The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Jacqueline Kelly
 In the summer of 1899, Calpurnia Virginia Tate is about to turn twelve and worries about the adult responsibilities that loom on the horizon. She would much rather swim in the river near her family's pecan plantation just outside the tiny town of Fentress, Texas than learn to cook, knit, and play the piano. One day, noticing two different types of grasshoppers in the lawn around the house, Callie decides to find a copy of the infamous "Origin of the Species" by Mr. Charles Darwin. After a disastrous encounter with a lady librarian, Callie is forced to search for the illicit book elsewhere. Little does she know that there is a copy in her very own house in the personal library of her Granddaddy. An imposing and distant figure, Callie must work up her courage to ask him about her grasshopper conundrum and relay her own theory about why the grasshoppers around the house are two different sizes. Thus begins an easy sort of friendship between granddaughter and grandfather. Soon Callie is spending most of her time with Granddaddy, catching specimens of wildlife for his collection and learning about natural sciences at his side. When she is not tramping and trapping with Granddaddy, Callie finds herself sadly incapable at the skills her mother so desperately tries to teach her. She cannot cook anything other than soft-boiled eggs and cheese sandwiches. Her needlepoint is "straggly and pitiful." Her piano-playing, while adequate, is unexceptional. All of this is painfully obvious to poor Callie when she is compared to her best friend Lula. Lula is a perfect lady, excelling at all of the pursuits at which Callie fails so miserably. In fact, her proper ladylike demeanor has three of Callie's six brothers falling in love with her during the course of the summer. Callie fears that her free-roaming days may be at an end, though, when she receives a frightening Christmas gift: a book from her mother entitled "The Science of Housewifery." Throughout the novel, Callie must learn to balance her own independent and curious personality with the restrictions placed on a girl at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. As new inventions are presented in Callie's life, she adjusts and evolves, first with the wind machine her brother brings home, then with a marvelous new beverage called Coca-Cola. Ultimately, though, it is the introduction of the telephone in the small Texas town that symbolizes the changes ahead for Callie. As Granddaddy tells her, "The old century is dying, even as we watch. Remember this day.” As the book ends, the 20th century dawns, leaving the reader hopeful that it will bring with it new opportunities for the feisty young Calpurnia.