Part 5 (1/2)
”Who's going? Why can't you talk about it? And I am not 'the others'-I'm your pet, remember?”
”Stop it and go away.”
I stopped it and went away.
I wandered around morosely for a while before I got the bright idea of checking in the Fentress Indicator, our daily newspaper. Harry was normally the only one of the children allowed to read the paper (the rest of us were still deemed too young, something to do with our ”tender sensibilities”). I found a stack of discarded papers in the pantry where Viola stored them. She saved them for mulch in the kitchen garden. I grabbed the latest paper and ran outside to the back porch. The headlines read: Galveston Tragedy. Devastating Flood. Pride of Texas Washed to Sea by Hurricane. Most Deadly Natural Disaster in American History. Thousands Feared Lost.
Thousands. Thousands. The terrible word pounded in my brain. My marrow froze, and my knees turned to jelly. A part of me could not believe it, but the rest of me knew it was true. And my relatives, the Finches, were they included in those thousands? They were our kinfolk, bound to us by ties of blood. And Galveston itself, the finest city in Texas, our capital of culture, with its glittering opera house and magnificent mansions, all gone.
I dropped the paper, ran to my room, and threw myself on my tall bra.s.s bed, stricken. I wept without ceasing until Mother came upstairs and dosed me with Lydia Pinkham's, which only made me dizzy; then she dosed me with cod-liver oil, which only made me sick. Finally I crawled from my bed and sought out Granddaddy in the laboratory. He perched me on the tall stool at the counter where I normally worked as his a.s.sistant, patted my hair, and said, ”There, there, now. These things happen in Nature. You are not responsible for this. There, now. You're a good girl, and brave.”
Ah, brave. Normally that word from him would have filled me with elation, but not now.
”Why wouldn't they listen?” I hiccuped.
”People often don't. You can lay the evidence before them but you cannot make them believe what they choose not to.”
He uncorked a small bottle filled with murky brown liquid and raised it in a toast, saying, ”To the Galveston that once was; to the Galveston that yet will be.” He sipped and grimaced. ”d.a.m.n, that's awful. Would you like a drink? Oh, I forgot, you don't drink. Just as well. This stuff is still terrible. I'm thinking of giving up on this particular branch of research.”
I was so startled I stopped crying.
”Give up?” I'd never known him to give up on anything, not even me. Not even the time I'd heartily deserved to be given up on when I'd temporarily lost the precious Vicia tateii, the new species of hairy vetch we had found.
”But, Granddaddy, after all the work you've done.” I looked at the scores of bottles jamming the shelves and counter, each labeled with its run date and method of distillation. Such a lot of work to abandon.
”I'm not giving it up entirely, mind, merely changing direction. I now realize that the pecan is much more suited to a sweet drink, such as an after-dinner liqueur. Besides, none of the work has been for naught. Remember, Calpurnia, you learn more from one failure than ten successes. And the more spectacular the failure, the greater the lesson learned.”
”Are you saying I should be aiming for spectacular failures? Mother really won't like that. She has a hard enough time with my ordinary ones.”
”I'm not saying you should aim for them, merely learn from them.”
”Oh.”
”Strive to make each subsequent failure a better one. And as for regrets...”
”Yes?”
”They are only useful as instructional tools. Once you have learned all you can from them, they are best discarded.”
”I see. I think.”
”Good. Now, if you don't mind, I'd appreciate your taking notes while I check the last of these runs.”
I plucked a pencil from the cracked shaving mug on the counter and sharpened it. If we were not exactly back in business as usual, we were at least heading in that direction.
ON WEDNESDAY, Father, Harry, and our hired man, Alberto, heaped the long-bed wagon with blankets and tools and barrels of food. Mother tearfully embraced Father, who whispered some private words of comfort to her. Then he shook Granddaddy's hand and shook all our hands, and kissed each of us on the cheek.
”Mind your mother, now,” he said, and if his gaze lingered on me a tad longer than the others, well, I deemed that unfair.
Alberto shyly kissed his wife, SanJuanna, good-bye. Her lips moved in a silent prayer, and she made the sign of the cross.
Father and Alberto climbed upon the wagon, Father taking the reins. Harry mounted King Arthur, one of our big workhorses. Not the most comfortable ride over the long distance, with his deep chest and broad back, but his ma.s.sive power would be useful for clearing roads and hauling lumber. Their plan was to drive to Luling, where they would load the wagon on either a steamboat or a train for the coast, depending on the amount of relief traffic. Men and supplies were said to be racing to Galveston from all over the state, and my family was determined to do its part. And to find Uncle Gus and Aunt Sophronia and Cousin Aggie.
Father clapped the reins and called, ”Get up, now.” The horses dug in and strained against the harness. Slowly, slowly, the wagon creaked away. Travis held Ajax's collar. The dog, unaccustomed to being separated from Father, squirmed and fought and barked. Mother turned and fled inside. My brothers and I accompanied the wagon to the end of the street, waving and calling our good-byes. A few minutes later, we watched it disappear around the bend in the road.
We didn't know that they'd be gone for over a month. Nor did we know how changed they'd be on their return.
CHAPTER 7.
AMPHIBIA AND REPTILIA IN RESIDENCE.
The expression of this snake's face was hideous and fierce; the pupil consisted of a vertical slit in a mottled and coppery iris; the jaws were broad at the base, and the nose terminated in a triangular projection. I do not think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, perhaps, some of the vampire bats.
FATHER'S AND HARRY'S CHAIRS stood empty. The gap at the head of the table so depressed Mother that she asked Granddaddy to sit in Father's place. He did so to oblige her but was not much of a mealtime conversationalist and spent most of his time staring into s.p.a.ce. When addressed, he would blink and murmur, ”Hmm? What was that?” The others probably thought him rude, possibly senile, but I knew that his placid exterior concealed a furiously active mind, contemplating what he called the Mysteries of the Universe. I loved him for it.
Most days, Mother received a letter from Father. I noticed that she read certain parts to us over dinner while skipping over other sections. Then she'd smile bravely and say something like ”your father holds us all in his thoughts” or ”we must all do our part in this hour of need.”
Then a telegram arrived, not from Father en route, but from Galveston itself.
I happened to be upstairs reading The Jungle Book by Mr. Rudyard Kipling and was deeply immersed in the adventures of the ”man-cub” Mowgli. (All right, technically it was Sam Houston's book, and I'd ”borrowed” it when he wasn't looking, but he was no great appreciator of books, so why he got it for his birthday instead of me, I couldn't fathom.) I heard crunching on the gravel drive and jumped up to see Mr. Fleming wobbling up on his bicycle. By the time he'd made it into the parlor, I'd gathered up as many of my brothers as I could find, and we stood waiting for him, along with Mother and Viola and SanJuanna. He bowed low and said, ”Mrs. Tate. I got here a telegram from Galveston. I ... I know you been waiting for this, so I brung it myself.”
Mother tried to speak but could only nod her thanks. We held our collective breath as she opened the telegram with shaking hands. A moment later, she cried, ”Thank G.o.d!” She burst into tears, and the paper fell from her hand. Viola helped her to her chair and fanned her with a piece of sheet music.
I picked up the telegram, written in the telegrapher's strange choppy diction.
”Read it, Callie,” said Sul Ross.
”It says, 'Alive by G.o.d's grace, stop. House gone, stop. Living in tent on beach, stop. Love Gus Sophronia Aggie Finch, stop.'”
We stared at one another. Mother sobbed into her handkerchief, unable to speak. Viola fetched the bottle of tonic and a tablespoon, saying, ”Miz Tate, you take this now. You had a shock to your system.”
EVEN AFTER THE GOOD NEWS, Mother continued somewhat pale and worried, waiting to hear from two of her childhood friends, but really, the rest of us were bearing up pretty well and going about the business of our daily routines.
There were nature walks and field trips with Granddaddy. There were vetch seeds to germinate. There was Sir Isaac Newton, a black-spotted newt I'd found in a drainage ditch, who now lived on my dresser in a shallow gla.s.s baking dish with a mesh-wire lid. (My dresser was getting crowded, what with my precious hummingbird's nest in a gla.s.s box and a.s.sorted feathers and fossils and small bones.) I had to keep an eye on Sir Isaac, since he frequently tried to escape despite the fat flies I supplied him with. One morning I found him in the far corner under my bed, so covered in dust that I had to take him downstairs and wash him off at the kitchen pump.
Viola took one look and shrieked, ”What in Jesus's name is that?”
”There's no need to pitch a fit. It's a black-spotted newt, also known as Diemyctylus meridionalis. Don't worry, he's completely harmless. This species is actually beneficial to man in that it eats flies and other pests, so-”
”I don't care what it is, you get it out of my sink!”
”I just need to-”
”Your momma see that thing in here, she'll have my job.”