The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [5]
So when I heard my mother tell my father she thought it best that I stay home with her and the younger children, I stamped my foot with as much authority as a seven-year-old can muster.
“No, Mama, you must allow me to go to school! Aren’t I as smart as my brothers and sister? Why shouldn’t I go with them, now that I’m old enough? They will look out for me, if that’s what you fear.”
Mama started to protest, but to my surprise, my father interrupted her.
“Huldah, I am surprised to admit it, but I agree with our Vinnie. She’s a sharp little thing, with an intelligence that must be fueled. You could not give her all she needs here. Let her satisfy her curiosity at school, for a life of books is likely all the life she will ever have. It’s best we give her that now. She’ll have the rest of her days, I’m afraid, to stay home with you.”
I was too young to fully understand my father’s meaning. I heard only that he wanted me to go to school, and that was all I needed; I threw my arms about him even though I knew he did not appreciate such demonstrations.
“Oh, Papa, I am so very happy! Thank you! I promise I will never make you regret your decision!”
It would be a pretty story, indeed, if I could say that I never did! Yet I have to admit that I was so eager to be allowed my first foray into that large world that I became rather mischievous.
Full of high spirits, so delighted to be where I was, at first I could not be induced to remain in my seat. At the time, you might recall, country school desks were one long table affixed to the perimeter of the room, three-quarters of the way around.
On a dare, I discovered that I was small enough to fit neatly underneath the desk without having to duck my head; basking in the approval of my schoolmates, I took it a step further. Whenever the schoolteacher’s back was to us, I would slide off my perch—several large books piled on top of one another—and duck beneath the desk. Then I would run along, barely stifling my giggles as I pinched and poked at my schoolmates’ legs: the little girls’ sensible woolen pantalets, the boys’ worn and patched knees. I was so nimble that they could not catch me; I could run around the entire room and reach the end of the desk almost before the first child had reacted to my lively tugs with a squeak or a squeal.
“Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump,” Mr. Dunbar, our teacher, would sputter. “Sit back down immediately!” He would try to catch me, but being the imp that I was, I could elude his grasp easily; he was inclined to heaviness (from the many tarts and pies that the older female students showered upon him), and would flail about, breathing laboriously. By the time he straightened himself up, his face red, his oily hair hanging down upon his forehead, I would be sitting primly in my seat, seemingly oblivious to my classmates’ giggles.
“What am I to do with you?” he asked one day; standing over me, he shook his finger angrily in my face, pushed finally beyond his limit. “Shut you up in my overshoe? It’s just about the right size for a mite like you; how would you like me to sit you in it?”
To my astonishment, my schoolmates burst into laughter at this. I looked around, scarcely believing what I saw: My friends, who had so admired me just a moment before, were giggling at the notion of me sitting in the teacher’s overshoe. They were laughing at me; they were laughing at my size.
Only my brother Benjamin—just two years older than I—was not laughing; he was hanging his head, unable to look my way. He was, I realized with a sick, hollow feeling in my stomach, ashamed of me. He was ashamed to be my brother. I had never before experienced such guilt and rejection, both.
This, I suddenly understood, was what Mama had so feared: that were I to venture out from the safety of home, I would not be the only one hurt. This realization hit me hard, knocking the