The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb Read Free Page B

position of schoolteacher of the primary room,” the chairman told my parents once we were all seated in the parlor. Mama was justifiably proud of this pretty room, full of her finest china lamps, snowy lace scarvescovering the polished wood surfaces. She always kept it neat and scrubbed and ready for unexpected guests.
    My parents’ surprise, I must say, could not have been greater. Mama gasped. Tears filled her eyes, and Papa colored and ducked his head the way he always did when he was pleased.
    “Oh, how wonderful! How kind, how very kind! Vinnie, what do you think?” Mama turned to me with shining eyes, a wondrous smile illuminating her gentle face.
    Seated upon my own rocking chair—one of the few pieces of furniture in the house that was made to my scale; Papa had fashioned it himself—I studied my hands, gracefully folded upon my lap. My heart fluttered with excitement, but I waited until it calmed down before finally looking up and fixing the chairman with a steady gaze.
    “I accept, naturally, although I do wish to inquire about my pay. How much remuneration per school term are you offering?”
    For some reason this amused everyone; the entire party broke into helpless guffaws, the chairman—a large man whose waist could not be contained by his waistcoat—slapping his fleshy knee with such gusto he very nearly toppled one of Mama’s prized lamps. Sitting there, my face burning so hotly I thought my cheeks must be very scarlet indeed, at first I failed to understand their laughter. What was so amusing about wishing to know what I would be earning?
    Yet I did understand it. For by now I was well aware that some people found it very odd to hear perfectly sensible, rational notions coming from me. This was because of who I was—or, rather,
what
I was.
    And what I was, of course, was both small—and
female
.
    As a female, not to mention a female with no other prospects, I was supposed simply to accept their kind offer for what, eventhen, I suspected was likely an act of charity. Yet a
male
teacher would have been expected to inquire about his wages; if he hadn’t, he would have been dismissed as a fool and not engaged.
    I endured their laughter with flaming cheeks, allowed it to die, yet repeated my question without hesitation; I saw my father open his mouth to say something but then catch my gaze and hastily shut it.
    “Miss Bump, I find it unusual, to say the least, that you would so boldly inquire about wages,” the committee chairman said after he finally composed himself. “Naturally, I will speak to your father about what we will pay.”
    “But my father isn’t the one teaching, is he?”
    “No, but it is customary, of course—”
    “As it is customary to engage a schoolteacher who will not be smaller than her pupils. Yet you have chosen to ignore this custom; let us dispense with the other. My wages?”
    Perhaps it was because I remained—with great effort, struggling against my anger at the man’s obtuseness—so composed that he finally managed to mutter the agreed-upon sum. I nodded in acceptance, to his obvious relief, and the matter was settled. When the committee rose to leave, I made it my business to quickly approach the chairman to shake hands, instead of leaving him to perform this customary ceremony with my father.
    “Miss Bump, I declare, I’m mighty glad that I’m not going to be a pupil in your school. I suspect you won’t put up with any mischief at all,” he remarked as he bent down toward me, a twinkle in his eye.
    “No, I assure you right now that I won’t,” I answered earnestly, for I would not allow him to make this—or me—into a joke. “There will not be a better run classroom in all of Massachusetts; just you see.”
    And I have to say, without false modesty, that there was not.
    On the first day of class I induced Benjamin to drive me to school early, which he did despite his misgivings over this whole enterprise.
    “Vinnie, don’t you see they’re