Dear Miss Roper, - We have all appreciated your letters and sketches and hope you will soon be able to write again. I noticed that you were in danger of having a leg amputated, but sincerely trust you may be saved this ordeal.
I am the husband of a one-legged wife who has only worn a single shoe since she was ten years old and must confess that this was one of the early attractions she had for me. Hopping along on her crutches, I used to watch her before I got a chance to make her acquaintance, and now we are happily married. She is just sweet as she is, and we both like to hear people's remarks when we are out together.
I quite agree with your correspondent about elbow crutches. Elsie has both kinds, but the elbow pattern are much more convenient and look quite as smart as the underarm ones.
I don't think she ever feels embarrassed at her condition even with strangers, and quite takes her one leg as a matter of course. She is a merry, light-hearted girl, and often makes fun of her single leg. Her friends nickname her "Birdie" because of her hopping.
It is really fun to see her playing on the lawn with the dog, hopping after him crutchless and then down on the grass, rolling him over, or again hopping on her one shoe about the house and laughing at an occasional slip.
In the evenings we sometimes have a little dressing up, and she will make up rather heavily and will wear silk pyjamas, and with them she will wear the daintiest little patent shoe with an absurdly high heel, and hopping over on it, she will kiss me and say:
"Well, do you really like having a one-legged wife?"
The empty left shoe of this pair she made into a pin cushion and it stands on her dressing table, as she shows it with pride to her girl friends as a novel use for an unwanted shoe. She also has a boy's suit and, with her hair pushed well under the cloth cap, she has sometimes gone up with me after dark on her crutches.
I must confess that the tapping of her crutches and the click of her little high heel about the house are very fascinating, and don't really think that either of us regret the days when she had both her legs.
Yours truly,
Husband Of One Leg.
(This seems to affect my theory that one-legged girls only wanted chivalry and not real admiration. Oh, well, we live and learn! I hope to be writing again soon. Thank you for all your letters to me. - Joan Roper.)