r thing,--I've been saving it up. Did you ever hear of a--of a
step-mother, Jolly? I just thought I'd ask."

The result was surprising. The telescoped legs came to view jerkily,
but with haste. Jolly stumbled to his feet.

"I better be a-goin'," he muttered, thinking of empty chip-baskets,
empty water-pails, undone errands,--a switch on two nails behind the
kitchen door.

"Oh, wait a minute,--did you ever hear of one, Jolly?"

"You bet," gloomily, "I got one."

"Oh!--oh, I didn't know. Then," rather timidly, "perhaps--I wish
you'd tell me what they're like."

"Like nothin'! Nobody likes 'em," came with more gloom yet from the
boy with legs.

"Oh!" It was almost a cry from the boy without. This was terrible.
This was a great deal terribler than he had expected.

"Would one be angry if--if your legs wouldn't go? Would it make her
_very_, do you think?"

Still thinking of empty things that ought to have been filled, Jolly
nodded emphatically.

"Oh!" The terror grew.

"Then one--then she--wouldn't be--be glad to see anybody, I suppose,
whose legs had _never_ been?--wouldn't want to shake hands or
anything, I suppose?--nor be in the same room?"

"Nope." One's legs may be kind even to the verge of agony, but how
unkind one's tongue may be! Jolly's mind was busy with his own
anticipated woes; he did not know he was unkind.

"That's all,--thank you, I mean," came wearily, hopelessly, from the
pillows. But Morry called the other back before he got over the
threshold. There was another thing upon which he craved
enlightenment. It might possibly help out.

"Are they pretty, Jolly?" he asked, wistfully.

"Are who what?" repeated the boy on the threshold, puzzled. Guilt and
apprehension dull one's wits.

"Step-ones,--mothers."

_Pretty?_ When they were lean and sharp and shabby! When they kept
switches on two nails behind the door,--when they wore ugly clothes
pinned together! But Jolly's eye caught the wistfulness on Morry's
little, peaked, white face, and a lie was born within him at the
sight. In a flash he understood things. Pity came to the front and
braced itself stalwartly.

"You bet they're pretty!" Jolly exclaimed, with splendid enthusiasm.
"Prettier'n anythin'! You'd oughter see mine!" (Recording Angel,
make a note of it, when you jot this down, that the little face
across the room was intense with wistfulness, and Jolly was looking
straight that way. And remember legs.)

When Ellen came in to pu