The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [34]
I was presented with a slave once, in New Orleans! A beautiful girl, so graceful and delicate. When I first saw her, accompanying one of her young charges to the show, I was unable to take my eyes off her. Her owner—a smooth southern gentleman, well fed, obviously satisfied with his status as master—noticed and then sent her back aboard the Banjo that night as a gift to me. Naturally I could not accept this “gift,” but it took me several days to convince the girl to go back to her master.
I had felt morally obligated to refuse her, as no human being should ever be given as chattel! It was the great debate of our time, this decision as to whether or not new states should be allowed in as free or slave-holding, and of course, as a New Englander, I was firmly on the side of the abolitionists like Mr. Garrison and Mrs. Stowe. Yet after the girl left, reluctantly, I felt a surprising wrench; it only then occurred to me that the moral thing would have been to accept her and take her back north, where I could set her free. Even as I realized this, however, I remembered that I was almost as indentured as she; Colonel Wood would not have allowed it. She would have been one more mouth to feed, for obviously a slave could not perform and earn her keep, as the rest of us did.
I dreamed about the girl many nights after; she appeared, silent and reproachful, staring at me before vanishing into a soupy southern mist.
The dangers we faced as our little company cruised up and down the capricious Mississippi were more numerous than any plot from a dime novel! There was the ever-present terror of the boiler exploding, a fate that met many a steamship in those days, causing hundreds of gruesome deaths. We used to read about them in newspapers, exclaiming over the gory details of flesh melting away from bone, of decapitations caused by flying shards of steel. No mere schoolmarm ever faced such thrilling peril!
There were also dangers from the river itself; one never knew if, just around a bend, there might be submerged trees or even wreckage from other boats. Pirates, too, were rumored to be lurking in every hidden cove (although I’m sad to report that we never encountered any). Western storms were a constant threat; the weather in this part of the country was wilder, more electric, than I’d ever experienced back east. Once we came upon a town that had been nearly leveled by a tornado, and we could see the tempest’s path from the broken and uprooted trees on either side of the river. It was as if a heavenly foot had stomped through on its ruthless way to somewhere else.
The incessant mosquitoes and flies brought fever, aided by the dank, humid air, so that at one time or another, everyone in our company was felled by the ague. Despite my strong constitution, even I was laid low by it, tended to, with great care, by Sylvia. Soon enough, however, I was up and about, although I cannot say my recovery was aided by the food we were served. Oh, how the thought of one of Mama’s layer cakes or delicate pies could bring tears to my eyes, a rumble to my ever-empty stomach! Our cook did not deserve her apron; well-cooked meat was a foreign concept to the woman, and she insisted upon boiling, rather than frying, the fish. A dense, chewy bread was our staple, as apparently she had never learned to put up vegetables or fruit!
Even when we left the boat and ventured onto shore—often in search of a boardinghouse that would serve a decent meal—there were many dangers awaiting our valiant little troupe.
Late at night, after the last show, was a particularly hazardous time. It was not unusual for the male members of the company to want to explore the streets, generally closest to the docks, which were lit up with gaslights,