Among the Wonderful (42 page)

It was a good approach, I had to admit. Barnum knew exactly what he was doing, and his audience stepped closer with childlike expressions.

“From my earliest memory I knew I was not made for the farming life, the life given to me by my family. My interest and my calling lay in a different realm. But where? It was not in the landscape of meadow and forest. As a child I worked in the Bethel Parish mercantile, and in the world of commerce I found myself a step closer, yet my destiny remained mysterious.

“I rode into Manhattan on a donkey. It was my own Jerusalem, if you will allow me the comparison. I still did not know where my search would ultimately lead, but I had found the city of my dreams. I was soon impoverished, invisible in this great tide of humanity, adrift amid thousands upon thousands of people and opportunities, bumped and knocked down, even trampled. I admit that my good wife returned to Connecticut in shame, to await my rise from the gutter.

“A man is given a certain allotment of fuel in this life for the engine of his career. Would I run this machine on an established path, would I enter banking, shipping, or some post in municipal government? Or would I follow the compass of my deepest yearning, even toward an unknown destination?

“Most of you know the story of my first venture as an itinerant entrepreneur of the show business.” Again Barnum regarded the newspapermen. “With those first explorations, I had hit upon it: To make men and women think and talk and wonder was the end at which I aimed. In their wondering lay our humanity, my destiny, and my fortune. I knew it with certainty. Any doubt that had polluted my faith dissolved.” He pointed south. “My museum is a manifestation of that faith.

“The human mind wanders far afield. It wanders as far as the ships of the United States Expedition Company, and farther even than Europe’s most powerful telescope. There are no officers of morality patrolling those peripheries, for better or for worse. And would we want someone to decide for us whether we are allowed to learn of the distant cultures of man? Would we avert our gaze from the image of a celestial body brought close to us by the inventions of man, simply because one opinion is that the star blasphemes? Of course not! We have a right to marvel at these existences!

“I have brought nothing into my museum with the intention of offending the citizens of this city. I have brought strange, wonderful things to the light. That is my livelihood, my passion, my constant study and occupation. Is there anyone here who would challenge the people’s right to view and form their own judgment of the contents of a museum that declares itself to be as diverse and infinitely surprising as the variety of human souls? Would anyone challenge me?”

The newspapermen scribbled. Barnum trolled the audience, passing his gaze over the rear sections and then scanning forward.

“I would speak.” The voice came from within a group of theater employees.

“Samuel Beebe, it that you?”

The scribbling stopped. Barnum’s voice had betrayed surprise. Shocked, I did not turn to look. Good Lord, Beebe! Not you.

“Why don’t you join me up here, Samuel.” Barnum
quickly recovered his composure. “I would like to hear your view.”

“I see no need to ascend the podium, Mr. Barnum. I’m perfectly comfortable addressing you from here.” Beebe’s voice was unusually level. “I am repulsed by the arrogance of your analogy, Mr. Barnum. By the time Jesus rode into Jerusalem he had healed a hundred lepers and announced a New Kingdom for the community of man. The kingdom he professed is based on the substance of Jesus’ life and teachings: love, compassion, faith.
Humility
. He rode into Jerusalem for one purpose only: to suffer and die at the hands of the adversary, on behalf of all of humanity. On
our
behalf. Do you not recall Jesus’ first action once he had reached the holy city?
Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying, and he overturned the tables of money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.”

“But Samuel,” Barnum countered, “I have never announced this enterprise as anything but popular entertainment. Furthermore, it is you who have forgotten an integral part of Jesus’ earthly ministry. How did word of his miraculous powers reach the multitude? He did not have newspapers at his disposal! His disciples were not journalists! No, he performed. In public spaces, he healed demoniacs, lepers, paralytics. He magically produced massive quantities of bread, of fish. He calmed the Sea of Galilee. Crowds gathered. Crowds spread the word of these spectacles, these miracles, these performances. But whenever someone approached him, he did not confirm even his own identity. And what was the effect? Word spread even faster because people wondered, Who is this man? And within the questions that swirled continuously around him, using the strength of people’s curiosity and their willingness to believe, Jesus birthed his new kingdom!”

“Mr. Barnum, I am once again shocked at your presumption. Making a spectacle out of the primitive cultures has nothing to do with Jesus’ ministry, nor does serving brainsick children to a ravenous public appetite for grotesquerie.
Indeed, capitalizing on the plight of an immigrant family who is even now imprisoned and suffering in the Tombs, of all places, is quite the opposite … Surely the audience gathered here has no trouble understanding my point.”

I had never heard Beebe speak with such authority. He appealed to the audience with the confidence of a seasoned orator, his words unhurried, lucid. He was, indeed, buoyed by his faith. But instead of lifting my heart toward him, his performance (what else could it be?) immediately wilted my inchoate love in the bud. I suddenly saw him behind the rough-hewn podium of his own church, somewhere on the prairie. Near the front pew, I sat in a custom-built chair, my hands folded in my lap, my eyes faithfully locked on his as he expounded earnestly to his flock. But even then he looked a little ridiculous in his white rector’s robe, and people wore bemused smiles as they listened, wondering, “But how can he say such things, when his own heart holds such perversion. Just look at the size of her — “No, there was not room for that faith
and
me. It would be a lie anywhere, even far from this city. Enough. Lightning flashed over the prairie and a sudden gust swept the church away, and then the wild grasslands themselves dissolved in torrential rain.

“Your hypocrisy and loose words are shameful,” Beebe continued. “What would your own family, your own uncle Phin say if he were alive and could hear you now?”

Barnum stared at Beebe through a veil of silence that pricked the hairs on my nape, before he rent it with a guttural laugh. He threw his head back and clutched his middle. The journalists could not write fast enough.

“Yes, yes, my dear Samuel! Of course! It was only when Jesus returned to Nazareth that the people ran him out of town!
Isn’t this just the carpenter’s son?
they said. Do we not have his mother and his sister here in the village with us? Isn’t this the man we knew as a boy, throwing rocks and playing in the dirt just like the rest?

“But I’m afraid you’ve picked the wrong relative to illustrate your point, Samuel. You should have invoked the name of my father, about whom I am more sensitive. Or my
mother, God rest her soul. But you picked my uncle. With this choice, all you have done is provide the context for the greatest pleasure known to man, a pleasure that the author of every gospel well understood. Do you know what this pleasure is?”

Barnum paused, but only for dramatic effect. Beebe had no chance of recovering now. “It is the pleasure of a good story,” he finished.

Barnum stepped out from behind his podium. “I have already stated that from my earliest memory I knew the farming life was not for me. In large part I owe this conviction to my uncle Phineas, the man for whom I was named, of whom Mr. Beebe has kindly reminded me. This uncle is the recipient of my utmost love, respect, and gratitude.

“Upon the event of my birth, my uncle presented me with a slip of paper. This paper eventually had the power to open my eyes to the infinite possibility in the world and it gave my vision a scope larger and grander than Bethel Parish. In my early years I read the writing on that piece of paper so many times that even now I know it by heart:
I, Phineas Taylor of Bethel Village in Fairfield County and State of Connecticut, for the consideration of that natural affection that I have to Phineas Taylor Barnum my nephew and son of Philo and Irena Barnum, release and for ever quit-claim unto the said P. T. Barnum to his heirs and assigns for ever, all Right and Title that I have a piece of land at the Ivy Island, a place so called containing ten acres and is bounded Westerly and Northerly on East Brook, Easterly by a ditch that conveys the water from the Ivy Island into the natural stream
.

“Ivy Island may have been only ten acres, but in my mind it grew to the size of Connecticut. The land itself was forty miles from Bethel, and my uncle made me wait until my tenth birthday before allowing me to visit my property. In the meantime, stories of this island permeated my childhood. Most evenings, when my family had finished its supper, Father would light his pipe and say,
What’s that I hear about Ivy Island?
And Uncle Phin would reply,
It’s the best, most fertile land in the country!
And he would describe it to me, undoubtedly delighting in my excitement. In my mind hazelnut trees
dropped carpets of nuts and the soil sprouted fat-kerneled heads of corn the size of brook trout. The beets grown on Ivy Island were dense and heavy. He even said a vein of silver ran in the granite below Ivy Island.

“My dream was not to tend this land. No, I imagined all of this great bounty turned to heavy coins in my purse. By the time I was ten, my plan was fixed: I would work the land until I had enough money to hire others to do it for me. I would then open a store, sell my bounty, and make deals with suppliers in New York City to bring new goods to Bethel. When I had enough money I would open another store, and then another, and yet another.

“As you might imagine, I was beside myself on my tenth birthday. My father loaded me into the cart, and I was surprised that Uncle Phin was not coming with us. I shall never forget how he looked, standing in the doorway just as dawn lightened the eastern sky.
You must face your destiny alone
, he said. As I recall, I caught a glimpse of my young friend Beebe on the way out of town. I believe he ran alongside the cart on his little legs and tossed a stick into the air and caught it again just as we passed.

“We rode all morning toward Ivy Island, but my imagination flew above our rough cart. The fecundity of my island would take me beyond the world of dirt tracks, hog farmers, and a livelihood bound to the seasons. I dreamed. I plotted. I knew beyond all doubt that my destiny was entangled with something far greater than ten acres.

“When we arrived, I leapt from the cart. My father pointed to the far end of a field of uncut hay.
See that stand of sassafras? Beyond that boundary lies your land. Look for the stream. Follow it until you see the island
. Again I wondered that my father was not coming with me, but I was too excited to pause for long. I ran as fast as I could. In my mind I had already sown the best seeds and diverted the stream for water. I had already pulled up to the Bethel village mercantile in my own wagon with barrels of vegetables. Old Seeley the store clerk had already shaken his head, wiping his hands on his apron.
You’ve
done it again, Barnum. We’re going to have people coming all the way from Bridgeport for this corn
.

“I ran through the trees that divided me from my property and followed the stream for several hundred feet before I came upon the island. I had a good view of it from where I stood on the sandy bank. I tried to look everywhere at once.

“First, I saw stunted alders leaning together like a group of bent old women. Second, I saw the dusty, hard soil. A strange feeling formed inside me. Third, I observed one sugar maple with dried-up leaves, choked by a network of green vines grown tightly around the tree’s trunk. I recognized the red-stemmed crawler. Ivy. Poison ivy. My eyes followed the network of tangles down one tree and up another, down again and across the ground. The island was a wasteland.

“Suddenly all the years of stories made a new sense to me, especially the ricocheting glances between Phin and my father. The neighbors smiling and calling out to me, saying,
Here’s the Duke of Ivy Island
. The deed. Now I could see my uncle at the courthouse, drawing up the papers himself, and my father with a small smile behind his pipe. I understood what they had done.”

Barnum blinked out at us as if from a great distance. The silence in the park was profound until a clear voice came from the journalists.

“But
why
did they do it?”

Barnum shook his head. “Answering that question took many years. It was a diabolical practical joke, no question. And I thought of it in exclusively that way until my wounds had healed and time had diluted my memory. Inevitably, my feelings changed. I realized that through the hoax of Ivy Island, my uncle had given me the two most important lessons of my life: First, I would never let anyone fool me again. Second, through their trick, they gave me the opportunity to feel the exuberance of pure belief that my destiny was larger than the hay fields of Bethel Parish. Ivy Island allowed me to dream of infinite possibility. Without that dream, I would not be here today. In fact, and I mean this quite literally, if it
were not for Ivy Island, none of you would be here today. The American Museum would not exist.

“You see, when Mr. Scudder put the museum up for sale, I admit that I lacked funds. At the time I had many friends in this city who would attest to my entrepreneurial skill and the seriousness of my intentions. But my lack of financial resources eliminated me from the owner’s consideration. I knew I could make the museum a success, if he would only give me the chance. So when I met with Mr. Scudder, I had in my hand a slip of paper that read:
As collateral, with the promise to reimburse you ten thousand dollars within two years, I present you with the deed to ten acres of Connecticut’s finest farmland, near my ancestral home.”