The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [48]
“Vinnie! Colonel Wood! What happened?” The troupe was upon us as we joined them on the dock; strange men with pistols were standing on the upper deck of the boat, staring at Sylvia and me with open mouths.
“Someone should look after him,” I said with a dismissive kick at Colonel Wood, who lay crumpled at my feet where Sylvia had deposited him. “What’s going on here?” I shouted at Billy over the sizzle of firecrackers popping in the streets, the far-off boom of what sounded like a canon, and that spectral, high-pitched Rebel yell that even bounced off the water, so that it sounded as if we were surrounded on all sides by banshees. Although, from the strutting, military posturing of the men on the boat and in the streets—they all had red scarves tied around their hats and those who had rifles carried them stiff against their shoulders—I knew what was happening.
“They’re commandeering the boat,” Billy Birch said. “Taking it over to move troops and munitions. We have to find another way back home. There’s a steamer coming here any minute that’s going north, but they say it’s already full.”
“Where’s the ticket office?” I looked around; gaslights from the boat illuminated the dock, torches flickered a brilliant orange, as if we were at the very gates of Hell—but just past the boat, the Mississippi loomed blacker than the sky above us.
“Up around the corner, but I already been. That’s how I learned it was full. But, Vinnie, I bet you can persuade the agent to let us on. As good as you talk, as little as you are—if anyone can do it, you can.”
“All right, I’ll go. Come with me, Sylvia.” And I turned on my heel and began to walk back up the dock, toward the wild streets, where men were drinking openly, singing a new song, one I’d never heard before but it began, “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton …” It was very catchy, I decided, humming a bit of it.
I was without fear at that moment. I had been saved from Colonel Wood; I had been given a second chance. I detested how physically helpless I had been in his presence; the memory of how I had simply closed my eyes and surrendered myself to fate made my mouth taste sour. I would not be so helpless again, I vowed, not even on this unprecedented night. People needed me. I had a duty to them—and to myself.
But I did pause to tug at Sylvia’s skirt. “Thank you,” I said as she looked down at me. She nodded, unable to speak. And that’s all I ever said to her, and she to me, about what had happened that night. Remarkably, soon it faded into just another thread of the tapestry of my life upon the river, just another story remembered. But this one, I told to only one person. And he never repeated it.
It will come as no surprise to the Reader—as it came as no surprise to me—that I succeeded in getting all of us out of Vicksburg. Once at the ticket office, I climbed upon a chair and spoke to the agent face-to-face; I told him of our dilemma, of our desire to get back to our homes, to our families who had been parted from us for so long. I informed him of the many dignitaries—including Jefferson Davis, at that time only a senator from Mississippi—whom I had met in my personal appearances. And just for good measure, I invited him to plant a kiss upon my cheek, the one and only time I ever did so to a strange man, until I met President Lincoln.
But that was to come much, much later, when my life was changed so that had I not still had my beloved stair steps, made by my father’s own hand, the tread worn smooth in the middle, I never would have recognized it. For the