The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [12]
“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, COLONEL 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