The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 18, 1906, Page 11

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL ES" sald Mrs. Tom Thumb, her brown s beaming brig! over the gold rims ber spectacles, CHARISTLZAN SCIENTE ren was there. You told about her; she Then the teacher e, but her she calleds Warre man asked me how T would like h e and travel and ses hought I'd like it. i take me. I said ‘Oh, ave to see my re they lived, d me to take him to them, if the teacher would excuse me e let me go, and I took y father and mother. wouldn’t hear of such a ked them over, sald I of care, that I should h me as traveling would take me right g nd so my father and ed and I went with him. urous thing for a t he did just as he had girl to do, sed. He took me home to his moth- ad from there to St. Louis, where I I appeared on which were big flatboats, arranged e a theater. it out on them and per- formances were given while the boats w c¢irg up and down tae river. herier-go ng in those d was not what it is now. It wa's not considered he proper thing to do, and many people wouldn't g0 Into a place that even had a cartain. Lectures aal read- were 1 right, so long as there o stage curtain, so I appeared in t ‘parlor entertainments’ and , and whole schools of children come to see me—schools en n I was going to school T used to be stood uvon a desk to sing for the scheol, and I thought I coull sing-— ZI7ERGTIRE " QAR A, AR AR yvoung then—and I eang at these nmerts. 1 four years of that, and South and what was t far west as the M » the man who had br saw all you'll I asked. ‘What's the mat- e said, ‘except t Bar- n as kind to me as my have been. so I sall right I won't go with hir. I'll go um's azent told for you: now ‘I don’'t want D M CTHER YO a mate’ But it seemed as if Fate had willed it so. “When I went to Boston, on my way to Barnum, I laughed and sall to my mother: ‘When you see me agaln I'll be married’ But I was jokinz. My joke turned out to be fact.” “And the courtship?” Oh, that wasn't 8o very long. Five weeks after I met the General we were married, at Grace Church in New York, on the 10th of February, 1863. “After I met the General he cama to see me very often. I rlet his peopis and we felt we knew each other pretty well, anyhow. for we had both been before the public and heard about each othe: Thus, with all due observance of the Z WOULD Sy FomRmTT I CINT REACE SO HGH " conventions, she became Mrs. Tom Thumb and went to England to play before the Queen. “We appeared before Queen Victorfa in Fubens room at Windsor and gave our performance, and afterward the Queen talked to us and put her arm around me. “I've been asked,” she said, straignt- ening sturdy little back with re- newed indeper ce. “how I could meet royalties. Why shouldn't 12 How can I meet you? That's the same thing to me. I'm just myself—and an Ameri- can. itative comes in from the “How's busines: demands Mrs. Tom Thun in the theater.” Well, we'll change that when I get out there. Then the theater will be filled.” The matter of hotels convenient to the Chutes comes uD. “I want te, you know. I iike my bath remember. I don’t want to give the earth with a fence around it for it. ites man whispers a fair price. . Tom Thumb, “I can t or more, if 1t's worth it.” Thumb, you see, looks after ts with a sharp d I ask her if she Isa't smoothing her bla:k tly, “I've got enougn ocks and bonds. I've vo miles out of Mid- dleboro, a nice p I like to go home and keep house and See my friends and my pets. I have a St. Bernard dog for one of r ets. I'm ‘Aunt Vinnie' to of the children around home my brother ¢'s Vinnie; turn over to her,’ and I look & I just love to cook, Mtk oY much about doing messy things like dishwashing. “people ask me why I don't stay at and quit traveling. but I don’t been my life. I like I think the public,” nb coquets archly les, “likes me. the ho and Tht I saw’ her gram came for me telllng me to come to San Francisco to keep an engage- ment, and I had only two hours to catch the train, I'd be so happy I'd al- most break my neck getting ready. “I like the moving about, the ex- citement, the having something to do, the meeting of people. Everybedy has been so nice t9 me all my life—why shouldn’t I? “Now, on this trip, I'm always meet- ing people at my receptions who say they saw me when they were children, and they're bringing their children to see me. I like that. “During the two years that I was a widow I was Jost. I missed the Gen- eral so, and I didn’t know what to do with myself—but I never thought of marrying again. “It was like the hand of Fate agaln when I married the Count. We had met him and his brother, the Baron, while the General was alive. He is a man of fine mind; educated. If he hadn’t been*I wouldn't hawe married 33sME HIGH RS Form THIMEY 64 YEARS ©LD him. We have been very happy to- gether. He is cheerful. So am L. We see other people coming into hotel din- ing rooms with long faces, as if they were golng to church. We laugh, and bave a good time. “The Count thinks I giggle too much sometimes, but—I like to be cheerful. “What do I do with myself? Why, 1% takes most of my time kseping my buttons sewed on. “1 have my pets with me.” Of these there are a pair of doves In a cage, and there was a monkey that went the way of all monkeys. “And I read—Christian Scfence ltera- ture mostly, for I'm a Christlan Sclentist. I never admit that I'm sick, for it's only an error—and that’s the reason I'm al- ways so well “I'm going to get rid of my glasses. I'm training to do that now—and s0 in the Count.” “But, my dear” protests the Count, “I cannot the print. I must weas them.” “No, my dear. That's an error. Juss tell yourself you can ses without them, and you will. I'm Sure If there was & thousand-dollar bill lying around om the floor you'd see that fast enough without glasses. And the Count sinks Into his collar and soliloquizes about Christian Science in his own way. “I don’t waste any time shopping— I've had the same dressmaker for thirty years, and she does all that tor me. “I have to have everything made for me—my gloves and my shoes even—and I never have anything old, for people beg everything I have away from me for sou= venirs before my things get old. “I lke to be domestic, even when we are traveling. I carry my own coffee with me—we never drink tea—and often make coffee In my own apartments. ve dispensed with a maid for ths past few years and I get along better without one. I do my mending myself, and that helps to ke€ep me busy, and as for the other things, the world is so con- venient now that you can send out any- thing you want done. “Then when we have time we go out driving or automobiling to see the signts. So, with our performances, we haven't any time left to be miserable In. “That is the reason many people are unhappy and discontented, lsn’t it? They do not keep busy, and they do not keep interested. That's what I always do— and that’s the reason I've kept “I'm not old because I say I won't be old. But my sister-in-law, the Baron's wife’” (the Baron's wife is five feet tall, and the Count and the Baron are a real Count and a real Baron with titles con- ferred upon them by King Humbert), “doesn’t say she won't be old, and so she is old, although she hasn’t lived as many years 1 have. “Dat ees right! Dat ees trus!™ correb- orated the Count admiringly. “What I would like to do,” Mrs. Tom Thumb goes on serenely, “is go around the world again and see what changes the years have made.” How's that for a little woman ® years old and 33 inches high?