DECEMBER 15, J9V. 



807 



A NEW WAYJOF^DEMONSTRATING WITH 

 BEES AT FAIRS 



Success in Spite of Misfortune; How One Man has 



been Able to Look on the Bright Side, even 



though Crippled for Life 



BY L. RIEBEL 



Just thirty years aj^o, on the morning of 

 December 15, 1882, 1 was lielpiiig' a uei,sli- 

 hor move a house. Througli a little care- 

 lessness on the part of the nmn who was 

 managing the affaii*, and having a bad place 

 in the road to get my team across, I slip- 

 ped, and the building caught my left foot 

 and broke the large bone just above the 

 ankle. I was taken home at once and the 

 doctor called, who visited me every day for 

 over a week. This doctor did not under- 

 stand his business, however, on account of 

 using too much liquor, as I afterward 

 learned ; and my leg, not getting along as 



L. Riebel, Chariton, Iowa, with a set of his comL 

 demonstrations at fairs. 



well as it should, iiad to be amputated on 

 Christmas afternoon. If 1 liad known then 

 what T know now 1 would not have needed 

 a doctor at all, and that thigh amputation 

 would have been entirely unnecessary. As 

 it was, I have been a cripple all these years, 

 just because of one man's mistake. Doc- 

 tors generally bury their mistakes, it is 

 said; but it seems tliat they do not always 

 dn so. 



About a year after my leg was amputat- 

 ed 1 placed my order for an artificial limb. 

 The manufacturer of it did not wear one 

 himself, neither did any of his employees; 

 but he had a nice working model with 

 springs and cords; and to hear him tell 

 about it one would think that it only had to 

 be wound up, wdien it would walk off almost 

 by itself. How^ever, wlien I got it I was 

 very much disappointed, for I could not 

 use it Avith any kind of control. It pained 

 me all the lime, had no knee action, and 

 was a dead drag con- 

 tinually. I knew then 

 tliat I had lost my 

 hai'd-earned m o n e y, 

 and had woiss than 

 nothing for it. 



I have tried ma.iy 

 of the makes of arti- 

 ficial limbs with wood- 

 en and leather soekels, 

 but never found any 

 relief. By this time 

 I was becoming skilled 

 in leather-work of all 

 kinds, having taken up 

 the harness business : 

 and as I was a sort of 

 ingenious fellow any 

 w ay, I commenced 

 over 25 years ago to 

 manufacture a leg of 

 my own that would 

 fill all the require- 

 ments. For a year I 

 kept studying and ex- 

 perimenting, and final- 

 ly hit on the plan of 

 using an air-cushion 

 and other new fea- 

 tures until my leg was 

 a complete success. 



During my work in 

 the harness-shop I be- 

 c a m e interested in 

 bees. My father al- 

 ways kept bees in an 

 old - fashioned w a y, 

 never realizing much 

 out of them, nor giv- 

 ing them the proper 



which he user. In his 



