Jack

Once some one gave me a toy Jack-in-the-Box. I was three or so.

Not a fast food burger, but a little metal box that had little clown that would jump up. Most of them had a handle on the side. Push the "jack" into the box and close the lid, then turn the handle/crank and it would plink out a little tune and then at some point Jack would jump out very quickly.

Scare the dickens out of a kid!

Now days such a toy would be made in China of plastic, but this one was metal. I remember my mother telling me about it!

Any way one day I was playing with the box and I fell and it made a nasty cut on my head somewhere, and she said it bled a lot. I am sure I was fairly noisy about it all. With some effort she and father got the blood stopped. She was sure there was a scar under my hair some where. Maybe if I shaved my head we could find it!

My father was so angry with that toy that he threw the toy away.

Father was not fond of anything that hurt his family. When I was born, for a few days, my father would have nothing to do with me, because I had caused his sweetheart so much pain.

Grandma told me that story several times.