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Mrs. Tom Thumb's Autobiography

Creator: Lavinia Warren (author)
Date: September 16, 1906
Publication: New York Tribune Sunday Magazine
Source: Available at selected libraries

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Watching my opportunity, I would dart back to my seat, and when he rose, red and panting from an ineffectual search under the desk, he would find me demurely poring over my lesson as if I had never had a thought outside my book.

13  

Here my size again served me. The teacher being a great strong man, his instinctive chivalry wouldn't let him strike a feminine mite like myself, and in desperation he would exclaim, "What shall I do with you? Shall I shut you up in my overshoe?" He had enormous feet. "What does your mother do to punish you -- does she set you on top of the sugar bowl, and make you wipe the dishes?"

14  

For the time being I was conquered, for any allusion to my abnormal size always caused me great embarrassment, and the helpless man had really no other weapon to turn on me. Later, when a teacher myself, I appreciated his position, but my repentance came too late to be of any benefit to him.

15  

When I was sixteen years of age, the district school had become so large it was decided to divide it and form a primary department, consisting of pupils between the ages of four and nine years. The school committee waited upon my parents, and through them offered me the position of teacher. I accepted, and at the reopening of the school was duly installed in my new undertaking. I was very zealous in my duty, and at the end of the term received the commendation and thanks of the committee for the excellent discipline I maintained, as well as the progress made by the pupils under my tuition. The youngest even was far above me in stature, yet all seemed anxious to be obedient and to please me. When I had occasion to reprimand, it would be received with meekness and repentance. I thought I had now found a proper and genial vocation, but during the subsequent vacation an event occurred which entirely changed the tenor of my life.

16  

The idea of a career as a public character had never occurred to me or my family. It was suggested that summer by a cousin who came to visit us from the West. He was the manager of a museum, a "floating palace of curiosities" on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The prospect of travel, the going "out West," as we then called it, made me eager to return with him. I added my entreaties to his, when he broached the subject to my parents and begged to be allowed to go. After a rather stormy family session during which my eldest brother declared that if I went he would leave the house forever, my parents gave a reluctant consent, binding Mr. Wood by solemn promise to keep me under his personal supervision and cousinly care.

A Floating Theater
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My cousin owned a floating theater, minstrel hall, and museum combined, upon one large boat, which was towed by a smaller steamer wherever it was desirable. These steamboats, being flat bottomed, all their machinery is on the lower deck, and thus the saloon above reaches the whole length of the boat, from bow to stern.

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On our first trip up the Mississippi, we stopped at Galena and remained there for three days, and there I first had the pleasure of meeting General Grant. He was then a private citizen in business in the town. He came to the museum, having read a description of me published in the press of the places we had visited. He became much interested and conversed with me for some time and, having purchased my photograph, asked me to put my autograph upon it, which I did.

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The next day he returned with his family and introduced them to me. They would not enter the performing hall, but remained conversing with me, departing with expressions of pleasure at our meeting and many good wishes for my welfare. I afterward met the General while in active service during the Civil War, and also when he was President.

20  

In the fall of 1860, during the presidential campaign, I met Stephen A. Douglas at Montgomery, Alabama, where he made a formal call upon me. Shortly afterward we met again at Selma. He sent his card to me, and I received him in my reception room at the hotel. He expressed great pleasure at again seeing me, and, as I stood before him, he took my hand and, drawing me toward him, stooped to kiss me. I instinctively drew back, feeling my face suffused with blushes.

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It seemed impossible to make people understand at first that I was not a child; that, being a woman, I had the womanly instinct of shrinking from a form of familiarity which in the case of a child of my size would have been as natural as it was permissible. With the quick perception that was a part of his nature, Mr. Douglas understood, and laughing heartily, he said, with a merry twinkle in the eye, "I am often called the 'Little Giant,' but if I am a giant, I am not necessarily an ogre and will not eat you, although you almost tempt me to do so." After a pleasant chat, he took his leave with many good wishes for my prosperity and happiness, and that I might never again be frightened by a giant.

22  

It was in the autumn of 1862 that my association with Mr. Barnum began. He had heard of me through the Western and Southern press and also having received vebal accounts from those who had seen and conversed with me, and thinking there was a possible opportunity of duplicating the great pecuniary success which had attended his introduction to the public of the famous General Tom Thumb, sent an agent to Middleboro to see and interview me. Later he sent him to my home to open negotiations with my parents for my appearance at his museum, corner of Broadway and Ann-st., New York, to be followed by a tour of Europe.

Objected to Being a Humbug

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