Dear Sir, - No doubt you saw in a recent daily paper the photograph of, with accompanying interviews with, the two one-legged girls who share a pair of shoes. The photograph showed the two girls taking tea in the garden of one of them, shortly after the pair of shoes was bought; and as they are seated on deck chairs, their shapely single legs are both well and attractively displayed. They are two friends and each lost a limb ten years ago, and have remained friends and shared the same pair of shoes ever since.
There are several very interesting points for "monopede lovers" in the case. The fact that two girl friends should each have a lost a limb - one the left, and one the right - in different accidents, is one. The fact that they are able to share the same pairs of shoes is another. Then, as each confesses, though each possesses an artificial leg, they never wear them, preferring to use crutches instead.
This is by no means an uncommon thing, as I know from experience. Apart from the example of my own wife, herself one-legged since childhood, I know several pretty one-legged girls who prefer crutches, simply because they do not like the awkward halting gate such a leg imparts to the walk, and prefer the easy swing of crutches and the neat appearance of the single leg below the frock.
Another interesting point is that Mrs. Perry said that she was married after the amputation of her leg. Yet another instance of a man finding a one-legged girl attractive enough to marry her!
As for the problem of shoes and slippers, this, of course, faces all one-legged people who do not wear artificial legs. My wife goes to a bespoke bootmaker who specialises in footwear for one-legged folks, and has her single shoes and slippers specially made for her. But, of course, this is a costly business, and not everybody can afford the prices. Her man charges at least two and a half guineas for a single hand-made shoe, and for special evening sandals and slippers anything up to four or five guineas.
He has, by the way, many interesting tales to tell of his clients, who number a great many more than ordinary people would imagine, and all from a well-to-do class. He has a princess on his books; an American girl who married a Russian; several titled ladies; a well known German soprano who wears an artificial leg only for her concerts, and goes back to crutches for everyday wear.
He, too, has two-legged lady clients and several men clients who share the same pairs of shoes. None of these, however, were friends in the first instance, though they may be now. The boot maker discovered that they needed the same size in shoes, and brought them together.
One very interesting case which, by coincidence, resulted in the lady in question becoming a friend of ours makes an out-ofthe-way story. I shall tell it from its beginning, though my wife met the lady later, as you will see.
A very pretty girl who has lost her right leg close to the hip came to him for shoes and slippers some years ago. After about a year she brought her fiance along, a well-to-do young stock-broker. He was very interested in the fitting of the single shoes and slippers, and always came along for the ceremony.
Then one day he came along and informed the bootmaker that Swould not be employing him anymore. She was then convalescing after the amputation of her remaining leg, also close to the hip, the result of a car crash in which he had been slightly injured.
My wife now enters the story. She, in common with a large number of one-legged people, goes to an orthopedic supply firm specialising in everything for the maimed, for her crutches, swim-suits, and the like, all of which are, of course, specially made for her.
She was sitting in the waiting room one day, when a young man entered carrying a beautiful blonde girl in his arms, who, after her thin, skimpy skirts, hanging slack and empty from her hips, revealed, was obviously entirely without legs. She was, however, quite happy and cheery; and while her husband, as he proved to be, was out making arrangements with the fitter, she got into conversation with my wife, and was very friendly and charming.
As women will, they talked about their leglessness, compared their respective accidents, etc., and S- told my wife quite frankly that neither she nor her husband was at all troubled about her being entirely without legs. It was obvious that her husband had fallen in love with her because she was one-legged, and he was just as happy about her complete leglessness as he had been about her one-legged condition. It was then, too, that she told my wife that she had had her single shoes and slippers made by the same bootmaker.
"But," she said with a gay laugh, "we haven't that expense now. I haven't to worry about shoes and stockings any more - nor crutches! What a nice, economic wife I turned out to be!"
Well the upshot of it was that we all became friendly, and our beautiful little "half lady", as she often calls herself, is a frequent visitor, with her husband, to our place. And people who might think that the husband of an entirely legless wife and the woman herself should be depressed and unhappy, should see them together. They are the happiest and gayest couple we know.
Incidentally, with my wife, S- is a bridge fiend, and other one-legged lady friends share their interest. It would startle a stranger, knowing nothing of the facts, to see, as I often do, four very gay ladies round a bridge table in my drawing room. Below the table there are only three attractive and shapely feminine legs instead of the normal number, eight. Three of the ladies, including my wife, are one-legged; and the other, S- of the above little anecdote, quite legless.
And all are happy and perfectly content, and their husbands think they are wonderful!
Strange, but amazingly true.
Yours sincerely,
WALLACE STORT