The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb (35 page)

One night we stopped at a very desolate hotel in Opelika, Alabama; the stairs leading up from the “lobby”—really just one large, stained spittoon—were merely rough boards loosely nailed to the rail. Our rooms were on the second floor, which was a blessing, as the third floor was reachable only by ladder!

The few inhabitants we had seen on the first floor were of such rough, dissipated appearance that our entire company was happy to gather in one room for the night, especially as Commodore Nutt was feeling poorly, suffering from the quinsy. We passed an uneasy few minutes until we heard a sudden scratching at the door, followed by retreating footsteps.

“Look here,” Charles suddenly said, as we all rushed to open the door; on it was freshly chalked the message
11:35
.

“Whatever can it mean?” I wondered, and Rodney Nutt piped up, “It must be a message from the Ku Klux! It must mean someone is going to die at precisely eleven-thirty-five tonight!”

At this, we all froze in fear. The Ku Klux had just started to make its terrible presence felt, swearing vengeance against former slaves and northerners, and the name alone could strike terror in even the stoutest heart. Just as we were absorbing this, we heard the unmistakable report of two pistols fired successively.

“Sylvester!” Mrs. Bleeker cried; Mr. Bleeker had remained outside to settle the horses. She wanted to run downstairs, but we enjoined her to stay; just at that moment, Mr. Bleeker burst into the room, his long face pale, his hair standing on end.

“Get your wraps, there’s a ’bus for the station at the door; we need to be on it.”

Half the company ran downstairs; the other half remained to bundle up Commodore Nutt, who was carried downstairs in Mr. Bleeker’s arms. Just as our half reached the door, we saw the ’bus pull off with the rest of the party, to our dismay.

“It’ll be back soon enough,” the toothless hotel proprietor
told us as he spat on the floor. “And if it ain’t, you can all stay here until the morning, when the train comes.”

“No!” Mr. Bleeker said in a strange, strangled voice. “We must get to the station!”

I was surprised by his urgency, for Mr. Bleeker was such a patient, mild man. Minnie held tightly to my hand, and I felt her shivering. Charles, I noticed, was trying very hard to look as brave as Mr. Bleeker, but he could not help but tremble, too.

Finally the omnibus returned, and we all piled in, Mr. Bleeker urging the driver to hurry the horses on as he kept looking over his shoulder. But before we could reach the station, the driver pulled up with a cry.

“Get down!” Mr. Bleeker hissed, pushing Charles down to the floor of the wagon. I pulled Minnie down next to me, and we hid behind the seat in front of us. But I could still see; passing us on the narrow road was a line of horses, all covered in white fabric, with only holes cut out for their eyes and ears. Upon these horses were ghostly figures in white sheets and hoods; they passed us in silence as they rode in the direction of the hotel. Not a breath was exhaled, not a sound was made, from our party or theirs. Even the horses did not whinny. Minnie trembled and clutched at my hand, and Charles shut his eyes, like a child who wishes to believe himself invisible. But I did not blink as I watched those masked men ride by, erect in their saddles, ominous in their number.

Finally they passed, and we proceeded to the station at a breakneck speed; once we joined the rest of our party, Mr. Bleeker finally exhaled, a little color returning to his face.

“Those shots you heard back at the hotel,” he began, pausing to take a gulp of whiskey from the Commodore’s ever-present flask. “There were two men downstairs who tried to get me to take a drink with them. I said I had to get upstairs to my friends, but they kept insisting, getting meaner by the minute. Finally, I
broke away, only to see them exchange a look and run outside. I was curious. So when I got upstairs, I went to take a look out on the landing. In the yard were two figures in white, like the men who just passed us, and they both pointed a pistol at me and fired. They nearly got my hat! I ducked inside, and that’s when I found all of you in the room with that message on the door, and I said to myself,
Bleeker, get everybody the heck out of here!
I just know they were planning to rob us, and if we’d stayed there they surely would have, or worse! Why nothing happened when they passed us on the road, I’ll never know—maybe they just didn’t recognize us.”

Mrs. Bleeker paled and nearly fainted upon her husband’s shoulder. Charles, too, turned an awful green color, and Minnie laid her head upon my shoulder and shut her eyes.

I remained upright on that cold, hard station bench, unable to stop seeing that ghostly line of horses and riders, pale, almost luminous, against the black of the Alabama forest. I couldn’t believe I’d actually seen the Ku Klux with my own eyes. How terrifying!

I couldn’t wait to write Mr. Barnum all about it.

O
UR TRAVELS CONTINUED, NO LESS ADVENTUROUS
—I
SAW MY
first alligator in Texas while crossing the Red River!—and in May of 1869, while staying in San Antonio, we received the following letter from Mr. Barnum:

“Well, isn’t this something,” Mr. Bleeker said after he finished reading the letter out loud to us all.

“A world tour,” his gentle wife exclaimed, and as usual, I could not detect her own wishes in it; our dear Mrs. Bleeker was a cipher, a genuinely loving, soothing presence who seemed to exist only for us. I could never imagine her in her own home, mending her own clothes, deciding on her own entertainment or enjoyment. She was expressly put upon this earth to live in the service of P. T. Barnum, the General Tom Thumb Company, and her husband—and possibly in that order.

“Australia?” Charles blinked, nervously lighting up a cigar, as Mr. Barnum would have done. “That wild place? Why, has any American ever been there?”

“Which is all the more reason that we should go,” I said decidedly; my husband’s nervous fears never ceased to challenge me, stirring up a recklessness I did not always know I possessed. “Imagine, to be among the first! And to travel the new Union
Pacific railroad, too—I imagine we’ll see buffalo. And Indians, naturally!”

“Indians!” Charles puffed even more nervously, blowing a quick succession of smoke rings into the air.

“Oh, Sister—Indians?” Minnie, seated next to Mrs. Bleeker on a sofa, paled.

“From a distance, I’m sure,” I said hastily, although inwardly I did hope to see one or two up close; I had always wondered if their skin was as red as the clay earth they roamed, as was said.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity.” Mr. Bleeker consulted the letter again, spreading it upon the table as if it were a map. Indeed, we all drew close, to study it. As if Mr. Barnum’s expressive handwriting alone could tell us which direction to follow—and I truly believed, at that moment, that it could.

“If we do this,” Mr. Bleeker said in his grave, considered manner, “you’ll be world famous, for I know of no other troupe that has undertaken such an arduous journey. It’s truly unprecedented.”

“Then we must do it!” I couldn’t contain my excitement; I clasped my hands together and jumped up and down, letting my dignity fall to the floor in a rumpled heap. To think of it all! The exotic scenes—Commodore Perry had returned from Japan only a scant nine years before; even during the Civil War, newspapers had been full of the strange Oriental habits and customs just beginning to be known to the West. Those long sticks they used for utensils, the way they drank their tea in small bowls instead of cups. The way they sat upon the floor to eat! How charming a custom, especially for one my size! I had spent far too many an elaborate dinner perched upon precarious cushions, my feet dangling from my chair like a child’s. I couldn’t wait to partake of an authentic Japanese meal seated upon the floor, where everyone would be my size.

Australia, I knew nothing about, other than that it was a wild, untamed place, much as our American West had been twenty years ago. Yet I was eager to see it; eager to see the highest mountain peaks on our own continent; eager to see the new railroad, almost finished, that linked the Atlantic to the Pacific; eager to see
everything
. That world that had beckoned to me for so long—it was not bigger than me, after all. I would conquer it by seeing every corner of it; I felt sorry for the women who had to content themselves with gazing at the globe while they dusted it, dutifully, trapped in the houses of their husbands.

“We must do it,” I said once more. “Think of how famous we’ll be! How much we will impress those who think our bodies are weak simply because they’re small!”

“Vinnie has a point there,” Mr. Bleeker said, doing his very best to keep his face neutral—he had the best poker face among us, with his drooping mustache and beard, and sad eyes; we often joked that if we found ourselves penniless, we could always send him out to win back our fortune in a saloon game. But I saw that glint in his eyes, the way he quickly licked his lips, as if tasting something tantalizing and sweet. I knew he desired to go, quite as much as I did.

He deferred, however, at least in manner, to Charles; after all, it was my husband’s name upon the masthead of our stationery. In theory, Charles was the decision maker of our party.

“Mr. Barnum obviously thinks this is a splendid idea,” I reminded him solemnly. He nodded—just as solemnly—and puffed upon his cigar once more. I could not look at Mr. Bleeker, for fear of spoiling the moment; we held our breaths, waiting for my husband’s verdict.

“Well, if Phineas thinks it’s a good idea,” he finally concluded, nodding gravely. And our collective breath was exhaled, glasses raised in a toast to the new adventure. Then we all scattered like
mice to write letters, pack trunks, and take the first train back north so we could buy new clothes, mend old ones, and say goodbye to friends and family.

We left New York on June 21, 1869. The newspapers trumpeted the General Tom Thumb Company’s “Three Years’ Tour Around the World.” The company numbered thirteen, which Mama felt boded ill for our safe return. However, Mr. Bleeker quickly pointed out that he always paid full fare for each of the two ponies we brought with us to pull our miniature carriage, so that really there were fifteen in the party. I don’t believe this mollified her.

“Vinnie, please take care, and bring yourself and Minnie safely home,” Mama said, clinging to both of her daughters before we boarded the train from the New York and Harlem Railroad Station. This was a new, expanded station, very different from the little shack where I had first disembarked in New York, all those years ago. Yet there were rumors that an even grander, more central railroad terminal was to be constructed by Commodore Vanderbilt just a few blocks away. All those trains that came into New York from the north and east, like pins stuck haphazardly in a cushion, would now all end at the same terminus. The new depot was even rumored to have a restaurant inside for waiting passengers!

“Mama, I will, I promise! Try not to worry, and we will write whenever possible.” I kissed my dear mother on the cheek and patted Papa fondly on the shoulder; both were kneeling down, although I knew how difficult it was for them, now that they were older. Age had even made Papa less stoic; he had tears in his blue eyes, which he did not even try to hide.

“I’m always saying goodbye to my girls,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know why that is. I always said I never knew what to do with you, Vinnie, and I have lived to see the truth in it. You never
stop surprising me—all the way around the world now! I never imagined I’d leave Middleborough, let alone see my daughters off to Japan!”

“We’ll bring you back glorious presents—would you like a samurai’s sword? That would be handy for cutting hay!” I laughed, kissing my father lightly; he surprised me by hugging me to him so tightly I could hear his faithful heart beating against my cheek, like the faint but reliable ticking of an old pocket watch. Then he released me with the same urgency, and groaningly pushed himself upright.

Blinking up at him through my own tears, I smiled, then gently pulled Minnie out of Mama’s possessive embrace. “Keep her safe,” Mama whispered to me, and I nodded, pulling Minnie toward the train, where Mr. Bleeker was waiting to lift us both up the stairs. The engine was already huffing, steam billowing out from the tall chimney. I hesitated only a moment, searching the platform for a particular gold-tipped walking stick. Mr. Barnum had promised he would try to see us off. I did so want to see him once more; three years seemed like such a long time.

He did not come, however, and I could wait no longer as the conductor made his final cry of “All aboard!” I nodded at Mr. Bleeker to lift me up, and then I made my way down the aisle of the train as it lurched away from the station. Stumbling, I nearly fell, headfirst, into the lap of a woman seated on the aisle. Only Mr. Bleeker’s ready hand upon my head kept me upright.

“Goodness me!” The woman laughed—and then she pulled me to her in a smothering embrace. “I declare, you are the sweetest little thing, aren’t you?”

“Madam, please!” I pushed myself away from her; she smelled strongly of peppermint drops and camphor. “I beg your pardon!”