The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

by Melanie Benjamin

  Without a murmur, every child obeyed my command. And for the rest of the term, I had no trouble at all managing my classroom. The school committee chairman was most impressed, and soon became fond of bringing in other school committees, from neighboring townships, to observe my orderly pupils, their respectful harmony. If this was his idea of sport, I did not give him any satisfaction; I found myself growing more dignified by the minute when under the gaze of astonished onlookers, as if to make up in deportment what I so lacked in height.

  Yet to my surprise—for I was still very sensitive, in those days, to remarks about my size—I enjoyed being watched; I basked in the attention, not minding what had prompted it so much as I minded that those who watched left admiring me. And I began to look forward to those days when I had an audience, planning special games and songs for my pupils. The rest of the time seemed dull and ordinary by comparison.

  I do admit to having fun with my charges, though; I was still young, of course, and my high spirits could not be contained by my ill-fitting corset. While I refrained from joining them during recess, I did not always walk sedately home at the end of the day. On more than one occasion, stiff from sitting so long at my desk, I joined in footraces and sometimes allowed the biggest children to carry me on their shoulders, which was a privilege much sought after. And when the first snow fell, I was very touched when a contingent of boys appeared at my door with a sled; after I was tucked in with a bearskin, they pulled me merrily to school, sleigh bells jingling around their necks.

  At the end of the fall term, when I handed out marks with the knowledge that not one of my pupils had failed, I felt the satisfaction of a job well done. I was seventeen now, an established schoolmarm. My future seemed secure, and it was a future with which my mother, at least, was very content—a decent wage that I could put away for the time when my parents were no longer able to provide for me; useful work to occupy my days and tire me so that my nights were not sleepless with longing; respect within our little community so that I was no longer an oddity but a beloved, vital member, protected and cared for.

  Yet there was still a sadness that clung to my mother, despite all this. It was unspoken, but no one ever expected me to marry. No hope chest was begun for me as had been done for my older sister at the same age, no bridal lace set aside.

  One day I rounded a corner only to hear my mother whispering to my sister Delia; stifling a giggle, I quickly hid inside a cupboard, rejoicing over the advantage my size gave me in eavesdropping. They were talking about the birds and the bees; I listened eagerly, until I was startled to hear my own name.

  “Could Vinnie ever—” Dee began in a strangled voice.

  “Oh, it would be dreadful, impossible,” Mama replied, muffling a sob. “Don’t you remember the little cow on Uncle’s farm who …” And her voice trailed off.

  I did not remember any little cow, but its fate was evident in my sister’s sudden horrified exclamation. That I never forgot; it made my blood run cold, my heart seize in a nameless fear. I lived on a farm, after all; I knew cows—and horses and goats and sheep. I knew life—and how wrenching its beginning could be, even among creatures built far more sturdily than I. Shaking, I stole away from my hiding place wishing I had not been so clever. And for the first time, I looked at myself as Papa did; I felt that there might be something broken within me, after all.

  That night I could hear my tenderhearted mother weeping for me, even through the thick plaster walls of the second-floor bedrooms. It was not the first night she had done so.

  Did I share in her sorrow? In many ways, I was still too young to be given over to such dire, unhappy thoughts. No one would ever have predicted I would be a schoolteacher, and yet—wasn’t that what I had become?

  I did have a longing inside me, however, that I could not entirely ignore. I loved my family, loved the farm, loved my work. But contemplating a future only within these confines made me increasingly restless. There was something missing; I could define it only by its absence, but I yearned for it those nights when I heard my mother crying over my lonely, loveless fate.

  It was around this time that I went for a walk in the near cow pasture; it was early spring but warm for the season, the weeds already high. They made my progress more difficult, but I didn’t mind; pushing through them, I imagined myself in a mysterious forest, like the ones in so many of the fairy tales I read to my young pupils.

  Soon, however, I came upon a familiar tree: a tall maple tree with an unusually wide trunk. Upon this trunk, my brothers and sister and I had once scratched our names and ages, according to our height. Craning my neck upward, I could make out Benjamin, George, Sylvanus, then James, and finally Delia, their names plainly visible, high up the tree—

  But where was I? Where was my name? I remembered standing against the tree one summer while James took out a pocketknife and carved a line right above my head; he had then scratched my name to the side of it—I could still see his tongue sticking out with the effort as he complained that our names were so devilishly long.…

  Brushing aside the weeds, I finally located my name; it had been covered up by the tall grasses and the climbing, glossy green tendrils of creeping myrtle, its starlike blue flowers not yet in bloom. I was only an inch or so taller than that line, even though I was years older. My brothers and sister, however—grown up now, as well—were all much taller than their childish measurements.

  I had the queerest feeling; it was as if a shadow had fallen over just me, while the rest of the world remained illuminated by bright sunlight. At that moment I felt hidden from all eyes; looking at my name, covered over by weeds, I saw how easily it could disappear forever. I saw how easily I could be forgotten, compared to my brothers and sister, compared to everyone else, everyone who was taller, more noticeable, more visible to the rest of the world.

  I did not want to be forgotten. More than that, I wanted, desperately—I fell to my knees and began to tear out the weeds, the vines, by their very roots—to be remembered. I wanted my name to be known, beyond this tree, this hill, this pasture, this town.

  The weeds were in a pile at the base of the tree; my hands were stained green, my nostrils filled with the pungent, mossy scent of new grass, and my skirt was damp where I had kneeled on it. But my name was now plainly visible; I smiled in satisfaction, brushed my hands off on my skirt, and continued my walk. My fierce desire soon faded away into the twilight; the air grew chilly, and I saw the warm, beckoning lights of home twinkle on, one by one, as Mama began to light the lamps, which shone, at that moment, more brightly than the faint stars on the horizon.

  And then I heard Minnie calling, in her surprisingly strong, clear voice, “Vinnie! Where are you? I want to show you the most beautiful four-leaf clover I found!”

  I smiled, for I knew she would be standing in the doorway looking for me, clutching that clover in her tiny fist until I came back, no matter how long I might take. So I was content to turn around and return home, content with what I knew was waiting for me there.

  So it was that when we broke for vacation that spring of 1858—remember that at the time, country schools were open only during winter and summer, as the children were expected to help with farmwork—I truly had no plans other than to enjoy my time off, sleep in later than usual, and make some new dresses for the upcoming term.

  An unexpected knock on our door one afternoon soon revealed that God—not to mention P. T. Barnum—had other plans for me, instead.

  INTERMISSION

  From The New York Times, January 25, 1853

  Of domestic news, we have fewer shipwrecks, murders, defalcations and deaths to record than usual.

  From The New York Times, March 2, 1853

  The construction of a Magnetic Telegraph line to the Pacific Ocean is only second in importance to the project of a railroad across the continent to its western shore. The subject is before Congress; and even at this eleventh hour, a united, determined effort of its friends, and a few minutes of the time no
w so valuable, will be sufficient to secure the immediate initiative and early consummation of the work.

  [ TWO ]

  Leaving Home, or an Interlude of Heart-Tugging

  Music and Recitation

  I’VE GOT YOU IN HERE WITH MISS HARDY. SHE’S A TROUPER; she’ll show you the ropes,” Colonel Wood said as he led me through a narrow, damp passageway. On either side were closed doors to various staterooms. Beneath us was the great engine of the boat, silent for now, as we were still docked. The green carpet in the passageway was dirty and smelled of mildew; the paint on the walls was chipped and dotted with mold. I was perspiring so in the humid, dank air that I could well imagine mold beginning to grow on me; my skin felt plastered to my underclothes and uncomfortable corset that still did not fit properly.

  “Oh.”

  “She’s simple enough, so don’t let her appearance scare you any.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now, I know I promised your folks I’d see to you myself, but I run a mighty big outfit here; I’m a very important man, you’ll soon see. So don’t come runnin’ to me with every little thing. You’ll have to stand on your own two feet, as tiny as they are.” The Colonel chortled at this.

  “Oh.”

  This one word was all that I had uttered for days; weeks, even, it seemed to me. Ever since I bade my family a tearful farewell just as the fields were ready for plowing. It was late April now, and here in Cincinnati the air was already as balmy as summer, and the wide, muddy Ohio River did not look as if it could ever freeze completely over.

  “Here you go—shove on in now, your trunk’ll get delivered later.” Without even knocking, Colonel Wood opened the door to a stateroom; he held it open for me in one of the few gentlemanly gestures I had observed from him during our brief acquaintance. I arranged my face into a pleasant, welcoming smile, then stepped with assurance across the threshold to meet my new traveling companion, my hand already thrust out in greeting.

  “Hello, my name is Miss Lavini—Oh!” I couldn’t help myself; I stopped dead in my tracks, all sensible notions drained from my being. My hands, my knees, began to quake, and I would have turned around and run back outside, had Colonel Wood not been immediately behind me, barring any escape.

  For slowly rising from a bed—no, two beds, pushed together end to end—was a giantess. An actual giantess, such as I had read about in many a fairy tale, the kind of creature that ate little children who got into mischief or otherwise misbehaved.

  The giantess continued to unwind herself, rising slowly—oh, so slowly!—until she had reached her full height, which seemed, from my perspective, to be twenty feet, at the very least! She had to stoop so that her head did not brush the sloping stateroom ceiling.

  “Hello, Miss Lavini-o,” she said in a basso profundo voice. With a smile, she extended her hand; a hand so massive, so bony, that I fought with every fiber of my being not to recoil from it. As it came near me—again, so excruciatingly slowly—I glanced quickly at the giantess’s feet; they were the size of canoes, and I could easily imagine them squishing me into oblivion. I remembered Mama’s silly terrors about horses’ hooves; how quaint a fear that seemed now!

  “M-m-my name is Lavinia,” I corrected the giantess as I placed my hand, my tiny, delicate hand, in her enormous one. I winced in anticipation, but to my relief she did not crush me. In fact, she seemed to be as hesitant to touch me as I was to touch her; her hand did not even close completely about mine, and she withdrew it with as much haste as she could muster.

  I must confess, right here and now, to making a dreadful assumption. And that assumption was that a person this tall, who moved this slowly, must be very slow of mind and wit as well. All my life, I must admit, I have always associated quickness of mind with smaller people, quicker people, people like me. Large, clumsy creatures, freaks of nature to me—my initial assumption was always that they possessed inferior minds.

  So I corrected the giantess, thinking she was not very bright, forgetting that I myself had mispronounced my own name in my initial consternation.

  “And my name is Sylvia. Miss Sylvia Hardy, from Maine.”

  “For the love of Pete, just look at the two of you!”

  I spun around, startled to find Colonel Wood still standing behind me; I had forgotten all about him. He stood gaping at the tableau before him, his head swiveling up and down as he took the pair of us in; there was an eager gleam in his eye as he appraised the situation.

  “Oh, this is going to be rich! The two of you side by side—by God, I’m a genius! Barnum who, I ask you? Eh? Colonel John Wood will be the name on everybody’s lips, I wager!”

  I was too speechless to respond. The giantess, however, was not; she dismissed him with a firmness I could not help but admire as she said, “Goodbye, Colonel Wood. Leave us to get better acquainted, for I imagine Lavinia is tired from her journey.”

  And despite the rumbling low pitch of her voice—it tickled my eardrums—and the slowness of her speech, I turned to her with gratitude, blinking back sudden tears. I was weary; the journey was exhausting. The excitement of my very first train trip had long since abandoned me. The exhilarating sense of discovery I had felt as I stared out soot-covered windows while unfamiliar scenery passed so swiftly by; the novelty of eating sandwiches wrapped in paper, bought from enterprising farm boys at various stops; the thrill of rattling over high bridges while far below, unfamiliar rivers ran—all was gone now.

  I remembered only the dirt, the barnyard odors of being in such close company with strangers who did not wash regularly, the stiffness of my back from sitting up for so long even in sleep, the impossibility of making myself feel fresh with the dirty water in the lavatory basin. That is, even if I could reach the basin; I couldn’t, unless I dragged my stair steps with me, but there usually wasn’t enough room in those miserable little closets. And often there were no closets at all, just primitive dark corners with buckets full of human waste slopping out with every rattle over a railroad tie.

  We changed trains so many times I lost count, always a chaotic affair. I had to submit to countless strangers lifting me up and down, for there was no way to manage the great difference between train and platform myself, and Colonel Wood was always gone somewhere, wrestling with our luggage or arguing with the ticket agent that I should cost him only half a fare because I took up only half a seat.

  These dispiriting experiences were all I remembered now; they had left my clothes filthy and stained, my skin covered in a gritty film of dirt, my toes pinched and blistered. My first pair of adult shoes, custom-ordered to fit, had proven to be very uncomfortable for feet used to the soft soles of children’s slippers.

  I also remembered, suddenly and overwhelmingly, how sad my parents and Minnie had looked when they said goodbye. I had waved at them for as long as I could as I drove away with Colonel Wood in his wagon, all my clothes and mementos and my beloved stair steps packed in a trunk borrowed from my married sister, Delia, as there had been no time to purchase one of my own. I remembered Mama’s tears, Minnie’s wails, Papa’s stoic face, his emotion betrayed only by the working of his Adam’s apple.

  The memories overwhelmed me, and I could not help it; as soon as the Colonel shut the door and I was left alone with the giantess, my tears could no longer be contained. I sat down on the floor, not caring about my dress, and I put my head in my hands and began to cry. Why, oh why, had I ever decided to leave home? My heart—too large for me all of a sudden, too full of pain and longing for family—felt as if it would break into pieces, so lost, so lonely, so dirty, and yes, so very small, did I feel.

  Mama had been right all along. The world was too big for me. I would get lost in it, swallowed up or trampled by this giantess—

  Who, without a word, without a sound, scooped me up in her arms and carried me to her bed. There she held me on her lap, rocking me as if I were a child, as I turned my head toward her vast, comforting bosom and sobbed my heart out.

  A MONTH EARLIER, COLON
EL JOHN WOOD HAD SHOWED UP AT our door. It was in March of 1858, during my first vacation from teaching. With a knock, a bow, a presentation of a card, he was ushered inside, where he brought with him the bracing air of a different world. He was dressed not in military clothing, as one might expect (I never did understand how he came by his title), but his costume was no less exciting. He wore a jacket made of red wool; I’d never seen such a thing on a man before! All the men in my life wore sober black, gray, or brown. Complementing his red jacket was an emerald-green vest, which was hung with a bright gold watch fob. His black hat, over graying curls, was shiny and tall, and he carried a polished ebony walking stick. He had a habit, I soon discovered, of pressing two fingers against his mustache—suspiciously black, considering how gray his curls were—whenever he desired to appear thoughtful.

  In short, he looked to be quite a man of the world to us Bumps, so insulated in our rural community. I would come to know many men of the world and recognize that the Colonel was not quite the dandy he thought himself to be, but at the time he certainly impressed Mama and me; Papa, however, merely sat and regarded him with a skeptical eye, puffing on his pipe distrustfully.

  “Sit down, sit down, and let us figure out our relation,” Mama exclaimed as she ushered Colonel Wood into our parlor; he had introduced himself as a cousin, which was all the calling card one needed in Middleborough, Massachusetts.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Colonel Wood replied, taking the best chair before he was asked. While he addressed Mama, I felt his curious gaze still upon me, as it had been since his arrival. Minnie was off hiding in her room—she always vanished whenever we had visitors—and my three brothers who were still at home, while politely greeted, were given no further notice by our visitor. Colonel Wood seemed fascinated solely with me. His attention was different than what I usually encountered from the few strangers who happened through Middleborough; he did not look as if he was about to ask me if fairies had forgotten to give me my wings (one of the many fanciful sentiments that strangers were inspired to utter when first making my acquaintance).