Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1875 — “Tiny Tim” and Toole. [ARTICLE]

“Tiny Tim” and Toole.

Tlic Chicago Tribune relates” the following: v Toole was acting in ‘The Cricket on the Hearth, 1 playing Boh Orotchett. A little, delicate girl, one of the children of the dresser at the theater, whose pale face and interesting manner fitted her well for the part, played Tiny Tim. The sickly little child was a favorile in the theater, and especially so with .Mr. Toole. During the performance of the piece, as the reader may remember, the artists sat down regularly every night to a supper of roast goose and plum pudding, whim was, in the present instance, genuine material. Toole was in the habit of chopping the viands up and giving them to the children performing, and they, when they had eaten the first helping; returned* like Oliver for more. Tiny Tim, however, like Benjamin, appeared to eat seven times as much as her brethren. She was the first to return her plate for more, and always made away with more than an ordinary adult coul'd eat of goose, supplementing this colossal repast with plum-pudding enough for half a dozen. Toole gradually felt an aversion growing in him lor this child. Her pallor and sickness seemed to him suspiciously allied with indigestion, the first fru.ts of gluttony. He struggled against th.s feeling for a time, but it mastered him, and he could not think kindly of the little one. One day, in a fit ot disgust, he sawed off a mass of meat and bones from the savorybird, and flung it into her plate, with a piece of plum-pudding, which left little for the others, hoping that for once the child would be satisfied. But she wasn't. AVith a punctuality worthy of a landlord she returned for more. Toole was shocked. ‘My dear,* said he, ‘ you will make yourself sick if you eat so much. I gave you enough for three or four big boys. You could not have eaten it iu tin's time. Where are the bones?' he added, looking at the empty plate. The poor child hung her head. Toole spoke again rather sharply. 4 Please, sir,” j sobbed Tiny Tim, *my little sisters ate it,’ and, following the direction of her eyes toward the wings, there he saw a : hungry little horde of ragamuffins i pitching into the Christmas cheer with an energy that indicated liowmuch they needed it. A light was let in upon him. Little Tiny had been filling the stomachs «f her "hungry little brothers and sisters, and not her own. She never took another grudged morsel from the table. Toole told the story to Dickens, who listened attentively, and at its conclusion, with a burst of warm enthusiasm, cried: * Dive her the whole goose and half the plum-pudding next time;’ and if ihe actor did not follow the warm-hearted novelist’s instructions to the letter iie acted up to the spirit of it, and Tiny’s family never lacked a square meal during the run of the piece. 1