The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [145]
Similar acts traveled together. Those in the center ring were closest to the front of the train (the first cars were reserved for the advance men—publicity people, managers in charge of erecting everything); then the other rings were parceled out in cars farther and farther down, with the sideshow acts coming after all the other performers. They were then followed by the band members, then the workers, like the roustabouts and seamstresses and cooks, and then finally the animals and their handlers.
Charles and I, and the Bleekers, were given the best car, right behind the advance men. We had to share it with two European bareback riders, ladies both; they spoke no English, so we communicated with smiles and grunts. I could not complain about our accommodations on the train; we had seats that turned into bunks, and our own washroom, and the walls were freshly painted, the gaslights gleaming. We could retreat there and be somewhat private, apart.
Why did I not enjoy this life? I was on a train again, traveling once more through the night so that I awoke every morning in a new town. Compared to the primitive conditions under which we crossed the continent thirteen years earlier, we were traveling in the most modern manner. No Indians to worry about; no hair-raising wagon rides on treacherous mountain roads; no journeys across a scorching desert, fearful that we might sink into the sand. Not once did we ever have to get out and travel on foot.
But when we were introduced as “General and Mrs. Tom Thumb, those beloved Lilliputians!” we were not alone; this was not our show. In the circus parade that began every new engagement (we would hurry off the train each morning at dawn, drive in wagons to the site where the tents were being pitched, then dress in costume and assemble for the parade through town), our miniature carriage, while given a prime spot, was just one in a never-ending line of colorful wagons and rolling calliopes. And at the beginning of each performance, while we were featured in the center ring, we were merely the first of a very long procession of other entertainers who marched around, waving at the audience. We had to be exceedingly careful not to step in animal droppings.
Then we were ushered out of the big top, to a noisy line of tents and booths that made up the sideshows: the acts that were too intimate to be viewed in the vast expanse of the rings. These included many of the kinds of acts I had first encountered on the river—sword swallowers, tattooed ladies, specialty dancers. While our tent was very tastefully decorated, and we performed the kind of dignified entertainment we had given for Presidents, Kings, and Queens, there was no ignoring the somewhat low quality of our surroundings. Just outside, the barkers were always shouting out a patter, the cheap music—usually just a banjo or a trumpet—from the other tents nearby produced a cacophony, and the puppet shows across the way were always eliciting shouts of childish laughter.
Upon our temporary stage, in a tent full of townspeople whose excited eyes, reflecting all the color and sights still to be sampled, could scarcely be induced to linger long upon him, Charles stood, top hat and cane in hand, and began to sing, as he had for years—
“I should like to marry, if only I could find
Any pretty lady, suited to my mind,
I should like her handsome, I should like her good,
With a little money—yes, indeed I should.
Oh! Then I would marry, if I could but find
Any pretty lady, suited to my mind.”
I then twirled out to meet him in my beautiful gown, my last few jewels blazing under the oil lamps and torches, which was all the illumination possible in these tents. I curtsied, he bowed, and we began to dance about the rickety stage as our pianist segued into the “Tom Thumb Polka.”
But no Kings and Queens smiled and asked us to tea; no natives gaped