Earthly Astonishments

by Marthe Jocelyn

  Filipe’s dashing yellow cap barely contained his thatch of black hair. His skin was the color of coffee with milk poured into it. Next to him, Charley looked as white as a marble floor.

  “Marco and Polo are pythons,” explained Charley.

  “Uck,” said Josephine.

  “Those snakes are so big they’d eat you for supper, Jo.”

  Filipe eyed her, considering. “It’s true, I think. You are not so big as a one-year pig. This would make a good supper.”

  He and Charley punched each other again, laughing out loud with their mouths wide open.

  Josephine bit the inside of her lip. She felt the train shaking under her, matching the quivers of anger inside. Charley should know better than to tease about her size. How would he feel if she called him—what could she call him that would hurt? How about Paste Face? Or Ghost Boy?

  “Never mind the boys, they get silly and cut shines.” Nelly was suddenly beside her. “Look here, we’ve arrived. We’ll see the ocean!”

  Josephine was lifted from the train like a picnic basket and set on the platform of the Coney Island station. She felt the ocean in the air almost like a slap, before she even saw it.

  Oh, the ocean!

  No one had prepared her for the ocean. She knew it was there, of course; there were oceans in books about sailing ships, and it was a spreading blue background on the map in the Academy’s geography classroom.

  But no one had said the word “ocean” in an ecstatic whisper with shining eyes and clasped hands and body tilted as if feeling the salty wind.

  And then she saw it for herself! A huge, glittering carpet, shifting and rolling under the summer sun, like acres of spangled silk! This ocean was here all the time? She could come every day to smell the fresh, tangy air. To hear the perpetual rumble and crash of the foaming waves. To watch the sparkle on the water, like countless floating jewels.

  The sting of Charley’s teasing faded away. The whole week of being measured for fancy clothes and smiling at newspapermen disappeared.

  Josephine couldn’t believe her luck. She had an ocean!

  osephine’s first day of employ at the Museum IP of Earthly Astonishments in Coney Island was one she would remember for all of her life.

  Nelly fed her bites of toasted bread while she dressed, because she had no stomach for the oatmeal porridge that Charley devoured each morning. During her regular exhibition hours, Mr. Walters had decreed that Josephine wear a dress of rose-colored satin with a purple petticoat and lavender stockings. If she were to fall down and give a view of her underpinnings, she’d look like a garden in full bloom!

  Charley wore his customary work uniform of a black suit with a pink cravat, which made his eyes glitter like blushing crystals.

  “You look about to be married, Charley O’Dooley!” said Josephine.

  “Oooeee! You’re almighty comely yourself when you’re slicked up, Jo!” And when she looked in the glass propped against the wall, she had to agree. Her hair was pinned up into a real lady’s chignon, adding several years to her face. Nelly had insisted that a few curls escaping at the back were the height of fashion.

  Nelly, who gave up her job at the Half-Dollar Saloon during the summer months, would be in charge of the admissions booth at the museum. That way she could fill in as stage mother when required to help Josephine change her costumes.

  On the outside walls of Walters Hall were hung enormous, painted banners, shouting to the world of the marvels that dwelt within.

  EDUARDO, THE ALLIGATOR MAN,

  HALF HUMAN, HALF REPTILE!

  and then a picture of Eddie’s scaly body beneath his grimacing face.

  CHARLES, THE ALBINO BOY!

  DARE TO MEET A WALKING GHOST!

  Charley, colored with the whitest pigment in the paint box, leered out at the customers with demonic eyes.

  LITTLE JO-JO!

  THE WORLD’S SMALLEST GIRL!

  The portrait of Josephine showed her standing on an upturned teacup next to a flowerpot, with daisies towering over her.

  The Main Promenade of Walters Hall sounded grander than it could ever be. Really, it was a long, narrow room with low ceilings, painted a yellow that was meant to say “carnival” but said instead “no sunlight here.” Instead of brightening the hall, winking gas flames only added to the gloom.

  Except during showtimes, the Astonishments were to stand at intervals along the hallway, still as stones on the beach, and let folks stare to their hearts’ content—or at least till they were pushed along by the crowd behind.

  All the Strange Humans were staged indoors. The Genuine Hippopotamus and a motley flock of parrots were kept in a pen through an alley to the rear.

  According to Charley, the hippopotamus had joined the company last summer. In the beginning, it was Mr. Walters’s great prize, being the only such creature to be exhibited anywhere in the state, as far as he knew.

  But Potty was a great, grouchy thing, with breath that could knock down a tree. And arranging for a permanent mud puddle had proved to be a trial.

  “Mr. Walters says he’s looking to find a mate for our Potty,” confided Charley. “The old stinker ought to liven up some having a lady to share his muck with. And a baby hippo would be worth its own weight in admission fees.”

  It was in the alley alongside Potty’s pen where Josephine had learned to ride upon Barker’s back. Not wanting to admit to her fluttering stomach, she had asked that no one watch except the dog’s mistress, Rosie.

  Rosie’s concern seemed more for Barker than for Josephine, but the Bearded Lady had been gentle enough when lifting her onto the saddle.

  Josephine sat astride, her feet just level with Barker’s golden underbelly. There was a rein, but only for the look of it. Josephine’s hands held fistfuls of tawny fur at Barker’s neck, which she tried not to yank while the patient dog padded back and forth, serenaded by bleating parrots.

  “Ah, Jo-Jo,” confessed Rosie, “I’d trade in my best corset for a few minutes in your place right now. I always knew my Barker was a good boy, but with you setting there on top, he looks right royal.”

  “I do feel…” Josephine found herself whispering. “He makes me feel as a princess might, the way he puts his paws down so careful. Not shaking me off, but trying to help me sit tall.”

  When Mr. Walters had been summoned to watch a demonstration, he bowed low and held out his hand to help Josephine dismount.

  “A fine addition!” he applauded. “Another astonishing first for my Museum!”

  Indoors, apart from the living exhibitions, there were several glass cases displaying what Mr. Walters claimed to be an “Impressive Selection of Collected Curiosities.”

  Charley had to lift Josephine up so that she could see. There was a dried ear from an African elephant next to a glass bottle holding twelve black beetles found in the stomach of a baby in Pennsylvania.

  “Uck!” laughed Josephine. “She must have been a crabby little thing.”

  “What I’d like to know,” said Charley, “was whether the baby died because she had the bugs in her belly? Or whether she spat them out, one by one, and lived to be a wrinkled old lady.”

  “With a daily craving for crawly bugs!” added Josephine. “And what about that?” she asked, pointing. “How does anyone know that crackedy old stick came from George Washington’s chopped-down cherry tree?”

  “Because Mr. Walters tells them so! Along with the rest of his flummery.”

  On an ebony pedestal, there was a mounted cat with only one leg.

  “It was supposedly born that way,” said Charley, in a vicious whisper. “But I swear that Mr. Walters cut off the other three legs.”

  “That’s just plain horrible,” said Josephine. “And so is that.” She stared at the tattooed hand of a Maori chieftain preserved in brine.

  There was a hat that once belonged to former President Ulysses S. Grant and the handcuffs that had escorted the famous bank robber Paddy Parker to prison.

 
; “‘A feather from the pillow of Queen Victoria herself’?” Josephine laughed so hard that Charley had to put her down.

  “You have to believe, once you’re in here,” explained Charley. “You’d feel an almighty fool if you paid twenty-five cents and thought the feather came from the goose around the corner!”

  Despite his promise to Josephine that he would exhibit her beyond the reach of curious fingers, Mr. Walters had not seemed inclined to spend money on a special platform. But clever Nelly had convinced him.

  “Surely the customers will think she’s something more than humdrum if you put her up there like a wee princess. You’ve paid so many dollars on her clothes and shoes, it’d be a shame not to show her off to the best advantage.”

  “Hmmm.” Mr. Walters chewed on his whiskers. “Maybe you’ve got something there, Nelly O’Dooley.” He agreed reluctantly. “If you weren’t a woman, you’d make a fine businessman.”

  The platform stood five feet off the floor, with a wooden ladder at one end for Josephine to get up and down. Mr. Walters had decorated it using furniture samples made smaller for the convenience of traveling salesmen.

  “Just as you requested, my dear,” said Mr. Walters to Josephine, early on the first morning. “Go on up and try it out.”

  Josephine hitched up her swirling satin skirt and climbed the tiny ladder with the ease of a sailor. She stroked the doll’s flowered tea set, laid out on the little table. “I’ve never had things my own size! Oh, Mr. Walters! Thank you!”

  Mr. Walters watched her sit on the chair, with his eyebrows dipped in a frown.

  “It’s not right,” he declared finally. “It’s the wrong approach entirely.”

  Josephine’s heart sank. Mr. Walters looked around for one of the workmen, who was dabbing paint over the winter’s stains and blisters.

  “Ippy. Take these little things and put them in storage until that salesman comes through this way again. I’ll get my money back. And I need a big chair instead. A very big chair. Big enough for me to sink into. Do you understand? Now!”

  Ippy’s left eye twitched as he slunk off with a hopeless curve to his shoulders. But within an hour, he returned, balancing an enormous armchair on a wagon. It took three men and a symphony of grunting to get it atop the platform, but they managed.

  Josephine’s chair was now big enough to swallow her, which was just the effect that Mr. Walters wanted to emphasize. She was, after all, the world’s smallest girl.

  At the warning bell, the Astonishments took their places along the main promenade, with Josephine overseeing it all from her lofty perch.

  When the doors swung open, the morning sunshine spilled only a few feet into the mysterious interior of Walters Hall. Folks were lined up outside, maybe fifty or more. Mr. Walters was rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  “The petticoats are paid for already!” he gloated. His advertisement in the newspapers had made Little Jo-Jo the main attraction of opening day.

  A noisy herd of sweating patrons pushed into the gallery. Their feet thumped on the wooden floor as they rushed past the exhibits by the entrance, seeking Little Jo-Jo in the place of honor on the back wall.

  A secret ripple of pleasure made her shiver as she saw the crowd before her. This might be fun! She sat in the giant chair and adjusted her tiny shoe. They sighed. She walked to the edge of the platform and smirked down at them. They fluttered in awe. Whatever she did was marvelous!

  At two o’clock, for the Show of Curiosities (costing an extra fifteen cents above the admission price), there was not an empty seat in the tent. Josephine stood backstage, aware suddenly that her chest had tightened, making breathing difficult. Her giddy excitement combined with the smell of moldy canvas made her feel quite sick. Her hands felt cold but were damp with sweat.

  She heard Mr. Walters’s ballyhoo and then the drum-roll, announcing her first appearance. She was dressed as Cleopatra, in a black wig and silk shift spun with gold thread. She walked onstage and heard the audience gasp. Had she made a mistake and entered at the wrong time? No, now they were applauding! For her!

  By the time she entered for the finale, wearing a riding habit astride dear Barker’s back, the audience was wild with excitement. Josephine was the new star of Coney Island!

  MacLaren Academy

  June 27, 1884

  Dear Josephine,

  I was worried and afraid after you went away, not knowing where you went. My sister, Margaret, wrote me you never came, then we saw the newspaper, a story about Little Jo-Jo and I knew it was you, I was glad for you to be getting famous instead of beaten, Miss MacLaren went quite red when she saw the article, with purple veins on her nose. Catherine showed her the newspaper, Nancy bought it with a penny stole from the chapel box, she saw the story first, I was so very glad to know you are safe.

  God Bless, your friend, Emmy

  P.S. Cook has a new girl, Sylvester’s cousin, Pauline, she’s got warts.

  he first time Josephine met Mrs. Hilda Viemeister, she was crushed against the woman’s bosom in a suffocating embrace.

  “Precious chick,” clucked Hilda, replacing Josephine on the floor, dizzy and bemused.

  Mrs. Hilda Viemeister had the fortune, be it good or bad, to have inherited two row houses side by side, one from her dead brother and the other from her dead husband. They had been killed, side by side, in front of a saloon, by a runaway horse bus. Upon their deaths, Mrs. Viemeister had begun immediately to take in boarders, to pay for the coal and the food on her table.

  Nelly and Charley had stayed at her lodgings every summer that the museum had been open at Coney Island. Eddie was also boarding there this year. Unlike most others in her business, Hilda Viemeister had a fondness for circus folk. She didn’t mind that they wandered in and out of her life, she didn’t notice that they often looked peculiar. She did mind if they left a mess or if they expected more from her than clean linens once a month and a hot supper.

  For Josephine, Hilda’s house became the home that she shared with her new family. Day after day, Josephine climbed the ladder to her platform with a lifting heart, ready to try new tricks to enchant her audience. And night after night, she walked home with Nelly and Charley, guessing which kind of stew Hilda would serve for supper.

  Each morning, Hilda sent them off with a pat and a piece of bread and butter, always using the same words, “Don’t work too hard, my little chickies. Keep your feathers fluffy!”

  “Hey, you up there!” Charley stood below Josephine’s platform and tugged on her skirt. “Get down! We’ve got two hours’ liberty.”

  Josephine ignored groans of disappointment from the line of ogling customers. She skipped down the ladder and past the onlookers with a grin.

  “See how small I am!” she shouted gaily, waving at them. To Charley, she whispered, “What are we doing?”

  “You’re daft,” said Charley. “And what we’re doing is, Mr. Walters has gone into the city, so we can all take a turn having a little holiday. Unless I take you to the loony bin instead. Come on. No lollygagging!”

  Josephine was pulling the pins from her chignon and finger combing her curls within seconds.

  “Can we go to the beach, Charley, please? We’ve been here days and days and only seen the inside of this smelly hall. I haven’t even touched the sand yet, or the ocean. Please?”

  “Sure, we’re going to the beach. Where else to keep your feathers fluffy?”

  Charley waited by the dressing room door while she changed into her dress. Her beautiful, very own, green linen dress.

  “You can even go swimming, if you like. They rent swimming costumes at the bath house on the sand.”

  “I don’t want to go actually into the water. There’s too much of it. A person going in there might disappear in a wink. I just want to look at it. Besides, I’m, I’m-” She decided to make it funny. “Although my form is symmetrically developed, my proportions are diminutive.”

  Charley smiled down at her.

  “Maybe t
hey have baby sizes.”

  She pretended to kick him.

  “Let’s go.”

  The moment they were outside, Charley opened an umbrella that Josephine had not noticed he carried.

  “Who’s the loony now?” she asked. “It’s not raining.”

  “The sun is poison to someone like me,” said Charley. “So I have to be fashionable and carry a parasol.”

  He held the umbrella high in his left hand. He swept his right hand across the scene before them. It was a world alive with summer pleasures. The front door of Walters Hall opened directly onto the esplanade and faced the beach.

  Hundreds of parasols were on parade, in dozens of colors. Ladies were dressed like so many sorbets and men were in summer suits and straw hats. Somewhere there was music playing, a violin and an accordion maybe. The air was bringing wafts of salt and fish and burnt sugar. Hawkers called attention to fruit, sweets and shaved ice, peanuts, potatoes, and chowder.

  “Welcome to Coney Island, Jo! What do you want to eat first? Sweet corn? A hot potato? Oysters?”

  “What’s oysters?”

  “You’ve never had oysters? Come on! Over here, see? The boys are shucking oysters. An oyster is a sort of a fishy thing that comes in a shell from the sea, but it doesn’t swim, it just sits there.”

  “They look horrible! They’re not fish at all! They look like bits of innards from a dead bird. Eeeew!”

  Josephine couldn’t believe her eyes. Charley had given the boy a penny. He beamed while his plateful of oysters was shucked, and slipped the first one into his mouth with a wink.

  “Not even cooked?” Josephine felt her throat swell in disgust. She wouldn’t look while he finished them off.

  They wandered on.

  “Come this way, ladies. Step along here, gentlemen!”

  “Hey! Listen! I recognize that voice!” Charley peered around him, trying to find its source.