Song Tells of Old Man Who Had a Wooden Leg.
John Strain, of Greenwich, Conn., who lost his leg three years ago and his temper recently, has announced that he intends to obtain a rubber artificial limb. His statement was made to-day through a window of the county jail, from which he will watch the dying sun precede each of the next thirty twilights.
The reason Mr. Strain intends to obtain the new artificial limb described it that his wife, a muscular woman, who has been getting plenty of exercise since John ceased to work eight years ago, has been and is in the habit of bounding his artificial limb off his forehead when a domestic storm brews. The present limb is of wood, and, for various reasons, is unsatisfactory to Mr. Strain and his brow.
Over the condition of the weather a quarrel started in the Strain home. Mr. Strain declared he felt that a gale was coming from the northeast, inasmuch as his left leg—not the wooden one—pained slightly. Mrs. Strain, with that rare spirit of raillery which characterizes[Pg 63] a woman who supports four children, told John the weather could scarcely affect a man who sat in the house smoking all the time. It was then that John, according to the testimony of his wife in police court, threw eight volumes of Dumas, apparently bound in zinc. His aim was true.
Mrs. Strain then took John’s artificial limb and hung it just west of where he parts his hair. Her judgment of distance was perfect—it generally is. She then cried for help.
When help arrived, John had hopped on one foot over the State border, into New York. A sheriff with a rich baritone voice explained to him that hopping about New York State with no hat and only an undershirt over his shoulders would mean but little in his life. John thought deeply, hopped over into Connecticut again, and was sentenced to thirty days in jail by Judge James R. Meade.