Dear Sir, - It is many moons since I last wrote to you, and I think it is high time I did so, as nobody else appears to - at any rate, the sort of people I like seeing letters from.
The "Stort" series are very fine; but why make them so very brief?
Now for a few suggestions.
Would you get Wallace Stort to bring in a girl using a peg leg and your artist to illustrate it, and can we have a few pictures of a girl wearing a single crutch. The crutch I am using is of the armpit pattern, has a revolving head on springs in the bows, and is ever so comfortable. The peg leg is the usual type for wear for loss above the knee. I have two in use occasionally. It is fastened by means of a belt round the stump and attached in turn to the two shoulder straps.
It is padded at the bottom of the socket and is also sewn up the right side in such a manner that it had lost much of its fullness whilst giving a little extra warmth, as I find that in severe frost my stump ached so much from the cold that I had to use a woolen stump stocking in place of the silk one I normally wear.
I have now become so used to one leg that I can undertake all the work of the house, - in the house, rather - I can manage to da most of the working. Cooking and floor sweeping are no terrors for me. As for washing, I rest my stump on the table which supports the washing tub, and use the arm as it were a staff; and this, combined with my ability to balance and hop is more than sufficient support for me.
I get over the difficulty of moving from table to oven by drawing the table up fairly close to the oven, and by side-long motion of the toe and heel I carry all that is necessary for me to use whilst carrying anything in my grounds.
I do not wear corsets and to prevent my suspender belt from getting one-sided - as it only has the pull of one stocking on it - I cut the suspenders on the right side off and shorten the elastic right up and sew them on the rim and fix the suspenders to my stump stocking, and thus maintain even an pull on both sides.
I am still fond of wearing a shoe with a heel that is almost too high for me to manage, and with some of my shoes that I have recently acquired only the tips of my toes touch the floor; but Dick is always ready to carry me from room to room.
I have one shoe which has ankle and instep straps and a heel 5« inches high and I can just manage to move about with it on by the use of two crutches.
It is a black matter with a patent heel and lizard piping.
On extra special occasions I still delight in wearing the one with the blocked toe and the heel 7 inches high, which I told you about in a former letter, and which I have since found out was made specially by Dick's firm as a kind of sample to show in shop windows to illustrate the heels.
Needless to say, whilst wearing it I am quite helpless and are
only able to stand for a little while without some support.
In my last letter I hinted rather broadly that something was going to happen to me. Well, it did, - but I am sorry to say that it died.
I will say no more.
We are both heartbroken.
I have now gone back to my high heel, but have not worn the artificial limb since my recovery, and get about all day now with the aid of a crutch.
The recent heavy snow kept me indoors quite a lot, as it is extremely risky to go out an crutches in such heavy snow, and it became necessary to get somebody to help me with the housework. Dick obtained the services of a girl and, strange to say, she is also lame in that she has a leg 5 inches shorter than its fellow, and wears a cork sole on her boot.
Since my recovery Dick has showered all sorts of wonderful presents on me, and among them are some wonderful sets of lingerie, all in pale blue silk, with suspender-belts and garters to match.
In spite of our great disappointment we are still just as happy - we could not be more so - and Dick is never tired of seeing me either swinging about on a crutch or undertaking my little shopping excursions, and I know that he admirers my single pedal extremity more than anybody else admires the finest pair of legs in the world.
Yours truly,
Helen Nee Fivetoes