Earthly Astonishments (10 page)

“With a daily craving for crawly bugs!” added Josephine. “And what about that?” she asked, pointing. “How does anyone know that crackedy old stick came from George Washington’s chopped-down cherry tree?”

“Because Mr. Walters tells them so! Along with the rest of his flummery.”

On an ebony pedestal, there was a mounted cat with only one leg.

“It was supposedly born that way,” said Charley, in a vicious whisper. “But I swear that Mr. Walters cut off the other three legs.”

“That’s just plain horrible,” said Josephine. “And so is that.” She stared at the tattooed hand of a Maori chieftain preserved in brine.

There was a hat that once belonged to former President Ulysses S. Grant and the handcuffs that had escorted the famous bank robber Paddy Parker to prison.

“‘A feather from the pillow of Queen Victoria herself’?” Josephine laughed so hard that Charley had to put her down.

“You have to believe, once you’re in here,” explained Charley. “You’d feel an almighty fool if you paid twenty-five
cents and thought the feather came from the goose around the corner!”

Despite his promise to Josephine that he would exhibit her beyond the reach of curious fingers, Mr. Walters had not seemed inclined to spend money on a special platform. But clever Nelly had convinced him.

“Surely the customers will think she’s something more than humdrum if you put her up there like a wee princess. You’ve paid so many dollars on her clothes and shoes, it’d be a shame not to show her off to the best advantage.”

“Hmmm.” Mr. Walters chewed on his whiskers. “Maybe you’ve got something there, Nelly O’Dooley.” He agreed reluctantly. “If you weren’t a woman, you’d make a fine businessman.”

The platform stood five feet off the floor, with a wooden ladder at one end for Josephine to get up and down. Mr. Walters had decorated it using furniture samples made smaller for the convenience of traveling salesmen.

“Just as you requested, my dear,” said Mr. Walters to Josephine, early on the first morning. “Go on up and try it out.”

Josephine hitched up her swirling satin skirt and climbed the tiny ladder with the ease of a sailor. She stroked the doll’s flowered tea set, laid out on the little table. “I’ve never had things my own size! Oh, Mr. Walters! Thank you!”

Mr. Walters watched her sit on the chair, with his eyebrows dipped in a frown.

“It’s not right,” he declared finally. “It’s the wrong approach entirely.”

Josephine’s heart sank. Mr. Walters looked around for one of the workmen, who was dabbing paint over the winter’s stains and blisters.

“Ippy. Take these little things and put them in storage until that salesman comes through this way again. I’ll get my money back. And I need a big chair instead. A very big chair. Big enough for
me
to sink into. Do you understand? Now!”

Ippy’s left eye twitched as he slunk off with a hopeless curve to his shoulders. But within an hour, he returned, balancing an enormous armchair on a wagon. It took three men and a symphony of grunting to get it atop the platform, but they managed.

Josephine’s chair was now big enough to swallow her, which was just the effect that Mr. Walters wanted to emphasize. She was, after all, the world’s smallest girl.

At the warning bell, the Astonishments took their places along the main promenade, with Josephine overseeing it all from her lofty perch.

When the doors swung open, the morning sunshine spilled only a few feet into the mysterious interior of Walters Hall. Folks were lined up outside, maybe fifty or more. Mr. Walters was rubbing his hands in anticipation.

“The petticoats are paid for already!” he gloated. His advertisement in the newspapers had made Little Jo-Jo the main attraction of opening day.

A noisy herd of sweating patrons pushed into the gallery. Their feet thumped on the wooden floor as they rushed past the exhibits by the entrance, seeking Little Jo-Jo in the place of honor on the back wall.

A secret ripple of pleasure made her shiver as she saw the crowd before her. This might be fun! She sat in the giant chair and adjusted her tiny shoe. They sighed. She walked to the edge of the platform and smirked down at them. They fluttered in awe. Whatever she did was marvelous!

At two o’clock, for the Show of Curiosities (costing an extra fifteen cents above the admission price), there was not an empty seat in the tent. Josephine stood backstage, aware suddenly that her chest had tightened, making breathing difficult. Her giddy excitement combined with the smell of moldy canvas made her feel quite sick. Her hands felt cold but were damp with sweat.

She heard Mr. Walters’s ballyhoo and then the drum-roll, announcing her first appearance. She was dressed as Cleopatra, in a black wig and silk shift spun with gold thread. She walked onstage and heard the audience gasp. Had she made a mistake and entered at the wrong time? No, now they were applauding! For her!

By the time she entered for the finale, wearing a riding habit astride dear Barker’s back, the audience
was wild with excitement. Josephine was the new star of Coney Island!

he first time Josephine met Mrs. Hilda Viemeister, she was crushed against the woman’s bosom in a suffocating embrace.

“Precious chick,” clucked Hilda, replacing Josephine on the floor, dizzy and bemused.

Mrs. Hilda Viemeister had the fortune, be it good or bad, to have inherited two row houses side by side, one from her dead brother and the other from her dead husband. They had been killed, side by side, in front of a saloon, by a runaway horse bus. Upon their deaths, Mrs. Viemeister had begun immediately to take in boarders, to pay for the coal and the food on her table.

Nelly and Charley had stayed at her lodgings every summer that the museum had been open at Coney Island. Eddie was also boarding there this year. Unlike most others in her business, Hilda Viemeister had a fondness for circus folk. She didn’t mind that they wandered in and out of her life, she didn’t notice that they often looked peculiar. She did mind if they left a mess or if they expected more from her than clean linens once a month and a hot supper.

For Josephine, Hilda’s house became the home that she shared with her new family. Day after day, Josephine
climbed the ladder to her platform with a lifting heart, ready to try new tricks to enchant her audience. And night after night, she walked home with Nelly and Charley, guessing which kind of stew Hilda would serve for supper.

Each morning, Hilda sent them off with a pat and a piece of bread and butter, always using the same words, “Don’t work too hard, my little chickies. Keep your feathers fluffy!”

“Hey, you up there!” Charley stood below Josephine’s platform and tugged on her skirt. “Get down! We’ve got two hours’ liberty.”

Josephine ignored groans of disappointment from the line of ogling customers. She skipped down the ladder and past the onlookers with a grin.

“See how small I am!” she shouted gaily, waving at them. To Charley, she whispered, “What are we doing?”

“You’re daft,” said Charley. “And what we’re doing is, Mr. Walters has gone into the city, so we can all take a turn having a little holiday. Unless I take you to the loony bin instead. Come on. No lollygagging!”

Josephine was pulling the pins from her chignon and finger combing her curls within seconds.

“Can we go to the beach, Charley, please? We’ve been here days and days and only seen the inside of this smelly hall. I haven’t even touched the sand yet, or the ocean. Please?”

“Sure, we’re going to the beach. Where else to keep your feathers fluffy?”

Charley waited by the dressing room door while she changed into her dress. Her beautiful, very own, green linen dress.

“You can even go swimming, if you like. They rent swimming costumes at the bath house on the sand.”

“I don’t want to go actually into the water. There’s too much of it. A person going in there might disappear in a wink. I just want to look at it. Besides, I’m, I’m-” She decided to make it funny. “Although my form is symmetrically developed, my proportions are diminutive.”

Charley smiled down at her.

“Maybe they have baby sizes.”

She pretended to kick him.

“Let’s go.”

The moment they were outside, Charley opened an umbrella that Josephine had not noticed he carried.

“Who’s the loony now?” she asked. “It’s not raining.”

“The sun is poison to someone like me,” said Charley. “So I have to be fashionable and carry a parasol.”