Jenny and Barnum Read Online Free PDF Page B

But true, too, was the sparkle Tom Thumb had seen in Lind when she had laughed—the laugh itself, on the other hand, had been finished with an uncontrollable squeaking, like a mouse. Maybe some people liked it, but it had grated on Tom Thumb’s nerves.
    Oh, he had seen something just marvelous, all right, but nothing a young woman could control and project, even a young woman singing professionally for more than twenty years.
    Radiant? What Tom Thumb had seen was the girlish brightness of innocence. Virginity—Tom Thumb was absolutely certain that Jenny Lind was a virgin. Perhaps it was a measure of the depth of her problems, perhaps not, but at the age of twenty-nine the reigning star of Europe, Tom Thumb was willing to bet, remained untouched.
    â€œShe doesn’t go to Paris,” he said out loud. “She thinks it’s sinful.”
    â€œShe’s right,” Anna Swan said. “I wouldn’t go there myself if I didn’t have to.”
    â€œLavinia likes Paris,” Gallagher purred.
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?” Tom Thumb demanded.
    â€œTake it easy, General,” Gallagher told him, “I’m quoting her. ‘I like Paris,’ she said. ‘Charlie showed me all around the last time we went over.’”
    Tom Thumb hated even the sound of Gallagher’s voice. “Don’t you call me Charlie. That’s for her and Barnum—”
    â€œAnd that’s what she called you. What am I supposed to do, misquote the lady?”
    â€œWhen was this conversation?”
    Gallagher looked out the window, feigning nonchalance. “Two months ago, back in New York.” He looked around slowly, smirking. “I wouldn’t lie to you about her, would I?”
    â€œYou’re asking for trouble,” Tom Thumb said.
    â€œI don’t think you’ll be the one to give it to me.”
    Chang and Eng started laughing again. Tom Thumb glared at them and turned to the window. He had to get a letter about Jenny Lind off to Barnum, and with a little luck he would have it on a Paris-bound train this evening.
    He kept looking out the window, afraid that if he turned his attention back to the carriage’s other occupants, they would start laughing at him again.
    All except Anna Swan.
    Tom Thumb was in love with Lavinia Warren. Joe Gallagher—this Nutt—was trying to take her away from him, and P. T. Barnum had created the situation as surely as he had produced their show.
    Tom Thumb knew how important he had been to Barnum’s career—that is, if he had not been Barnum’s first real attraction, he had been early enough to be remembered that way. He and Barnum had made history together but the relationship had rewarded the General just as much as it had Barnum, and Tom Thumb knew it. Before Barnum, he had been nothing more than a tiny, five-year-old curiosity in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a child midget named Charlie Stratton.
    His parents were normal-sized, ordinary people, New Englanders, God-fearing Presbyterians. His father was a non-talking, non-smiling blacksmith; his mother severe, hard-working, and distracted. Charlie’s older brothers and sisters were growing normally. It was not until abnormally small infant Charles failed to grow at all that anyone in the family could remember anything unusual in the handed-down stories comprising the family history. A ninety-two-year-old great-aunt on his father’s side, deaf and toothless, her tongue flopping dryly out of her mouth, recollected that a hundred years earlier, in England, someone’s cousin twice removed had had an unusual birth: midget twins.
    Even for a midget, little Charlie Stratton was unusual. At the age of five, when he first met Barnum, Charlie was less than twenty inches tall, and weighed about eleven pounds.
    No larger than a three-month-old baby he was normal in every other respect. And as tiny as he was, he was far above average in intelligence. At