The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

  “Stop!” I held up my hand, surprising all, including myself. “Stop!” I had to repeat this several times, but after a moment the audience quieted down, although those standing did not return to their seats, and the ugly young man remained ominously close to the stage.

  My training as a teacher now came to my rescue. I felt myself expand, perched atop that grand piano; my spine stiffened, my chin tilted, and I willed every molecule, every bit of muscle and flesh and bone and even the hair on my head, to exude dignity. I imagined it exploding from the very core of my being; I closed my eyes, picturing myself showering sparks and stars and diamonds of dignity. Then I opened my eyes to survey the audience as an eerie calm fell upon me.

  I began to speak, and I was careful to overenunciate my words, as I had often found myself doing when trying to help a confused pupil. The audience was that pupil. So was Colonel Wood. They needed to be educated; they needed to be taught—about me, Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump, descendent of William the Conqueror and Richard Warren of the Mayflower Company.

  “I assure you, I am neither a doll nor a windup toy. As Colonel Wood said, my name is Miss Bump, and I hope you enjoyed my song. Now, if you’ll permit me, I’d—”

  “How tall are you?” the sweaty young man at the footlights interrupted, quite rudely. I had a good mind to ignore him, except that he was echoed by several others repeating the same question.

  “Miss Bump is—” Colonel Wood began, but I cut him off with a glare; he returned it but did back away from the piano.

  “My height is two feet, eight inches; thank you for inquiring.”

  “How old are you? Why, you can’t be more’n four or five!” another voice rang out.

  “While I do not believe it is polite to ask a lady her age, I am not yet eighteen.” To my surprise, this was received with a hoot of laughter.

  “Almost eighteen, you say? Why, you must have a little fairy beau, then!” someone else exclaimed.

  “Unfortunately, Miss Bump has yet to find anyone who measures up,” Colonel Wood replied quickly; the audience roared with laughter, while I could do nothing but stand there, the butt of their joke.

  “Are those doll clothes you’re wearing?” This was from a female voice.

  “No, I had them made, just as you do,” I replied before Colonel Wood could say something boorish. “Now, I would like to sing another song. Would you allow me?” For I was suddenly weary, unsteady on my feet, although I would not allow myself to show it; my body felt as battered as if I’d been run through a butter churn. I don’t know how long I’d been onstage, but it felt like a lifetime.

  “You bet, little lady!” someone shouted, and there was a general stirring and creaking as people took their seats. It was a sound I would grow to recognize, the contented sound of an audience settling in, ready to be entertained. But at that moment, I noted it with only exquisite relief, for soon my humiliation would be over.

  I nodded at Mr. James, who began the lively military introduction for “The Soldier’s Wedding.” With clenched fists, I held on to my skirts in an effort to keep myself from toppling over.

  “Give me your hand, my own Jeanette …” I sang with determined force, and soon the audience was clapping along. Somehow I got through the song, I know not how, although Mr. James told me later that I had smiled the entire time. As soon as I was finished, I smoothed my skirts, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the keyboard, then the piano bench, then finally the floor; I couldn’t wait to leave that stage.

  The roar started; from the back of the audience it came, a deafening sound that made me clasp my hands over my ears. It was applause, my first ovation, and it was a sound I would never forget. Utterly astounded, I somehow found the presence of mind to curtsy, my hand over my heart, as if I was, indeed, Miss Jenny Lind.

  A little smile tickled my lips as I turned around to go back through the curtains, passing Colonel Wood. But that dastardly man actually kicked at me as I walked by, laughing to see me jump in fright.

  “That’s not the last you’ve heard from me about that slap, little missy. I won’t be made a fool of on my own stage, especially not by a dwarf,” he hissed, before turning back around to quiet the still roaring audience.

  I didn’t think I would make it through the curtains; my stomach suddenly seized, and I knew I had to find a chamber pot so I could purge myself of all the humiliation and disgust inside me. I ran, as fast as I could, backstage, past Sylvia and Billy Birch and the Tattooed Man who was preparing to go on, out the door to the deck, where I scooted under the leg of the dancing girl as she practiced her high kicks. I ran and ran, stumbling on the slick boards, but I didn’t make it; I turned suddenly and would have hung my head over the side of the boat, but, of course, I couldn’t reach the rail.

  I fell to my knees in a miserable heap instead, and was sick right there, on the dirty, damp deck littered with tobacco stains and muddy footprints, while behind me people continued to make their way to and from the stage area. It was as if I was invisible to them; it was as if I was too small for anyone to notice.

  And at that moment I knew, with another sick heave to my stomach, I was.

  NOW THAT MY EYES WERE OPEN, MY EDUCATION TRULY BEGAN. For it was made clear to me—as it must have always been to my family, who had pleaded with me so not to leave—that my value lay only in my unusual size. I could have had a pumpkin head stuck on my tiny body, could have spoken in unintelligible sentences and drooled upon myself—it wouldn’t have mattered. People came to see me for my size alone, and naturally this caused me great humiliation and distress, feelings that seemed only to increase with every day. For it transpired that part of my contract—oh, that cursed contract! How stupid I had been not to read it more closely!—stipulated that Colonel Wood could exhibit me in any way he saw fit. And he saw fit to do it in the manner of a gross, disgusting boor with not a shred of consideration for a gentlewoman’s propriety.

  Now I understood Sylvia’s constant pained expression. I also understood that I was not, despite my naïve belief, a performer just like Billy Birch, the minstrels, and the dancing girl.

  No, I found myself labeled by Colonel Wood as one of his “oddities,” like the Tattooed Man, the knife swallower; like Sylvia. Even though onstage I sang and danced (courtesy of some hasty lessons between shows) as enthusiastically as any of the minstrels, before and after each performance I found, to my disgust, that I was expected to be displayed. Like an unusual seashell, or a rock resembling a toad; like the two-headed kitten that long-forgotten doctor had likened me to. It pained me to realize how prescient he had been.

  I had to stand upon a table in the galley on the opposite end of the boat from the stage. I had to allow total strangers to gape at me, whisper about me, even attempt to touch and fondle me despite my protestations, my constant reminders that I was not a doll, not a child, but a young lady with all the sense and sensibilities that entailed.

  It was the men who persisted in doing this. Children whispered, giggled, but merely stared; women might reach out to finger the fabric of my skirt as women are wont to do. But men wanted to pick me up, put their hands about my waist, even attempt to kiss me without my leave. I could not tell if they thought me a child, despite my desperate attempts at genteel conversation, my blushes, my thoroughly ladylike demeanor—or if they wanted to ascertain that I was, indeed, of a womanly form, only miniaturized.

  All I knew is that I had to insist, over and over, that I did not grant permission to be touched; I had to refuse, always, requests for “fairy kisses” upon rough, unshaven cheeks or, worse, lips. I know Colonel Wood did not like it when I was so bold and outspoken to those who paid admission for the privilege of doing so; he loomed over me, glaring, threatening, cursing. But he could not force me, not in front of customers, and also not in front of the rest of the company. After that horrible first performance, they had banded together to protect me; Mrs. Billy Birch had helped me to clean myself up, make myself presentable for the next show. Billy and the
minstrels had assisted me in coming up with some rejoinders for the audience, so that Colonel Wood had nothing to say. Sylvia had seen Colonel Wood kick at me and had since attached herself to my side, particularly whenever he was around.

  I greatly appreciated their support. For Colonel Wood had done what my mother’s fears and worries had failed to do; he had made me understand, for the first time, how physically helpless my size truly made me. Back home on the farm, I’d never felt this way; animals I understood and trusted, both in their actions and in my ability to stay clear of them.

  Human beings, I was learning, were much more dangerous and unpredictable.

  “What did you expect?” Sylvia asked me in honest surprise one day as we departed the boat to walk about the town of Davenport, Iowa.

  This was yet another humiliating lesson I had to learn. It was usual for showboats of this time to parade about some of their performers—especially the oddities—to drum up business for the shows. Colonel Wood found it amusing to pair Sylvia and me up for this purpose—“the elephant and the mouse”; obviously we drew attention because of the disparity in our heights. Every time we docked in a town, Sylvia and I were sent out to stroll for about an hour, accompanied by the Tattooed Man (a very stringy individual with ink of fabulous hues covering every inch of his skin, including inside his ears; I cannot recall his name, as I believe he gave a different one each time he was asked), and the sword swallower. Mr. Deacon was his given name, but he advertised himself as “Signor Silvestri, the Great Sword Swallower.” He had an oddly short neck, which struck me as rather a liability in his chosen profession. But he was a very gentle man, the only member of the troupe who said grace before every meal.

  Naturally, our “casual” strolls incited curiosity among the townspeople, curiosity that could be satisfied only by the purchase of a five-cent ticket to Colonel Wood’s Floating Palace of Curiosities and Entertainment, or so said the flyers that the Tattooed Man passed out to the crowd that inevitably trailed behind us like a cumbersome dress train.

  “I have to say, I don’t understand why you left your home at all,” Sylvia continued as we walked along. Poor Sylvia; she felt, even more keenly, perhaps, than did I, the stares and whispers we inevitably encountered, and so kept up a constant conversation as a way to drown them out. This was the only time she was so talkative; on the boat, she reverted to her usual taciturn habits. “Your family sounds so sweet; you had a respectable situation. With me, it was different. I didn’t have anyone left; I felt like a freak of nature regardless, so I thought it wouldn’t matter where I went. But you—I don’t understand why you’re here, Vinnie.”

  “I don’t either.” I sighed, avoiding the stares of a group of dockworkers who stopped unloading barrels to gape at us. “I didn’t think that—well, I thought I was interesting to the Colonel for other reasons—my singing, for example. I thought I’d be able to sing like Miss Jenny Lind, and be treated with the same respect and dignity. Oh, yes, perhaps I knew, deep down, the Colonel was mainly interested in me because of my size, because of how popular Tom Thumb is, but I thought—I thought I was somehow more.” Because I’d always believed I was, I thought but did not say aloud. The notion seemed ridiculous now, as I trudged along a dock accompanied by a giantess, a tattooed man, and a sword swallower. How was it I had ever been a schoolteacher? Despite all that I had taught, I had learned nothing about the world.

  “But how could you leave your home and your family?” Sylvia persisted.

  I clutched my cloak, which had been made by Mama long ago to wear as I walked to and from school. It felt like the warmth and tenderness of my entire family wrapped about my body, and I nuzzled my cheek against my shoulder and sniffed; it still smelled like home, like the dried lavender Mama always laid in every drawer, the lemon oil she used to polish the good furniture, the warm, yeasty smell of the endless loaves of bread that she baked.

  How could I leave home? I tried to remember, for both Sylvia and myself.

  “I wanted to see the world,” I replied ruefully, then stopped to laugh at myself. We were at the end of the dock; the muddy street before us was utterly disgusting, stacked high with dirty crates and smelly barrels of fish, pungent bundles of animal skins ready to be shipped off to places unknown. The air was filled with the cursing and shouts of dockworkers and bursts of steam from boats about to push out. Very few women were in sight, and of those who were, even fewer could be called ladies. “I wanted to meet new people, see new things,” I continued as we crossed the muddy street—I held my skirts up, sinking almost to my knees—and continued uphill, away from the river. “I didn’t want to end up a spinster teacher, living only on the kindness and pity of her family. I didn’t want to remain in Middleborough all my life.”

  “I would have loved to remain in Wilton,” Sylvia said with a heavy sigh. “But there wasn’t anyone left. And then Mr. Barnum came.”

  “Why did you leave him? What brought you—here?” I gestured about the shabby street, the heads poking out of windows to stare as we continued our progress. Oh, how bitterly I recalled strolling the quiet streets of Middleborough, where everyone knew me and no one thought to exclaim about my size or my fairy voice, where people conversed with me, not above me, as if my ears were too small to hear their ridiculous comments.

  “Ma, lookit that!” a boy yelled out a window, right above our heads. “That tiny little person—reckon it can talk?”

  “Yes, it can,” I retorted loudly; away from Colonel Wood, I felt free to indulge myself and be rude to those who were rude to me. “And it knows better than to say ‘reckon.’ What year are you at school?”

  The boy turned white and ducked his head back inside his house.

  “Vinnie, you do beat all!” Sylvia chuckled in admiration. “How you talk! I can never think of anything to say.”

  “I just get so angry, I can’t help myself. So back to Mr. Barnum—why ever did you leave his employ?”

  “I didn’t want to, but he sold my contract,” she replied, slowing so I could catch up. She was patience itself, for shortening her stride was not easy on joints that ached with every movement.

  “He sold it? To Colonel Wood? Then the Colonel does know Barnum?”

  “No, Mr. Barnum sold it to a Mr. Peabody, who sold it to Colonel Wood.”

  “They can do that? Buy and sell us? Like slaves?”

  “If you sign a long contract like I did, they can.”

  “Why—why did Mr. Barnum sell your contract?” I asked hesitantly, for I did not wish to cause Sylvia distress.

  “He said I bored the audience. He said that’s the kiss of death—boredom—and while he wished me every kindness, he had to sell my contract because he found another giantess, one who recited Shakespeare.”

  “Really? Shakespeare?” I was astonished. Imagine—a giantess reciting Shakespeare! I would pay to see that, myself! “Was he—was he nice to you? Nicer than Colonel Wood?”

  “Oh, yes!” Sylvia stopped, and her heavily lidded eyes shone with fondness. “Mr. Barnum was the nicest man I ever met! He treated me like a lady, and nobody had ever done that before. After Mother died, it was like I was invisible, or worse. Mother was the last person to hug me, even touch me, until Mr. Barnum came up to visit. Why, Vinnie, he treated me just as if I was the daintiest little lady—just as dainty as you! He held chairs out for me, he opened doors, he brought me flowers! He’s a good man. It’s not his fault I’m not cut out for this life.”

  “No, you’re not. I’m not, either. This wasn’t the life I thought I’d be living now.”

  “Oh, yes, you are! Maybe not here on the boat, but Vinnie, the way you talk to people! The way you never forget you’re a lady! And the way you light up when you’re onstage! You’re wonderful. I don’t know how you do it. I just know Mr. Barnum will find you someday.” My friend’s admiration was honest and heartfelt, and I must admit I needed to hear it. I placed my tiny hand in her great one, and we walked along in silence for a bit, studiously ignoring al
l others. Davenport was a typical river town, something I could now identify with confidence, and I supposed that was one useful thing I’d learned since leaving home. River towns on the Mississippi were all somewhat the same; all had streets leading uphill from the riverfront, churches and schools dotting the ends of the streets highest above the river.

  In this town, there were the usual newspaper office, dry goods stores, offices that took care of boating business and trading commodities, and one apothecary shop. Across the street was a candy store; Sylvia tugged at my hand and pointed, and I nodded. The Tattooed Man and Mr. Deacon had already peeled off into a tavern, as was their habit. Unescorted—but not alone, as a sizable contingent was now following us, speculating about us as if we could not hear them; one even speculated I must be Sylvia’s child, which made us both smile—we crossed the muddy street. As the crowd followed, Sylvia ducked her head and slumped her shoulders terribly, poor thing, as if she truly believed she could wish herself smaller. But she did allow herself a smile; she had a powerful sweet tooth, although I knew that later tonight she would be moaning in her bed with a toothache.

  After buying some chocolate drops from an astonished shopkeeper who shouted to his wife to “Come look at these show folks, this giantess and her little friend,” we resumed our stroll until we came upon the gleaming storefront hung with a sign proclaiming Mr. Greene, Fine Practitioner of the Art of Photography, Card Printing & Phrenology.

  The window was papered with photographs—some sepia-toned, others hand-tinted with traces of color—of famous personages. General Tom Thumb was chief among them. The photographs were for sale, twenty-five cents each.

  “Did you ever?” I asked Sylvia, astonished.

  “Did I ever what?” my dear, literal-minded companion answered.

  “Did you ever see such a thing? Paying for someone’s photograph! I’ve never even had my photograph taken, have you?”

  “Oh, no! No, how dreadful!”