A Wooden Leg.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1806, 2 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

A Wooden Leg.

Major Todd of our place, says the Bangor Messenger, lost his light leg at the battle of Fredericksburg, and some time ago he purchased an artificial leg from a man in Washington. It contained a system of springs, which enabled the Major to use it in such a natural manner, that when he was walking along the street nobody would for a moment suppose that he had nob both of his own legs. One Sunday, while the Major was on his way to church, he slipped upon the ice and gave the store-leg a severe wiench. He must have dislocated some of the springs, for after reaching the church and taking his seat, and while, the clergyman was reading the scriptures, the leg suddenly flew up and rested on the back of the seat in front of him. The congregation looked at him in amazement, and he looked very red in the face. As soon as be took it down it jumped up again and wiggled about on the back of the pew, finally kicking Mr 3. Thompson's bonnet to rags. Then the Major supprested it again, and held it down, but it instantly began a convulsive movement in his own pew, during which it upset the stools, plunged around among the hymn-books and hat 3, and hammered the board beneath the seat until it made such a racket that the minister had to stop. The sexton rushed in to find out what was the matter, and the Major, after explaining the difficulty in a whisper, asked the texton to let him lean on him while he charged on the front door. As soon as the Major got into the aisle that dislocated leg kicked the sexton sixteen or seventeen times in a most insolent manner, varying the exercises by making eccentric swoops off to one eide, during which it kicked eight of the high hats at the pew doors into black-silk chaos. By the time the Mayor reached the vestibule, the leg had become perfectly reckless. It flew up before and it flew up behind. It butted against the good leg, and darted out sidewise, and described circles, and tried to insert its toes in the Major's ooat tail pockets, and to whack him on the nose. When the sexton came with the hack and put the Major in it, the leg banged through the win-dow-glasa, and when the driver got down to see about it, the leg brandished itself in his face, and concluded the exercise by planting a terrific blow in his stomach. The Major t)ld the driver he would give him tea dollars to take the leg off, and the driver accepted the offer. For several minutes it elduded all hid efforts to catch it as it danced about, but finally he got hold of it and hung on while the Major tried to unbuckle the straps. Then it came off and rolled the driver in the mnd. He got up to watch it. It writhed and kicked and jumped and throbbed and hopped, and whenever it would make a dash to one side or the other the crowd would scatter in order to give it full play. Finally Ben Wooley set his dog on it, and a most exciting contest ensued, the leg two or three time3 running off with the dog, and it seemed likely that 'the dog would get whipped. Mr. Wooley got a crowbar and aimed a blow at the leg with the intent to smash it. B it he missed it, and nearly killed the dog. A s soon as the N dog retired, Mr. Wooley whacked it again and burst it into splinters, and then there was peace. The Major drove h"me and got his cratches, and since then ho bas confined himself to the use of a wooden leg without springs. —TK6 Warp.