------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: JOHN SMITH’S FUNNY ADVENTURES ON A CRUTCH] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT BY KEYSTONE PUBLISHING CO. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TO THE _MEMORY_ OF ARTEMUS WARD, WHOM THE WORLD OWES FOR A THOUSAND HAPPY SMILES, THIS WORK IS FRATERNALLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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.