The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate

Jacqueline Kelly's novel follows Calpurnia Virginia Tate, known as Callie Vee, through the year 1900 and into 1901 in the small town of Fentress, in central Texas. Callie, 12 years old, is the only girl among seven siblings in a prosperous family that owns a cotton gin. She dreams of becoming a scientist, a goal nurtured by her grandfather, Captain Walter Tate, a retired Confederate veteran devoted to the study of nature. Together they have discovered a new species of hairy vetch, Vicia tateii, but Callie's mother, Margaret Tate, envisions a different future for her: domestic arts, a debutante debut, and marriage.

The story opens when Callie and her softhearted brother Travis, one year younger, discover a young armadillo near the river. Travis adopts it, naming it Armand, despite Callie's objections. Granddaddy warns Callie that armadillos cannot be domesticated and alerts her to a journal report that they can transmit Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy. Callie forces Travis to release Armand, and Travis spends the following week scrubbing his hands raw, launching a pattern of ill-fated pet keeping that recurs throughout the year.

Callie pursues her studies with Granddaddy, building a homemade barometer and learning to predict weather. One Saturday in September, she spots a strange seabird on the front lawn and sketches it in her Scientific Notebook. Granddaddy identifies it as a laughing gull, a species found near the coast; they are 200 miles inland. He grows grave, interpreting the gull's displacement and the falling barometer as signs of a catastrophic storm approaching the Gulf Coast, and sends urgent telegrams to the mayors of Galveston, Houston, and Corpus Christi warning of a possible need for evacuation. Callie wrestles with doubt, fearing she has misidentified the bird, but the gull reappears and confirms its identity. Mother places a long-distance call to her sister Sophronia Finch in Galveston, but Sophronia assures her the Weather Bureau is not alarmed.

The storm proves catastrophic. A devastating hurricane strikes Galveston Island, killing thousands and becoming the deadliest natural disaster in American history. A telegram confirms that Uncle Gus, Aunt Sophronia, and their daughter Aggie are alive but have lost their house. Father, eldest son Harry, and the family's hired man Alberto depart with supplies for the coast and are gone for over a month.

During their absence, Travis brings home two baby blue jays; the smaller one dies overnight, and the survivor bonds with Travis but is eventually killed by Idabelle the Inside Cat. Callie performs her first dissection under Granddaddy's guidance. The October birthdays of four siblings, including Callie's thirteenth, receive only a modest celebration, as Mother considers anything more unseemly during mourning. Granddaddy gives Callie Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle, which she reads avidly.

Father and Harry return exhausted and visibly changed. With them are Cousin Agatha (Aggie) Finch, about 17, wearing charity clothes, and Dr. Jacob Pritzker, a veterinarian from Galveston whose hand was badly injured by rattlesnake bites during the storm. Father announces he has persuaded Dr. Pritzker to set up practice in Fentress.

Aggie moves into Callie's room. Far from the sister Callie hoped for, Aggie is deeply traumatized, spending her days weeping and flinching at loud noises. The family physician diagnoses anemia and severe neurasthenia, a condition of nervous prostration. Callie reads a letter from Aunt Sophronia recounting the family's harrowing ordeal during the hurricane: the house breaking apart, Dr. Pritzker swept into a tree full of rattlesnakes, and Uncle Gus carried to safety on a floating door. Father gives each child a gold coin to celebrate his homecoming. Callie receives a five-dollar piece, with instructions to spend it on her hope chest and trousseau. She later learns each of her brothers received ten dollars, deepening her sense of injustice.

Travis adopts a baby raccoon he names Bandit, who grows clever but increasingly uncontrollable. When Bandit kills two hens, Callie and Travis carry the raccoon miles downriver to release her. Travis must throw stones to drive Bandit away, weeping as he does so.

Dr. Pritzker's arrival opens a new world for Callie. She watches him treat King Arthur, the family's draft horse, for a hoof abscess, and when the bandage later comes loose, she rebandages the hoof herself. Dr. Pritzker praises the work but directs his compliments about a veterinary career to Travis. When Callie asks if she could be a veterinarian, the doctor says the work is too dirty and heavy for a lady. At dinner, Father offers to send Callie to college for one year, enough for a teaching certificate, while Travis could attend two years of veterinary school. Callie demands to know how this is fair. Granddaddy murmurs his agreement, but Mother shuts down the conversation, saying they have other plans for Callie. Her brother Lamar sneers that she is only a girl. Callie storms from the table in tears, resolving to find her own way.

The conflict with Lamar escalates when Callie's gold coin vanishes. While returning a borrowed protractor to Lamar's trunk, she discovers both his ten-dollar piece and her stolen five-dollar piece. She takes them both. When Lamar's explosive reaction at dinner earns him punishment from Father, Callie confronts him behind the pigpen with Travis as witness and tosses his coin into the pig wallow, forcing him to retrieve it from the muck.

Callie begins earning money by learning to type on the Underwood machine Aggie brought from Galveston. Once proficient, she types letters for Granddaddy and correspondence for Dr. Pritzker. She opens a savings account, inspired by the discovery that Aggie has saved nearly 100 dollars from working in her father's store. The idea that money could buy an education takes root.

Callie and Travis discover a sickly animal near the dam that Callie identifies as a coydog, half coyote and half terrier. Travis secretly feeds the creature, which he names Scruffy, nursing it back to health. When he tries to introduce Scruffy to both the town dogs and a pack of wild coyotes, both groups violently reject the animal. Travis concludes that he alone is Scruffy's pack.

Callie's veterinary skills deepen. When Dr. Pritzker's assistant is laid up, she accompanies the doctor to a ranch where they find a cow with a severely impacted stomach. Callie administers the anesthetic while Dr. Pritzker operates, saving the cow. The doctor praises her talent but asks her not to mention the episode to her parents.

Viola, the family cook, mistakes Scruffy for a sick coyote and shoots him. Travis and Callie rush the wounded dog to Dr. Pritzker. Father argues the animal is not worth saving and offers Travis a purebred puppy instead, but Travis refuses. Dr. Pritzker saves the leg, with Callie assisting. After recovering, Scruffy catches a rat at the gin and delivers it to Father's feet. Recognizing the dog's value, Father brings Scruffy home. Travis gradually promotes him from Outside Dog to Inside Dog and eventually On The Bed Dog.

The holidays pass quietly. On New Year's Eve, Callie declares she wants to attend college for a full degree. Father says they will discuss it when she is 16. Only Granddaddy supports her. On January 10, 1901, the Spindletop oil gusher comes in near Beaumont, Texas, signaling the dawn of the oil age.

Aggie harbors a secret: She has been exchanging letters with her forbidden beau, Lafayette Lumpkin, a young bookkeeper her father disapproves of. On the night of her eighteenth birthday, Aggie wakes Callie and reveals she is running away to marry Lafayette. They plan to settle in Beaumont, where he will enter the booming oil business using her savings. Callie, bound by an earlier Bible oath and admiring Aggie's boldness, agrees not to raise the alarm until morning. Aggie leaves the Underwood as a parting gift. The household erupts when the departure is discovered, but word arrives that Aggie and Lafayette married in Austin and settled happily in Beaumont. Months later, Aggie sends Callie a crate of seashells, including a dried puffer fish that Callie hangs from her ceiling on a blue ribbon, bringing the ocean to a girl who has never seen it.

The story closes as Callie releases her pet newt, Sir Isaac Newton, back to his drainage ditch, acknowledging he was only on loan from nature. Her world remains circumscribed by expectations she finds unjust, but she is quietly building toward independence through her nature studies with Granddaddy, her work with Dr. Pritzker, her growing savings, and her determination to find her own way forward.