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[Illustration: JOHN SMITH’S FUNNY ADVENTURES ON A CRUTCH]
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JOHN SMITH’S
_FUNNY_
ADVENTURES ON A CRUTCH!,
OR THE
REMARKABLE PEREGRINATIONS OF A ONE-
LEGGED SOLDIER AFTER THE WAR.
BY
A. F. HILL,
AUTHOR OF “OUR BOYS, OR ADVENTURES IN THE ARMY,”
“THE WHITE ROCKS, OR THE ROBBERS OF
THE MONONGAHELA,” ETC., ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._
PHILADELPHIA:
THE KEYSTONE PUBLISHING CO.
1890.
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COPYRIGHT
BY KEYSTONE PUBLISHING CO.
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TO THE
_MEMORY_
OF
ARTEMUS WARD,
WHOM THE WORLD OWES FOR A THOUSAND
HAPPY SMILES,
THIS WORK IS FRATERNALLY
DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
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PREFACE.
It is verily more difficult to write a good preface for a book than to
write the book itself. We don’t mind telling the reader, very
confidentially, that this is not, by any means, our first effort at a
preface for this work: and we earnestly hope that the public will not
pronounce this _ninth_ one so stupid as we deemed the eight preceding
ones that we tore up.
It will be perceived that our hero bears the historic name of JOHN
SMITH. Original old JOHN SMITH, the Virginia settler, met with many
adventures—some of them funny and others _not_ so funny—among the latter
was the affair with Miss Pocahontas and her stern old parent: and we
claim, for our own JOHN SMITH, as many adventures as his illustrious
namesake—some of them quite as funny and others funnier.
Nothing in this narrative of real incidents is at all calculated to
reflect on the excellent character of Mr. Smith: and this is because we
esteem him very highly and not from any dread of the law; for John Smith
is so multitudinous, that one _could_ handle the name with impunity, and
not incur any risk of prosecution for libel. What would a court say to
an action against a writer for libeling JOHN SMITH, yeoman!—especially
when the writer should plead that he never meant _that_ JOHN SMITH, but
quite another, unknown to the court.
There are those who will shrewdly guess that the hero of the narrative
represents the author himself, the chief grounds for such inference
being a striking similarity in the number of nether limbs. That,
however, should scarcely be taken as conclusive; for, since “this cruel
war is over,” there are nearly as many one-legged men in the country as
there are JOHN SMITHS!
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CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER I.
THE WAY IT HAPPENED.
CHAPTER II.
JOHN’S ADVENTURE WITH A CRAZY MAN.
CHAPTER III.
PROPOSES TO LEAP FROM A THIRD-STORY WINDOW.
CHAPTER IV.
LOCKED UP
CHAPTER V.
ACCOMMODATED WITH A “ROOM LOWER DOWN.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE WAY SMITH GETS BORED.—AN EPISODE.
CHAPTER VII.
JOHN SMITH’S FRIEND.
CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN THOUGHT HE WOULD LIKE TO TRAVEL.
CHAPTER IX.
SEA-SICK.—UGH!
CHAPTER X.
THE “HUB.”
CHAPTER XI.
NARROW ESCAPE IN A ROW AT BALTIMORE.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW SMITH TRAVELED A-FOOT—AND MORE.
CHAPTER XIII.
ROMANCE IN JOHN SMITH’S “REAL LIFE.”
CHAPTER XIV.
THE HUDSON.
CHAPTER XV.
JOHN AT SARATOGA.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE SAIL-BOAT.
CHAPTER XVII.
NIAGARA FALLS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CAVE OF THE WINDS.
CHAPTER XIX.
CANADA.
CHAPTER XX.
COL. JOHN SMITH AT AN HOTEL.
CHAPTER XXI.
COURTESIES OF TRAVELERS.
CHAPTER XXII.
“THE CITY OF MAGNIFICENT DISTANCES.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
SMITH’S EXPERIENCE ON A SKATE.
CHAPTER XXIV.
OVER THE MOUNTAINS.
CHAPTER XXV.
DIFFICULTY WITH THE OWNER OF PITTSBURG.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PECULIARITIES OF TRAVELERS.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MCCULLOCH’S LEAP.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CINCINNATI.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FALL CITY AND CAVE CITY.
CHAPTER XXX.
JOHN SMITH’S ABSENCE FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE “NIGHTINGALE.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
SMITH’S EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES IN THE “MOUND CITY.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
HOW NOT TO OPEN A PATENT LOCK.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A GAME OF CHECKERS.
CHAPTER XXXV.
JOHN IN CHICAGO.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
TRAVELING COMPANIONS.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MILWAUKEE AND THE LAKES.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SMITH IN SEARCH OF HIS UNCLE.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
SMITH’S KNOWLEDGE OF GERMAN.
CHAPTER XL.
“A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE, AND A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP.”
CHAPTER XLI.
J. SMITH’S CURIOSITY TO SEE A GALE MORE THAN SATISFIED.
CHAPTER XLII.
MORE OF THE DREADFUL SEA.
CHAPTER XLIII.
JOHN SMITH’S END IMMINENT.
CHAPTER XLIV.
COURTESIES AT SEA.
CHAPTER XLV.
HO! FOR CALIFORNIA!
CHAPTER XLVI.
ON THE ISTHMUS.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE “GOLDEN CITY.”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE DOCTOR.
CHAPTER XLIX.
A STARTLING BUNDLE.
CHAPTER L.
EXIT SMITH.
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_John Smith's
Funny
Adventures On A Crutch!_
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CHAPTER I.
THE WAY IT HAPPENED.
CRACK! went a rifle at the battle of Antietam. Not that it was the only
one fired, for they were rattling away at the rate of a thousand per
second just then; but there was one rifle in particular discharged,
which, so far as I was concerned, was clearly distinguishable from all
the rest. I did not see it, nor am I confident that, in the din of
battle, I heard its report; yet I was made painfully aware of its
existence and proximity, and shall no doubt entertain a recollection of
it while life lasts, and reason retains her throne.
That rifle, evidently fired by some one whom I would have shot first, if
I had had a good chance—and therefore I couldn’t blame him much for
shooting me—threw a leaden ball of one ounce in weight, and similar to
an acorn in shape; and that missile, travelling at the rate of five
thousand miles an hour—though they rarely travel a whole hour without
resting—struck and wounded me, John Smith. It passed through the thigh,
lacerating that muscle vulgarly known as the _tensor vaginæ femoris_,
and causing a compound fracture of the _femur_, barely below the
_trochanter major_; that is to say, it broke the bone about three inches
below the hip.
The ball had come diagonally from the direction of my right and front,
passing through the outside portion of the left thigh, and coming out
only an inch and a half from where it had entered; and I could not help,
when I had regained my composure, making some little geometric
calculations on the subject. I reckoned that if the man who had fired
the rifle—allowing him to have been one hundred yards distant, and the
barrel of the piece to have been four feet long—had moved the muzzle the
one-hundredth part of an inch to the right, I should have been missed;
if he had elevated it about the same distance I should have been
_missing_. My next thought was that whereas my antagonist had discharged
his rifle, I must request the government to discharge _me_.
Some of my comrades carried me from the field, and, after a little
diversion in the way of fainting, got me loaded into a one-horse
ambulance—a vehicle that can beat a wild-cat jumping on moderately rough
ground—and away it went, plunging diagonally across a corn-field, like a
schooner hove to in a storm. A shattered limb is one of the most painful
things in the world, especially when its owner is jostled about like old
rusty nails. For good, solid, substantial pain, I know of nothing worthy
of being spoken of on the same day with it. The toothache, in its worst
form, is bliss compared with it.
There was another wounded “hero” in the ambulance, lying beside me; his
leg was shattered below the knee; and I reckon that the yelling he and I
did, jointly, wasn’t the sort to be excelled by any other two youths of
medium abilities.
We were driven to a small log schoolhouse that was used as a surgical
hospital, and there unloaded. I do not know what became of my companion
in misery—that is, in the ambulance—for it was as much as I could do to
keep myself in view for some days following.
Within the schoolhouse were several surgeons busily engaged in
amputating limbs; while without, beneath some oak trees that stood near,
lay a great many sufferers awaiting their turn. I must give the surgeons
credit for considerable dispatch—and no doubt they _dispatched_ many a
poor fellow that day—for I observed that every few minutes, a whole man,
(in a bad state of repair, to be sure,) was carried in, and soon after
carried out, in from two to four pieces. They did their work up with
rapidity, and by evening, the arms and legs that were piled up against
the wall of the schoolhouse without, would have amounted to a full
cord—limb measure.
Well, as I do not intend to dwell on this part of the narrative very
long, I will simply say that the doctors finally reached my case. I was
carried into the little building, where so many pangs had been suffered
that day, and laid on an operating-table; and after a slight examination
of my wound, and a consultation of eight or nine seconds, they lulled me
to repose with chloroform, and scientifically relieved me of my left
leg. When I returned from the state of profound oblivion into which the
chloroform had thrown me, I was glad to find that they had not made a
mistake, and cut off the wrong limb—as a doctor was once known to do.
They _had_ amputated the _right_ leg, because the _left_ one was the
_right_ one—it being the wounded one—and my _right_ leg was now my
_left_ one, because it was the only one _left_. Yet, the other was
always the left one, and it has remained so, because it has been ever
since _left_ on the battle ground. However, that is all _right_.
What I suffered during the ensuing three months in Smoketown Hospital,
several miles from Sharpsburg, I will pass over with but a thought and a
shudder, and hasten on to tell of the curious and amusing adventures I
have since met with, “on a crutch.”
I will never forget my first attempt to walk on crutches. I thought it
looked easy, to see others walking about the hospital on crutches; just
as an inexperienced person is apt to think rowing a boat an easy matter,
because he sees others do it with apparent facility. So, one day, when
my strength had so increased that I thought I could bear my weight on my
only leg, I urged the nurse to lift me up and let me try a pair of
crutches.
He did so. He raised me up, and I stood holding tremulously to the
tent-post—for I and five other unfortunates occupied a hospital
tent—while he carefully placed a crutch under each of my arms. It was
the first time for several months that I had been in an erect position,
and you can’t well imagine how I felt—without studying a good while
about it. The ground on which I stood seemed so far beneath that it made
me quite dizzy to look down on it, and I trembled at the awful
possibility of falling.
With the crutches under my arms, and the nurse’s strong hand on my
shoulder to keep me steady, I made two or three feeble, timid strides,
and concluding that walking on crutches was not quite what it was
“cracked up” to be, I faintly said:
“Nurse, put me down on the bed again: I fear I will never walk well on a
crutch.”
“Pshaw!” said he, as he assisted me to return to my couch of straw; “you
do well, and you’ll do twice as well next time you try it.”
“Twice as well would be but poorly,” I rejoined. “However, I will do my
best.”
“Certainly! Don’t think of getting discouraged.”
As I now look back on that dismal scene, and remember the sinking heart
that throbbed so feebly within me, and the wasted trembling limbs with
which I attempted to flee from my prison-like bed, I cannot help
smiling;—now, when I can skate as fast as any one, on my solitary foot,
swim as well as I ever could, climb like a squirrel, jump on a saddled
horse and ride at any pace I please, place a hand on a fence as high as
my head and spring over in a quarter of a second, or walk twenty-five or
thirty miles a day—all this with one good leg, a crutch and a cane!
When the spring came, and I could walk about with some ease, I went from
my country home to Philadelphia, to get one of Palmer’s artificial legs,
supposing that I could wear one advantageously. While on the subject, I
will simply say that I got one, but never used it much, because there
was too little of the thigh left to attach it to firmly. Not that I
would be understood to detract from the reputation of Palmer’s patent
limb; for we all liked the Doctor, and were most favorably impressed
with his handiwork; and my subsequent observations have left no doubt in
my mind that his are the most nearly perfect of any artificial limbs
manufactured.
Major King, Assistant Surgeon-General of Philadelphia, sent me to
Haddington Hospital, to wait till the proposed new limb should be ready
for me; and it was there that I, JOHN SMITH, fairly began my somewhat
eventful career—“ON A CRUTCH.”
The hospital, located near the beautiful suburban village of Haddington,
was set apart for such “heroes,” as had lost arms or legs, and desired
to replace them with substantial wooden ones. It was not unusual at that
time to see fifty or sixty one-legged men strolling about the grounds,
in fine weather; or squads of fifteen or twenty, supplied with passes
for the day, clambering upon a street car and going into the city for a
bit of a spree.
A person once asked me if it was not a rather sad sight, and if the boys
in this condition were not rather morose and gloomy. The very thought is
amusing. I never, anywhere, or under any circumstances, saw a livelier
crowd of fellows than the maimed and crippled soldiers at Haddington
Hospital! They were nearly all young men, from seventeen to twenty-two,
and a happier, noisier, more frolicsome set of boys I never saw! It was
no unusual thing for some of them, in a merry mood, to carry on till
they got put into the guard-house, by the impatient surgeons—sometimes
when they scarcely deserved it; but of that, I will say more hereafter.