Grasping Mysteries Read online

  TO PETER LAIRD,

  AGAIN AND ALWAYS

  CONTENTS

  LOOKING UP

  Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) was the first woman to discover a comet, to earn a salary for scientific research, and to win a gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in England.

  MAKING CHANGE WITH CHARTS, PART I

  Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) was a trailblazing nurse and statistician whose work reformed hospitals.

  EXPLORING CURRENTS

  Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923) graduated as a math major from one of the first colleges open to women and became an electrical engineer and inventor.

  MAPPING WHAT’S HIDDEN

  Marie Tharp (1920–2006) studied math and geology in college and graduate school, then mapped the ocean floor.

  CREATING PATHS THROUGH SPACE

  Katherine Johnson (1918–2020) graduated from college as a math major, then charted courses around the earth and to the moon for NASA astronauts.

  MAKING CHANGE WITH CHARTS, PART II

  Edna Lee Paisano (1948–2014) was the first Native American statistician to work full-time at the US Census Bureau.

  LOOKING BEYOND

  Vera Rubin (1928–2016) found strong evidence for the existence of dark matter, opening up new questions about the universe. She became the second woman to win a gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society.

  Behind the Verse: A Note from the Author

  Women Who Widened Horizons

  Selected Bibliography

  About the Author

  LOOKING UP

  CAROLINE HERSCHEL

  (1750–1848)

  The Promise

  HANOVER, GERMANY, 1760

  Fever blurs night and day, sense and nonsense.

  Caroline can’t tell the night watchman’s call

  from the chime of the postman’s handbell.

  She can’t see far past the fog under her eyelids.

  She feels hot, but craves more covers,

  struggles to sip from a cup held to her mouth.

  Water feels as coarse to swallow as sand.

  One night she sees straight again

  and wobbles to the window.

  Star shine casts hope, reminds her

  that smallpox didn’t kill her when she was small.

  Neither will typhus now.

  She raises her arms as if she might touch the faraway.

  Counting Notes

  When Caroline is well enough to fetch butter and eggs

  at the marketplace, Mama hands her a basket,

  then ties a scarf over her face.

  Cover your smallpox scars so no one stares.

  The veil makes Caroline feel small,

  the way she does when Mama says, Don’t be vain.

  Mama also warns, Thou shall not covet,

  which means: Don’t want too much.

  She says Caroline has no need for music,

  since a girl can’t join a military band

  like her father and older brothers.

  But when Caroline bends over washtubs,

  she sings. Papa, who’s become too ill to march,

  slips into the scullery with a violin. He shows her

  how to tilt her chin and wrist so the bow’s

  particular angles pull music from just four strings.

  A Girl’s Education

  Mama, who never learned to read and write,

  says that with Caroline now twelve,

  it’s time to stop school. If your father hadn’t spoiled

  your brothers with so much education,

  they might have kept closer to home.

  You can be a help in the house and be thankful

  you don’t have to find work outside as a maid.

  We’re poor and you’re plain, so you should expect little of life.

  Mystery

  The night sky is brighter than the fire in the hearth

  where Caroline stirs mutton broth and roasts apples.

  She smells medicine on her father’s breath

  as they step out to stand on cobblestones.

  He tugs off the cloth that hides

  her pockmarks, though it never covers her eyes.

  He shows her how to hold up her hand

  and spread her fingers to measure the spaces between stars.

  There’s more above than the moon and stars, Papa says

  as a veil of shine disappears in the dark.

  The kitchen door opens. Mama calls,

  Caroline, no lady ever goes out without a hat.

  Come inside. Night is dangerous.

  She scolds Papa, No wonder you’re sick.

  You’ll be fine, Papa whispers to Caroline.

  As they head inside, they hum a song

  meant to keep soldiers’ steps steady.

  Soon his sickness, not hers, fills the house.

  But she never feels warm. Her mouth feels like moss.

  After the Funeral

  Caroline is seventeen when she packs

  her father’s old clothes, sells his trumpet and violin,

  puts away his military ribbons and star almanac.

  William, who’s twelve years older than Caroline,

  returns from England, asks, Lina, do you still sing?

  Caroline can almost taste the question’s sweetness.

  She trills one of their father’s favorite tunes.

  When she’s done, William says, You’ll need to learn

  some hymns and oratorios, but with training,

  your voice could carry higher notes. He turns

  to their mother. She could come live with me

  in England and join the choir I conduct.

  Mama shakes her head. I’m a poor widow

  now and need her to keep house.

  I’ll send money so you can hire help,

  William says. If she shows no gifts

  after two Easter seasons, I’ll send her back.

  Caroline keeps her head down, tugging,

  twisting, and crossing strands of cotton,

  counting stitches, knitting enough stockings to last

  her mother two years. She won’t promise

  to send more, lest her mother say she’s vain

  for hoping her voice is strong enough for her to stay.

  The Journey

  Caroline and William climb onto the roof

  of a mail coach, which they ride for six days and nights.

  They clutch each other as the horses whinny and swerve.

  In Holland, wind sweeps Caroline’s hat into a canal.

  She and William board a crowded ship

  and catch sleep

  while standing on the deck.

  Darkness and stars flicker above.

  The next afternoon, clouds gather. Wild waves

  pound the ship’s sides. Men climb over rigging,

  taking in sails. A gale splits a spar in two,

  then snaps the main mast. As the deck floods,

  sailors toss Caroline and William

  onto the backs of two men in a lifeboat.

  They’re rowed to shore and hire a carriage.

  The horses bolt and throw them into a ditch.

  I shouldn’t have brought you, William says.

  Caroline brushes dirt off his jacket and her skirt.

  They climb back to the road, catch a night coach

  in London, and arrive in Bath early the next afternoon.

  Walking down stone streets, William points out tearooms,

  ballrooms, and concert halls. Aristocrats come here

  on holiday to play cards, waltz, or take the waters.

  Caroline can’t make out much English,

  but nods as gentlemen bedecked
in elaborate wigs

  and ladies in elegant gowns greet William.

  Their glances at her seem friendly,

  though her face is scarred and she doesn’t wear a hat.

  At William’s house, she carries a candle

  up the narrow stairs to an attic room.

  She murmurs her evening prayers,

  gets into her nightgown, then tumbles

  onto the straw mattress, glad to lie down

  after twelve days without a bed.

  Still, they might be the happiest days of her life.

  Practicing

  BATH, ENGLAND

  Caroline straightens sky maps stacked

  on the harpsichord. She dusts a telescope

  that William says makes the sky seem close.

  It costs dearly, but an unmarried man

  can afford to indulge his curiosity.

  Sometime I’ll show you how to use it.

  Caroline shines William’s shoe buckles,

  cuts out ruffles for his shirts, sings

  musical scales shaped by mathematics and air.

  Every morning, she sets out coffee, rolls,

  and currant jelly for William, who speaks

  to her less in German and more in English.

  She practices new words in the marketplace,

  but mostly points as she chooses cherries and cider,

  selects beef from the butcher. The new language

  feels dense as a forest with no way out.

  All the trees look alike.

  But by winter, instead of Kohl, she says “cabbage,”

  asks for “sausage” instead of Wurst.

  She sings entirely in English, breathing deep

  into her belly, finding sounds that skim the ceiling.

  She aims for the sky, which every night

  reminds her that what looks small is truly grand.

  After Dark

  William gives Caroline a turn at the telescope.

  Stars spill into pale blue, rose, and yellow pools of light.

  She swallows as if she might choke on a song.

  What was always in the sky looks bigger,

  making her want to see even more,

  though she mustn’t seem greedy,

  as if she dared take a second spoonful of jam.

  She steps back. How big is the sky?

  No one knows, but we get a sense of the size

  of the universe by measuring the distance

  to Saturn, the farthest planet from Earth. See it?

  Caroline again looks through the circle of glass.

  Those gold rings! Her gaze shifts to the moon,

  almost round as a face tonight, pockmarked,

  like hers. Could someone live on the moon?

  I think so. A telescope with wider mirrors

  could reflect more details of its mountains

  and craters, maybe signs of cities.

  The longer you look, the more you see.

  Even comets, which are bright as stars

  but leave a spill of shine as they move.

  I might have seen one long ago with Papa.

  She keeps her eyes on the sky. I’d like to see another.

  What’s truly extraordinary is to be the first to spot one.

  There’s a lot no one has witnessed, which is why

  we need stronger telescopes. They cost a lot,

  but I’ve been reading about how to make them.

  Caroline offers to help.

  Reflections

  William grinds glass for mirrors meant to catch starlight.

  Caroline stirs in copper, tin, and different kinds of earth.

  They heat the mixture, then pour it into a mold

  to form a mirror that’s slightly curved, like an eye.

  William polishes the surface smooth with sand,

  his hand circling for hour after hour,

  a practice in patience and precision.

  Lifting his fingertips even a moment

  could make the metal harden and blur the shine.

  Caroline sings or reads aloud so he won’t be bored.

  When he’s thirsty or hungry, she holds a china cup

  of tea or triangles of toast to his mouth.

  At last they set the mirror in the base of a tube

  carved from the heartwood used for oboes.

  Darkness hides much on earth but hints

  at what’s lost in daylight. Night isn’t a veil, but a door.

  Hats

  William shows Caroline how to balance

  the household accounts. She adds the money

  he receives for conducting and teaching music,

  and now making telescopes to sell. She subtracts

  what they spend and sends some to their mother.

  There’s not enough, so she folds and stitches

  lace, silk, and velvet into hats.

  She measures the circumference of a head,

  cuts a diagonal line across felt, and calculates brims.

  She sets hats for sale on the windowsill facing the street.

  For the first time in her life, she has money

  of her own. She reminds herself it’s vain

  to want more than her mother had.

  Lost

  Walking to the marketplace, Caroline passes women

  wearing white caps and aprons who sit on doorsteps,

  doing needlework beside babies dozing in baskets.

  She could watch a sleeping infant for as long as a star,

  wishes she could hold one,

  though perhaps not the noisy kind.

  Back in the quiet kitchen, she does division,

  measures half a handful of flour, a pinch of salt,

  gauging the depth of a pan to determine

  how far she should keep it from the flames.

  At supper, William teaches her more mathematics

  so she can check his celestial calculations.

  Spherical trigonometry is familiar from shifting yarn

  with wrists and fingers, multiplying stitches of stockings,

  subtracting to make room for the curves of heels and ankles.

  But logarithms, which let multiplication and addition

  switch places, make her feel as lost in a forest

  as when English words first loomed around her.

  William begins where many teachers end,

  pushing so she’s caught in thickets and thorns.

  Dear Mother

  Caroline dutifully writes letters she includes

  with the money she posts to their mother each month.

  A neighbor may or may not read aloud

  Caroline’s account of how she’s useful to William,

  copying music and star catalogs,

  which list stars he’s located and numbered,

  so others might find what he saw in the night sky.

  He now asks her to teach singers in the choir

  he conducts. The tuition goes to him.

  That seems fair. She doesn’t write to her mother

  that she was invited to perform in another city,

  offered a regular salary. Of course she refused,

  saying she’ll sing only in choirs or when William conducts

  in concert halls where women swat down skirts

  that could fill seats of their own.

  There Caroline’s voice wavers, scoops up certainty.

  She looks out at gentlemen wearing powdered wigs

  who angle their necks to peer past ladies’ towering hats.

  She loves the short silence before her voice rises

  with a song about a star over a manger,

  which wise astronomers followed. She pushes

  her voice past breath. Lift up your heads.

  After four years in England, Caroline sings a solo.

  Rejoice. One note reaches

  for another as her voice fills a hall.

  Minding the Heavens

  On clear evenings, af
ter supper and singing,

  Caroline and William bring the telescope to the garden.

  I’m charting double stars to learn if stars move.

  William points out a pair of stars, one slightly above

  the other. I measure the distance between

  them to see if the gap changes over time.

  He dips his head back to the eyepiece, then steps away.

  He rubs his face as he records numbers in a ledger.

  There’s too much to remember, but if I write down everything,

  I lose time waiting for my eyes to adjust from looking

  close at paper, then back into the dark.

  I could take notes so your gaze never

  has to leave the sky, Caroline offers.

  Soon she sits beside the telescope at a table

  with a notebook and a lantern veiled

  so its light doesn’t dim William’s view.

  She charts what’s known in the sky, dipping a quill in ink,

  recording the sizes, colors, and locations of stars

  on paper that turns a brighter white as the sun rises.

  The Astronomer’s Assistant

  After breakfast, Caroline copies numbers,

  keeping them strict and straight as a broomstick.

  She classifies the shine and scale of stars,

  plans the next night’s schedule, including where

  to aim the telescope, at what angle, and for how long.

  She sharpens the tip of her quill,

  then keeps her grip steady while drawing lines

  down and across for boxes like tiny window frames.

  They stand for sections of the vast sky to be examined.

  She puts crosses in the parts seen.

  Lines, slanted like her knitting needle to pluck yarn,

  mark quadrants that call for another look.

  William teaches her to create equations that hint

  at when celestial objects might move in or out of sight.

  Once-dependable numbers split, swell, surprise.

  With practice, mathematics becomes less like a forest

  and more like a clearing, the way English words

  have become as familiar as the particular shapes

  of a towering oak, bowing birches, junipers,

  and the prickle of hawthorn branches or holly leaves.