The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [9]
Yet to my surprise—for I was still very sensitive, in those days, to remarks about my size—I enjoyed being watched; I basked in the attention, not minding what had prompted it so much as I minded that those who watched left admiring me. And I began to look forward to those days when I had an audience, planning special games and songs for my pupils. The rest of the time seemed dull and ordinary by comparison.
I do admit to having fun with my charges, though; I was still young, of course, and my high spirits could not be contained by my ill-fitting corset. While I refrained from joining them during recess, I did not always walk sedately home at the end of the day. On more than one occasion, stiff from sitting so long at my desk, I joined in footraces and sometimes allowed the biggest children to carry me on their shoulders, which was a privilege much sought after. And when the first snow fell, I was very touched when a contingent of boys appeared at my door with a sled; after I was tucked in with a bearskin, they pulled me merrily to school, sleigh bells jingling around their necks.
At the end of the fall term, when I handed out marks with the knowledge that not one of my pupils had failed, I felt the satisfaction of a job well done. I was seventeen now, an established schoolmarm. My future seemed secure, and it was a future with which my mother, at least, was very content—a decent wage that I could put away for the time when my parents were no longer able to provide for me; useful work to occupy my days and tire me so that my nights were not sleepless with longing; respect within our little community so that I was no longer an oddity but a beloved, vital member, protected and cared for.
Yet there was still a sadness that clung to my mother, despite all this. It was unspoken, but no one ever expected me to marry. No hope chest was begun for me as had been done for my older sister at the same age, no bridal lace set aside.
One day I rounded a corner only to hear my mother whispering to my sister Delia; stifling a giggle, I quickly hid inside a cupboard, rejoicing over the advantage my size gave me in eavesdropping. They were talking about the birds and the bees; I listened eagerly, until I was startled to hear my own name.
“Could Vinnie ever—” Dee began in a strangled voice.
“Oh, it would be dreadful, impossible,” Mama replied, muffling a sob. “Don’t you remember the little cow on Uncle’s farm who …” And her voice trailed off.
I did not remember any little cow, but its fate was evident in my sister’s sudden horrified exclamation. That I never forgot; it made my blood run cold, my heart seize in a nameless fear. I lived on a farm, after all; I knew cows—and horses and goats and sheep. I knew life—and how wrenching its beginning could be, even among creatures built far more sturdily than I. Shaking, I stole away from my hiding place wishing I had not been so clever. And for the first time, I looked at myself as Papa did; I felt that there might be something broken within me, after all.
That night I could hear my tenderhearted mother weeping for me, even through the thick plaster walls of the second-floor bedrooms. It was not the first night she had done so.
Did I share in her sorrow? In many ways, I was still too young to be given over to such dire, unhappy thoughts. No one would ever have predicted I would be a schoolteacher, and yet—wasn’t that what I had become?
I did have a longing inside me, however, that I could not entirely ignore. I loved my family, loved the farm, loved my work. But contemplating a future only within these confines made me increasingly restless. There was something missing; I could define it only by its absence, but I yearned for it those nights when I heard my mother crying over my lonely, loveless fate.
It was around this time that I went for a walk in the near cow pasture; it was early spring but warm for the season, the weeds already high. They made my progress more difficult, but I didn’t mind; pushing through them, I imagined myself in a mysterious forest, like the ones in so many of