Dear Sir, - May I, as a reader of your paper since 1928, have a little grouse? In a nutshell, it is this:
When are you going to give us a new Stort story?
I trust that you will not work your way through all the old ones before you decide to get Stort to write a new one.
So much for the grouse; now to explain my interest in the stories.
As I have said I have been a reader for the past nine years, and for just that length of time I have been married to a one-legged girl.
She was not a monopede when I married her, but became so within the first month of our married life.
I was a second engineer on a ship which made the run to New Zealand, with a run up the American coast now and then, after a short courtship I married my wife between trips.
She was 20 at the time, fond of games and sport and, of course, a keen dancer. She is very shortsighted and is compelled to wear glasses continually.
She is blessed with the most glorious head of copper-coloured hair I have ever seen and has the lovely pure white complexion which sometimes goes with that class of hair.
After a brief honeymoon, I had to join my ship for a run which was to take six months, but which with other charters took just nine from the date of leaving London until we tied up in the river again.
On the way back to our lodgings (where we had spent the last three days of our honeymoon, and which was to serve us for a permanent home until such time as I could swallow the anchor), my wife was knocked down by a car and, as a result, her left leg was taken off at the knee at a point just above the joint.
As a result of the shock and other injuries she lost her memory for a short while and could not tell the hospital people her name and address, with the result, that I continued on the voyage in ignorance of what had happened; and even when I did receive a letter from her at Wellington, N. Z., she concealed the gravity of her accident from me, and it was not until I was actually in London that I suspected something was wrong as she said she was unable to meet me at the dock.
I had made plans for an extension of our honeymoon, and all sorts of other things, as the vessel was due far a long spell in dock for re-fit, and shot off home as fast as I could. Arrived at our lodgings at dusk, and found my wife at home seated in a deep armchair and wearing a long full summery dress which swept to the floor as she sat and which completely concealed her feet.
I naturally swept her into my arms and hugged her, and even when I held her at arm's length to admire her I noticed nothing wrong, but when I noticed a strained, frightened expression on her face, I asked what was the matter, and for reply she kept her grip on my shoulder with one hand and with the other raised her frock from the ground, and although I noticed that only one foot was visible, I still did not guess the truth, and not until I went to draw her to me did I notice that she happed, and then I knew that she was a least lame.
I asked point-blank what was wrong, and she burst into tears, saying:
"My leg has gone!"
She then told me all about the accident, and that she was afraid that I should no longer want her for my wife, as she said that "she was only half a woman now." But somehow, although I had never been attracted in a way to a one-legged woman before although, in common with most men, I had always taken a second look at a one-legged girl - found that my darling was a thousand times more attractive as a cripple than she was as an active girl.
She seemed so helpless and appealing that I got the idea that I had always wanted her to be in a greater degree dependent on me than she had been as a normal woman.
A meal had been prepared for my return, and after an interval in which we said and did things which are of concern only to ourselves, we moved to the room for the meal, and then I had my first task as a one-legged girl's husband. I found her crutch from where she had placed it so that she it should be out of my sight on meeting her for the first time, placed it under her arm and watched her make her way before me to the next room.
I then had my first sight of the woman I loved as she moved with a slow graceful dip and swinging motion on her one crutch she was to consider her best friend for the rest of her life. She had gathered her dress in her hand as she moved, and I saw that her love for smart shoes was still not killed in spite of her being a cripple.
After some time when I had really persuaded her that her crippledom had not altered my love for her she became her old self again and we made plans for the renewal of our honeymoon, but for some reason she would not consent to leave for it for two days.
In those days I had quite reconciled her to her new conditions, and she used to delight me by dressing in the fashion I had last seen her short dresses, vivid make-up and a high-heeled shoe. Her complexion and her copper hair demanded that she used a brilliant lipstick, and one of my last presents to her had been a pair of long paste earrings of pendants, and these, with her large horn-rimmed glasses, combined with my pearl grey silk stockings in conjunction with a black high-heeled Court shoe, sent me into raptures.
On the third morning a carrier delivered to the door a long stout cardboard box, and this was the reason that she would not consent to leave at once on our renewed honeymoon. My wife asked me to open it, and you can imagine my surprise to find a new leg in it.
The leg had been made for a heel of the stock height - about 2 inches- so that when my darling is wearing one of her high heels in the evening in the house she has a delightful little dip in her walk as she limps about the house.
Now, after nine years of married life, I still am as fascinated with my crippled wife as when I saw her after that long sea voyage. I have left the sea now, and have settled down in the small town from which I am writing with the daughter my one-legged darling presented me with, and who has long since ceased asking "Where is mummy's other leg?"
We should both like to see letters from a girl with a short leg, and a girl with a club foot accompanied by a photograph, in order to complete my collection of photos of which I have a good number, but they are all of one-legged girls.
Later I will give you an account of our three-legged camping tour.
Yours truly,
Timber Toe.