The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [7]
Yet I did understand it. For by now I was well aware that some people found it very odd to hear perfectly sensible, rational notions coming from me. This was because of who I was—or, rather, what I was.
And what I was, of course, was both small—and female.
As a female, not to mention a female with no other prospects, I was supposed simply to accept their kind offer for what, even then, I suspected was likely an act of charity. Yet a male teacher would have been expected to inquire about his wages; if he hadn’t, he would have been dismissed as a fool and not engaged.
I endured their laughter with flaming cheeks, allowed it to die, yet repeated my question without hesitation; I saw my father open his mouth to say something but then catch my gaze and hastily shut it.
“Miss Bump, I find it unusual, to say the least, that you would so boldly inquire about wages,” the committee chairman said after he finally composed himself. “Naturally, I will speak to your father about what we will pay.”
“But my father isn’t the one teaching, is he?”
“No, but it is customary, of course—”
“As it is customary to engage a schoolteacher who will not be smaller than her pupils. Yet you have chosen to ignore this custom; let us dispense with the other. My wages?”
Perhaps it was because I remained—with great effort, struggling against my anger at the man’s obtuseness—so composed that he finally managed to mutter the agreed-upon sum. I nodded in acceptance, to his obvious relief, and the matter was settled. When the committee rose to leave, I made it my business to quickly approach the chairman to shake hands, instead of leaving him to perform this customary ceremony with my father.
“Miss Bump, I declare, I’m mighty glad that I’m not going to be a pupil in your school. I suspect you won’t put up with any mischief at all,” he remarked as he bent down toward me, a twinkle in his eye.
“No, I assure you right now that I won’t,” I answered earnestly, for I would not allow him to make this—or me—into a joke. “There will not be a better run classroom in all of Massachusetts; just you see.”
And I have to say, without false modesty, that there was not.
On the first day of class I induced Benjamin to drive me to school early, which he did despite his misgivings over this whole enterprise.
“Vinnie, don’t you see they’re making fun of you? Making you an experiment? How can you let them?”
“If that is true,” I replied as we hit a deep rut in the road, causing me to bounce upon the wagon seat as my feet naturally could not reach the floorboards, “I intend to turn the tables upon them. Then we’ll see who gets the last laugh.”
“I don’t understand you, Vinnie. It’d be so much easier for you not to be out as much in public.”
“Easier for whom? For I can think of no fate drearier than sitting at home by the hearth for the rest of my life, watching all of you go off one by one.”
Benjamin didn’t reply, but once we arrived at the schoolhouse, he worked diligently to help me make sure the room was ready. He and I (aided by my indispensable stair steps) soon had the blackboards shining, the chairs smartly lined up, the McGuffey’s Readers laid out upon the desks. Mama had made me a special cushion for my desk chair, so that I could keep a watchful eye upon my pupils.
I asked Benjamin then to go ring the school bell so that when the first of my students arrived, I was standing calmly in the middle of the room. I did not attempt to hide my size by staying behind my desk or perching upon any kind of platform. I simply stood there, as dignified, as tall, as I could possibly make myself appear.
Mama had made me a new dress, the skirt long and full so that it finally reached the ground, hiding my child’s shoes, which were an unfortunate necessity. But I was wearing my first corset; Mama had ordered the smallest one that was carried at the general store, and altered it as best she could. She cut it down, removed several stays, stitched it all back up again, but still it gapped in odd places. Yet I felt somehow more correct,