The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb (17 page)

Both he and James, who joined up as soon as the first bullets were fired on Fort Sumter in April, were now in Virginia, so very far away to Mama and Papa—a foreign country, almost! But not to me. I could mentally calculate how quickly I could get there; I knew by heart the train timetables, where you had to get off and take a ferry across the Chesapeake, then get back on the train again. I had spent a good amount of time at the station in Middleborough, poring over the schedules and maps of trains leaving for all destinations. I couldn’t help myself. I was drawn to the train station like a fly to a cow patty. I became obsessed in my need to study every method of travel available, to follow the debate in the newspaper about the possibility of building a train clear across our great nation, from Atlantic to Pacific. I had no plans to leave home again, as of yet; I simply hungered to know how easily I
could do so. This knowledge gave me peace, where my parents’ clucking and soothing did not.

“I’m sorry that I almost made Vinnie show me the letter she was writing,” Minnie said with a shy, apologetic smile as she took her seat, piled high with cushions, one more than mine. “Now, Papa, take the best piece for yourself, as you work the hardest!” And Minnie tucked her napkin into her collar and waited patiently to be served.

“Thank you, Miss, I certainly will,” Papa said with a serious nod, although his eyes twinkled. “Do you want me to post that letter for you, Vinnie?” he asked as he began to pass around the plates. “I have to go into town tomorrow.”

“No—I, that is, thank you. But I thought I might get some exercise and walk into town myself. I can post it then.” I took my own seat, across from Minnie.

“I would never walk to town by myself!” She shook her head decidedly. “Think of all those houses and buildings you have to walk past—how dreadful! And people do talk so. You’re so brave, Vinnie!”

I wanted to laugh, given what I had endured upon the river. But my sister’s admiration was pure and heartfelt, and I never wished to hurt her feelings.

“Minnie’s right, it is a long walk for you, Vinnie, and you know how those wagon ruts can trip you up,” Mama began, automatically. But when she caught my eye, she stopped.

“You sure you want to go all that way by yourself?” Papa asked, but he did not meet my gaze. Unlike Mama, he asked out of courtesy alone; he knew too well I would make my own mind up and do as I pleased. He did not enjoy knowing this, he did not approve of it, but he allowed it. As he had ever since I returned home.

“Yes, Papa, I do want to go alone. Anyway, I can use the exercise, for Mama’s cooking is making my dresses too tight! Soon
enough I will look like Mrs. Lincoln, just as people say I do!” I laughed at the joke, happy to deflect interest from my letter. Since the Lincolns had gone to the White House, many people had commented on my likeness to the President’s wife.

“Oh, no, Vinnie! You’re much more beautiful than that plain Mrs. Lincoln. She has the most awful way of doing her hair, not fashionable at all.” Minnie spoke with such disdain that the rest of us couldn’t help but laugh. Since when did Minnie concern herself with fashionable coiffures? I tried to imagine my little sister poring over
Godey’s Lady’s Book
, and failed.

We continued our meal without further inquiries into my letter-writing habits. Although twice I caught Papa looking my way with his eyes scrunched up, as if he was trying to get a good read on me.

He was still trying to figure me out.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I
BUNDLED UP IN A CLOAK AND MITTENS
and stout boots. It had been a mild December for Massachusetts; the lanes were not piled high with snow. The sun was shining, and I soon warmed up as I walked the short distance toward town. I enjoyed being alone; ever since I had returned home, I had found myself craving such solitude.

Everything had changed since my return. My family treated me differently, gingerly, as if I might break, or worse—as if I might leave them again. At first they had peppered me with questions, but soon they realized they didn’t really know what to ask; they had no comprehension of the details of my life those three eventful years. They knew only that it was very different from theirs. I produced my clippings and told of meeting people like the Grants. I spoke lovingly of Sylvia, and the rest of the troupe. (Carlotta I decided not to mention.)

I did not speak of Colonel Wood. At first they asked all about him, but soon they picked up on my reluctance to mention his name and ceased their questioning.

My family loved me, welcomed me, yet frequently I felt like a guest in my own home. I caught Papa looking at me at times with something close to shyness, as if he did not quite recognize me. And I felt the strangeness myself; the farm was so quiet, my family so loving and good, it all seemed dreamlike, almost. As if I would wake up and find myself back on the river, the hard, pulsing
life
of the river; that felt, now, like the most real time of my life. The bad things that had happened soon receded from memory. I remembered only the excitement, the ever-changing scenery, the cheerful camaraderie of my fellow performers, the elegance of the hotels contrasted with the wildness of the audience—oh, to think of it all made me want to throw my clothes in a valise, grab my cloak, and run out of the house! It made me long to cast off all possessions so that I might always be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

Recalling that life also made me pick up my pen and compose the letter I was determined to post today. The letter was bulky; I had included a number of my press clippings and, of course, my
carte de visite
, which I had inscribed. The address on the outside, which I had copied so carefully from a newspaper article, read as follows:

The letter was sealed with a dollop of wax, hard and cold as a button against my thumb. Despite my eagerness to post it, I took my time on this walk; I was in no hurry to get back home, where
nothing ever changed. I had no purpose, no task, but to rise early with the family; help Mama with sewing, cleaning, cooking; keep Minnie company and try to improve her mind with reading and conversation; rock her to sleep at night before rolling over to my side of our little bed, where I tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep. But these days sleep did not come easily to me. Try as I might to tire myself with long walks and endless turns at the spinning wheel, I was never as physically exhausted—every joint throbbing, the arches of my feet aching, even my tongue worn out from constant conversation—as I had been after two or three performances a day, not including private audiences.

I couldn’t even go back to teaching if I wanted to; the school committee had engaged someone else in my absence.

The trees were bare, the limbs like splayed fingers against the vivid blue sky. It was so quiet, just a few birds rustling in evergreens, a far-off echo of an ax chopping wood. How loud my life on the Mississippi had been! Never was there complete quiet on the steamboat; there was always someone singing a song, laughing at a joke, telling a story. The steady hum of the engines, the constant swish of the river’s currents—all had filled my ears for so long that I found the quiet of home jarring. My nerves thrummed in anticipation for some unexpected, unpredictable noise or diversion.

I wandered along the lane, which was crisscrossed with the occasional cow path leading off toward other farms, watching out for the deep wagon ruts, so much trouble for one my size. Too soon did I reach town, where the streets were sparsely populated by people who no longer knew how to think about me.

Since coming home, I had realized that when the school committee appointed me as a schoolteacher years earlier, it wasn’t entirely for my welfare. Giving me a title, a job, gave the town a way to look at me that was easy; it meant that they did not have
to think about my size, first thing, each time they encountered me. Miss Bump, the teacher, was a much easier thing to consider than Miss Bump, that poor little woman. But I had angered them by rejecting their neat package and leaving to go out west. I had shocked them by performing on a boat. Now I was gazed at, whispered about, more pointedly than I ever had been out west, even when I had paraded around with Sylvia.

Mrs. Putnam, the minister’s wife, stopped to observe me as she exited the dry goods store.

“Good morning,” I called out pleasantly.

“Oh!” She looked around to see if there was anyone observing us; there was, but she was trapped. “Well, good morning, Miss Bump.” She sniffed and looked down her long nose at me. “What a surprise to see you out and about this early.”

“A surprise? Why is that?” I smiled up at her; her bonnet was as plain and red as her face. The people of Middleborough looked so
ordinary
to me now.
She could use some of Carlotta’s paint
, I thought wickedly, stifling a giggle.

“Why, I’m sure I don’t know, I just supposed that you were used to sleeping late back on that showboat of yours. It’s a mercy to see you up at a good Christian hour.”

“But I saw many a sunrise out west,” I protested with a sweet, pious smile.

“You did?”

“Of course! Many a sunrise I saw as I came home after a late night of carousing and unseemly behavior!”

“Why, Lavinia Bump! I never—the wickedness! The shame!” The old woman sputtered and hissed like a cat in heat as she hurried off to be swallowed up by a small band of other church-women, all of whom muttered and looked over their shoulders at me.

I tilted my chin and met their collective gaze evenly; they
looked away, still buzzing with disapproval. I didn’t care. I was even a bit tickled by my impertinence, although I did hope it wouldn’t cause Papa or Mama any grief later. But my spirits were lightened, as well as my step, and soon I was at the post office. It was located at the main intersection of the town, called the Four Corners; the streets that comprised this area housed most of the commerce of the village—dry goods stores, a millinery, lawyer and physician offices, the building where workers toiled at the large shoe manufacturer. Middleborough wasn’t a small town, not by New England standards. Yet after the dirty, humid, colorful excitement that was New Orleans or St. Louis, it was so staid and sleepy to me, all the same. Everything here was so stolid; nothing ever changed. Certainly we had no streets dedicated solely to vice!

I knocked politely on the post office door; the handle was too high and heavy for me to reach. Mr. Jones, the clerk, opened the door, peered out over my head for a moment, then looked down. He smiled in recognition. I couldn’t help but notice his pants were worn thin at the knees, like those of the good working New England man he was; he would get a new pair for Christmas, just coming up.

“Well, hello, Miss Lavinia. Come on in.”

“Thank you,” I replied, following him inside; I waited for him to raise the hinged section that allowed him to go behind the counter, although I had to reflect how easily I could have passed beneath it! Then I reached up and handed him my letter, along with thirty cents for postage.

“All the way to New York?” Mr. Jones looked at the address. “Phineas Taylor Barnum? Who’s he—not that humbug feller, I hope?”

I sighed. I should have realized that of course Mr. Jones would make it his business to see where my letter was going; of course he would end up telling my parents or my brothers or my married
sister or whichever member of my annoyingly large family he might encounter. Which he was sure to do.

“No, of course not,” I said with a sniff, as if to indicate I was insulted he might suggest such a thing. “This is about some unfinished business of mine, from out west.”

“Oh.” Mr. Jones pulled on his chin, lengthening his already sorrowfully long New England face—sharp nose, suspicious eyes, permanently ruddy complexion. “Yes, that business out west of yours. Well, we’re glad to have you back here safe and sound. I reckon you’re glad to be back, too. Don’t like to think of a little lady like you out there consorting with those types of people.”

I simply smiled and watched as he took my letter and placed it in the leather mail pouch. Then I asked after his children (who had been students of mine), thanked him, and asked him to open the door for me.

I began my walk back to the farm, after first stopping to purchase a stick of peppermint candy for Minnie, who would be anxious for my return. So would Papa and Mama. They would welcome me home with loving eyes, kind hearts, open—yet stifling—arms.

My thoughts returned to the letter I had just posted. I wished that I could give it wings.

INTERMISSION
 

From
Harper’s Weekly
, March 22, 1862

The crisis which the war has reached imparts fresh interest to the war-pictures which are appearing in every number of
Harper’s Weekly
. We have now regular Artist Correspondents, to wit:

Mr. A. R. WAUD, with the army of the Potomac; MR. ALEXANDER SIMPLOT, with Gen. Grant’s Army; MR. HENRY MOSLER, with Gen. Buell’s army; MR. THEO. R. DAVIS, with Gen. Sherman’s army; MR. ANGELO WISER, with Gen. Burnside’s army; besides a large number of occasional and volunteer correspondents in the Army and Navy at various points. These gentlemen will furnish us faithful sketches of every battle which takes place, and every other event of interest, which will be reproduced in our pages in the best style. People who do not see
Harper’s Weekly
will have but a limited comprehension of the momentous events which are occurring.