The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb (37 page)

Ten! Those poor women, having to subject themselves to one man, having to share him with others, having to raise all these other children as their own, having to lie down with him whenever he desired, never able to refuse—

“I trust the pin money won’t bankrupt you!” My husband was laughing with the innkeeper, man to man, and I whirled about.

“Charles Stratton, how dare you? How dare you laugh with this man as if—as if—”

The entire company was staring at me, mouths open; they had never seen me act so strangely. I took a breath and tried to calm myself, but I could not dampen the fire of indignation that burned in my breast, searing my skin as if it had been branded from within. Why did these men disgust me so? Why could I not look any of their wives in the eye? I had seen natives by now, brown-skinned people who lived in squalor, whose men drank but whose women carried their children on their backs, proudly erect. I had not been disgusted by them. They were not God-fearing people, and so could live only as their instincts told them, and it was obvious their women were strong, stronger than their men.

But the Mormon women were different; there was something shameful and dejected about them. They did not seem to live in the same sphere as their men, except to serve and—I couldn’t prevent a shudder—have relations and bear endless children. It was the same way in Salt Lake City, where we journeyed by wagon, since there was no railroad yet built from Ogden. When we arrived we were treated like dignitaries and introduced to everyone of importance, including Brigham Young. These men were cordial enough, but we met their women only during mealtimes when they served at table, their heads bowed in submission.
The obsessively clean appearance of the city in general attested to a feminine hand, yet it remained hidden, as if behind a curtain—or jail—of masculine design.

I could not get out of Utah fast enough.

Finally, we continued west, to Nevada. Leaving the railroad, we decided to travel by stage to a few places, such as Virginia City; progress upon these mountain roads was perilous, beset as it was by not only unpredictable weather, steep mountain drops, and Indians, but also highway robbers. Naturally, we attracted much attention wherever we went, and my jewels and fine clothes were well known, as was the fact that we had, by necessity, to travel with large amounts of money.

One evening, our last night in Virginia City, two strangers struck up a seemingly pleasant conversation with Mr. Bleeker at the hotel, during which they urged him to take several precautions with my jewels, the cash from the box office, and other valuables.

“Cut a lining in your hat, Sir; that’s always where I carry any gold,” one of the fellows said.

“That’s a good plan; those highway robbers always check your boots first,” said the other.

“Thank you, Sirs, for the excellent advice,” Mr. Bleeker said.

“You’re leaving on the regular stage, then?” the first man asked as Mr. Bleeker rose to leave.

“Yes, indeed.”

“Good thinking, for it has an excellent guard, always.”

Mr. Bleeker left these two “gentlemen” to smoke cigars in the lobby of the hotel; he then snuck out the back door and went straight to the Wells Fargo and Company office to arrange for two wagons. We left at seven the next morning, and when we reached Reno, we heard that the regular noon stage had been held up by two masked men who, while methodically relieving all the poor
passengers of their valuables, kept muttering, “Tom Thumb! Where’s Tom Thumb? He’s supposed to be on this stage!”

Finally, we reached San Francisco. It was such a relief to be in a cultured metropolis once more, with paved roads and gaslights and hotels made of wood, not canvas. Triumphantly, Charles and I paraded through the streets in our miniature carriage, our ponies none the worse for the trip. Three times a day we filled Platt’s Hall, which held two thousand people, and were able to telegraph Mr. Barnum that the trip had been the “golden opportunity” he had envisioned, indeed.

We left San Francisco for Yokohama, Japan, on November 4, 1869; we would not return to the shores of this great country of ours until June 22, 1872. All in all, we traveled 55,487 miles (31,216 of them by sea) and gave 1,472 entertainments in 587 different cities and towns in all climates of the world without missing a single performance because of accident or illness.

We met the Viceroy of India, King Victor Emmanuele II of Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, and assorted Maharajas and Shahs. We ate leechee nuts in China, chewed tea leaves in Ceylon, and consumed octopus in Japan. We saw the Pyramids, pilgrims on their way to Mecca, and sampans in Japan. The heat in Singapore was like being wrapped in a hot woolen blanket and set out in the noonday sun; the cold of the Australian desert at night made your bones cry. We saw women dressed scandalously, in nothing but scarves and jewels, in Madras; we observed entire families bathing together in the nude in Japan. Trains, when we could find them, were primitive: some with benches, with no backs, for seats; others simply cavernous cars in which you sat upon the floor. Ships were steamers, and often they were overcrowded, with poor people practically hanging off the deck rails. Often we would get to a destination with no clear idea how we
would then travel on to the next place; maps were crude, unreadable, and unreliable.

Yet even in such places we would sometimes come across a reminder of home; of civilization. Minnie spied an 1862 issue of
Godey’s Lady’s Book
in a fish market in Bombay, of all places; she eagerly begged the fishmonger to give it to her, instead of using it to wrap up his eels. Somehow he understood, and she carried it with her through the rest of the tour, reading and rereading it although the fashions, of course, were long out of style even before we left home. (Such wide skirts we used to wear! And those ridiculous, enormous-ribboned bonnets!)

And one evening in Ceylon, while I was trying to read by the weak oil light in the hotel parlor (there was no reading in the primitive bedrooms, as everything was encased with thick mosquito netting), Mr. Bleeker presented me with a tattered copy of the
New York Herald Tribune
. “Look at this,” he said with a sly grin. He pointed to an article with his bony finger.

“Barnum’s newest sensation,”
I read aloud, and laughed. I checked the date of the paper; it was over a year old. But seeing Mr. Barnum’s name in print, so far away from him, after having been gone so long, made my heart leap unexpectedly, almost as if he himself had entered the room. We stayed in communication during the trip, of course, but mainly with telegrams, which were always so businesslike and addressed to the troupe in general, never to me personally. And if telegrams were sporadic in the places we were visiting, letters were even more so. So it was with a hunger I hadn’t even been aware was gnawing at me that I read his name.

“The old man has kept himself busy while we’re away,” Mr. Bleeker said with a chuckle, as he folded his long frame into an absurdly small, lacquered Oriental chair. He lit his pipe and puffed until he could get a good draw on it.

“Yes, it appears he has,” I said as I continued to read the article. Mr. Barnum had begun presenting a new discovery, an Admiral Dot. Admiral Dot was “a dwarf more diminutive in stature than General Tom Thumb was when I found him,” Mr. Barnum had told the newspaper.

“You’ve got to admire him. He loses his museum, he builds another. He sends you all off to see the world—”

“And he replaces us with someone else.” Crumpling the newspaper, I tossed it on the floor. But Mr. Bleeker didn’t notice, as he finally had gotten his pipe burning to his satisfaction, and was stretching his long legs out in front of him.

“He just keeps on going. ‘Admiral Dot.’ He has a genius for naming things, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely. Almost God-like, naming all the animals.”

Mr. Bleeker must have finally noticed the sarcasm in my voice, for he peered at me through the pipe smoke, eyebrows raised. Then he saw the newspaper on the ground.

“What’s wrong, Vinnie? I thought you’d be happy to know that he’s carrying on, as usual.”

“Oh, I suppose I am, it’s just—never mind.” I picked up my book and tried to find my place, but suddenly Mr. Bleeker plucked it out of my hands.

“You’re not jealous of that Dot fellow, are you?”

“I have no need to be jealous of another performer—especially one so unproven—thank you very much. Now, will you please return my book?”

“But that’s just Barnum’s way! You know that! He knows what the public wants, and he gives it to them. Truth is, he usually tells them what they want, before they know it. So the public wants to see another little man. So? That has nothing to do with you. It’s not personal with him like that.”

“Nothing ever is personal with him.” I sniffed, then held my hand out for my book. Mr. Bleeker gave it back to me, but I still felt him staring at me. He even scratched his head, so deep was his puzzlement.

Suddenly, however, he snapped his fingers and smiled; like an eager pupil, he tugged on my sleeve. Not in the mood to hide my impatience, I closed my book with a sigh and looked up.

“But Vinnie, listen! I never did tell you what he told me after your wedding. All that day, he was proud as could be, but I tell you, Vinnie, after the reception was over, he asked me to drive back home with him. And he was sad, Vinnie—the saddest I’d ever seen him.”

“He was?”

“He sure was! You know he’s sometimes a crier—remember how he sobbed when the Emancipation Proclamation was announced?”

“Yes.” And despite myself, I smiled; that was one of my most cherished memories, the January day when we all sat in his office and he read aloud Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation from the newspaper, tears running unchecked down his pink face.

“Well, that day in the carriage, he had tears in his eyes. Sad tears. And he said, ‘Bleeker, this has been the happiest day of my life. And the saddest.’ And I asked him why, and he said, ‘Because I’ll never have this great a success again. Those two little people, they’ve spoiled me. How will I ever top this?’ And you know, Vinnie, I don’t think he’ll ever stop trying, even though he knows, deep in his heart, that he won’t. But it’s just in him to keep going, that’s the thing you have to admire about him. You two, though—Charles and you—you brought him the greatest success he’s ever known, and he won’t ever forget that. Or you. The two of you, well—you’re special.”

I stared at Mr. Bleeker for a long moment; he stared back, that anxious, eager smile upon his face. And I couldn’t help but nod, as his intentions were so obviously good.

“Yes, of course. I know that. I’m just tired from this heat, that’s all.”

“I’d give my favorite pipe for a cold bath tonight, but the manager said there isn’t any fresh water.” Mr. Bleeker nodded in agreement, and he settled back down with his pipe, content to watch an enormous moth that was determined to hurl itself, over and over, toward the oil lamp.

I opened my book again, but I found myself staring at the same page for the longest time, before finally giving up and going upstairs to bed.

A
S OUR TRAVELS CONTINUED, OUR CLOTHING NEVER SEEMED TO
be clean; the dust and dampness of travel was trapped forever within the folds of cotton, silk, and satin. We mended and remended until our fingers were sore; it’s difficult to contemplate what to pack for three years’ travel, and when clothing ripped or became worn, we could not replace it. For one thing, very few places where we traveled were adept at sewing Western fashions, complete with the new bustles and tight bodices in fashion. Sarongs and kimonos were plentiful, but of courser Minnie, Mrs. Bleeker, and I could not wear those! For another, particular items such as gloves, shoes, bonnets, etc., that had to be custom-made for Minnie and myself were impossible to come by. So we had to continually patch and repair.

In some places, such as Japan and China, where there were few Americans or Europeans, communication was impossible, if not comical; we bowed and scraped a lot. Our size, however, never failed to bring a grin or a smile even to the most dour Chinaman
or round Buddhist matron; this was always our entrée into different cultures, and it always assured us goodwill and hospitality. If few of the people we met had ever seen an American, they certainly had never seen a very tiny one, and so Charles, Minnie, Nutt, and myself had to put up with much patting and touching and petting. Never did I feel there was anything sinister or insulting in it, though—and, after all, we were just as curious about their strange costumes and manners as they were about ours. So it was more of a
mutual
curiosity; we patted and touched and petted right back, free to do so in a way we were not at home—and we enjoyed it.

So used was I to seeing the world through a maze of table legs, wagon wheels, ladies’ skirts, and men’s trousers, I could only note, with pleasure, how much more colorful it was in these exotic lands. The vivid hues of the Orient were a welcome contrast to the more sedate—dare I say dull?—wardrobe choices of the West, such colorful silks in hothouse colors of pinks and oranges and greens!

When travel became difficult, particularly in Australia, where we had to journey hundreds of miles in the desert with only a faint pair of wagon tracks to guide us, the four of us—Minnie, Nutt, Charles, and myself—trudged through the sand just like everyone else, to give the horses a rest. The horses sank to their knees, as did Mr. Bleeker and the others; we did not, although it was difficult to get our footing, as we never reached solid ground.

Despite all the perils we faced—a typhoon on the way to Japan, pythons in Ceylon, wild kangaroos in Australia, fearsome spiders everywhere; despite the marvels we saw—the great Pyramids of Egypt, which inspired Mr. Bleeker to whisper that for once, he understood how we must feel, as he thought himself to be only about two feet tall at that moment—only once did I experience, keenly, my size and how vulnerable it made me. And that was in Nevada, before we even left our own continent.

Minnie, Mrs. Bleeker, and myself were perched in a hired wagon; it had a cover on it, but the sides were wide open to the elements. We had stopped at an inn, where the men and the driver got out to ask for directions. We were on a mountain road with drops so steep as to not be believed; as we waited patiently inside the wagon for the men to return, something startled the horses and they took off, uncontrolled, around the bend.