The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-02

day a vicious stallion bit OF Maxley's
right ear. After the wound healed up he
got a job at firing or something like that,
in the nail mill at Oxford Furnace.
surely, ! thought. a man with three
fingers Of ana only one ear can not be
hard to find in a little town like Oxford
Furnace, and 50 ] pushed on TO that point.
/ had more trouble than I anticipated,
however. because in recent years the type
Of labor employed had greatly chan ed.
Foreigners mad taken the place of the old
native workmen, and it was extremely
difficult for me to find man
who worked in the mill 20 years ago.
was told that that there was an old man
out near Dridgoville who knew every
body who had lived or worked in Oxford
Furnace for forty years, and hunted
him up, l came upon him as ] was driving
toward his farm.
DO you know where I can find a man
named Struble around here:' I asked.
'Struble,' said he, name kinder
familyer. Struble3 StrUgle3 Well,
seems to me I've heard that name afore.
Ye don't mean Henderson,. or Ward, or
Vreeland, do We, Syruble, Why, YES,
there's an old fellow named SiGlms Stru-
bic around here, come to think Of it.
/ What might We be wautin o him p
Il knew in an instant that my man
/ stood before me. He was a cunning old
fox, and probably was looking for some
/ confidence game, but when | told him
about my hunt for Maxley he said that he
/ 'knowed just as much about Oxford Fur
mace as any man liviu' except Sam'l
Stokely, and he's been dead risin' eight
years He launched out then and said
" j reckerleck Lee Maxley ri ght well.
| He'z the feller that lost his foot from hav-
in white-hot bloom Nv iron fall on it,
| No, that was Stevenson. the fust Sweedy-
man we had in the mill. MaXley lost his
. right foot, howsumdever, but it was from
getting in the way Nv truck in the
muckin room. He was little deaf o.
/ hearln' from the loss of one ear. and he
didn't hear them yell at him. When he
got well he set out for Belvidere on
crutches The boys made up a little
stake purse for him, and he went away
with tears streamin' down his face Lee
was good Teller. but | kinder lost sight
Nv him since he left Oxford
Il began to think that l was losing
sight or him, too, bit by bit. An ear,
three fingers and one foot gone in passing
! through three or four towns but at the
same time Maxley's loss seemed TO be my
| gain, inasmuch as the more he
was dismembered the less likely ] was
to find trouble in following his trail
In Belvidere found an old Irish woman
who said that she had boarded man an
swerlng the description of EleaZer, but
she knew him only as Mack, and then he
was one-eyed man with an ear off, fin
| gers and foot gone. | felt sure that
this must have been my Maxley, and af-
! ter patient investigation l found that he
| had lost an eye between Oxford and Bel
videre in trying to hold big blue heron
which young man had just winged and
wanted TO hold 10 take home alive. The
wounded bird struck Maxley in the eve
with its sharp beak while the sportsman
was tying j is legs. ] learned this from
! the successor of an old doctor in Belvi-
dere. He said that he assisted at the
| operation, for which the young sports
man paid a big bill, and that MaXley dis.
! appeared from the town about a year
/ later, ana he afterward heard of him at
/ Bloomsbury. drove across the country
to Blooms bury next day.and at the old tav
! ern at that place / learned that Maxlev
spent two years there, and had lost still
more of his anatomy through the break
| ing OF his crutch, which threw him under
a coal train. His footless leg was cut of
below the thigh, and his disigured hand
! was removed at the wrist. He was sent
TO Easton for treatment and there the
Bloomsbury history of my man ended.
Although | realized that the object of my
| chasewas growing smaller by degrees it
| was plain TO me that his losses were nv
gain, because the more he was dishgured
! the easier it would be to trace him | got
at the hospital records and found the
| date of his discharge. Patient inquiry
/ evolved the fact that kind-hearted cap
tain had taken him aboard a boat on the
! Pennsylvania canal TO peel potatoes and
| do the cooking Tor the crew of three. l
| was getting the time down to twenty wears
now, for / found that my Maxley had
stuck to the canal for many years, and
| had become quite popular along the line
because of his cheerful disposition under
amiction
But misfo rtune overlook him again.
! He slipped between the boat and the
stone wall of a lock one day, and his
| other leg was crushed as fiat as pan
cake, This limb was removed at Easton
and, after leaving the hospital, Maxley
! disappeared. 1t was thought that he
had gone down the canal again.
Il followed up what was left of him,
and found traces OF him at Raubsville
| Uhlerville, Riegelville and Frenchtown.
At the latter place he had stopped for
! three years. next heard of him at
| pretty place called Point Pleasant, in
! Bucks County, Tenn, as Waterman in a
mill. From there he went little further
down the river, where he spent sum
mer as timekeeper in quarry. When
l heard OF this quite naturally expected
| to be told that MaXley had lost some
| other part of his frame in blast, or had
been broken up by derrick BOOM
| but seems that all that was
| left of him remained intact until the
close of the season ended his work there
| l found many of his old friends there and
at Point Pleasant, and everybody had a
good word TO say for him One man put
me upon his track again, and pushed on
| down the river from Lambertville TO New
| Hopen, where l found that he had been
! given employment in one of the mills over
winter and had gone over to Lam bertville
in the spring, at the request of a man
! who had taken quite liking to him and set
him up in business in little notion shop
! This venture failed because Maxley had
no head for business, and the next step
| took him eastward to Princeton. where l
| followed his trail to learn that he had
! been the victim of another accident
He was dragging himself along dark
road one night when the college boys ran
over him with heavy road cart, break
! ing two OF his ribs, his nose and collar
bone. After he was repaired he found
! his way back to LamberUville, and from
/ there to Doylestown, Penn. where he
! lived for two years upon charity, and
managed to retain all of his remaining
members. ! followed all of these devious
steps in d fortnight, and was baked at
/ last at Doylestown. Nobody knew, it
/ seems, where he went from there. Utterly
! disheartened, 7 went to Philadel-
/ phia with the intention of return
! ing home at once On the train