr. Hofacket ducked under his black veil and held up his magnesium flash powder.

“Don’t move!” cried Mr. Hofacket. We all froze. Mr. Hofacket’s powder lit us up like summer lightning and caught us for that one second in time. When we later saw a copy of the photograph, most of the faces were solemn and severe. I looked pensive. The only smiling face was that of Granddaddy, grinning away like the Cheshire Cat.

CHAPTER 17

HOME ECONOMIES

As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life.

AGAINST MY WILL, I had arrived at that age when a young girl began to acquire those skills she would need to manage her own household after marriage. And of course, all the girls I knew expected to get married. Everybody did, unless you were so rich that you didn’t have to, or so hard on the eyes that no man would have you. A few girls went off to be teachers or nurses for a while before they got married, and I considered them lucky. And now we had the example of Maggie Medlin, Telephone Operator, an independent woman with her own money who answered to no man other than Mr. Bell. Since there was still only the one telephone in town, her duties were not onerous. She sat before her board, receiver around her neck, eating apples and reading the newspaper until the board buzzed with a call to be relayed. She then plugged in a cord and said in the same crisp voice every time, “Hello, Central, what number please?” She had to say this, despite the fact that there was only the one number. All the girls in school admired her. We played Operator with a scrap of cardboard and a length of twine for a switching station. This looked like the good life to me. But the telephone proved to be so popular that soon everyone had to have one. Maggie was not allowed to leave her station and became a veritable Company slave.

THE PLANT THRIVED. We heard no word from Washington. Granddaddy toiled on with me at his elbow whenever I could escape to the laboratory with him.

One Saturday morning, Mother looked up from her sewing as I was running out the front door, one of Granddaddy’s butterfly nets and his old fishing creel slung over my shoulder. “Stop a minute,” she said as my hand turned the doorknob. I didn’t like the way she looked me over. “Where are you off to?” she said.

“Down to the river, ma’am, to collect specimens,” I said, edging crabwise out the door.

“Come back here. Specimens are all very well,” said Mother, “but I’m worried that you are lagging behind. When I was your age, I could smock and darn and had the essentials of good plain cookery.”

“I know how to cook,” I said stoutly.

“What can you cook?” she said.

“I can make a cheese sandwich. I can make a soft-boiled egg.” I thought about it some more, and then said triumphantly, “I can make a hard-boiled egg.”

My mother said, “Lord above, it’s worse than I thought.”

“What is?” I said.

“Your ignorance of cookery.”

“But why do I have to cook? Viola cooks for us,” I said.

“Yes, but what about later? When you grow up and have a family of your own? How will you feed them?”

Viola had been with us always, since before I was born, since before even Harry was born. It had never occurred to me that she wouldn’t always be there. My world wobbled on its axis. “Viola can cook for my family,” I said.

There was silence. Then Mother said, “All right, you can go. But we will talk about this again soon.”