n pictures were not quite real enough.
What you needed was to have had one of your own. Then,--Morry's eyes
closed in a dizzy little vision of one of his own. One that would
have dressed and undressed you instead of an Ellen,--that would have
moved your chair about and beaten up the cushions,--one that maybe
would have _loved_ you, legs and all!

Why!--why, that was the kind of a step-one a boy'd like to have come
home with his father! That was the very kind! While you'd been lying
there thinking you couldn't imagine one, you'd imagined! And it was
_easy!_

The step-one a boy would like to have come home with his father
seemed to materialize out of the dim, soft haze from the shaded
night-lamp,--seemed to creep out of the farther shadows and come and
stand beside the bed, under the ring of light on the ceiling that
made a halo for its head. The room seemed suddenly full of its
gracious presence. It came smiling, as a boy would like it to come.
And in a reg'lar mother-voice it began to speak. Morry lay as if in a
wondrous dream and listened.

"Are you the dear little boy whose legs won't go?" He gasped a
little, for he hadn't thought of there being a "dear." He had to
swallow twice before he could answer. Then:--

"Oh yes'm, thank you," he managed to say. "They're under the
bedclothes."

"Then I've come to the right place. Do you know--guess!--who I am?"

"Are--are you a step-one?" breathing hard.

"Why, you've guessed the first time!" the Gracious One laughed.

"Not--not _the_ one, I s'pose?" It frightened him to say it. But the
Gracious One laughed again.

"_The_ one, yes, you Dear Little Boy Whose Legs Won't Go! I thought I
heard you calling me, so I came. And I've brought you something."

To think of that!

"Guess, you Dear Little Boy! What would you like it to be?"

Oh, if he only dared! He swallowed to get up courage. Then he
ventured timidly.

"A Rec-om-pense." It was out.

"Oh, you Guesser--you little Guesser! You've guessed the second
time!"

Was that what it was like? Something you couldn't see at all, just
feel,--that folded you in like a warm shawl,--that brushed your
forehead, your cheek, your mouth,--that made you dizzy with
happiness? You lay folded up in it and knew that it _made up_. Never
mind about the sorrowful, limp legs under the bedclothes. They seemed
so far away that you almost forgot about them. They might have been
somebody else's, while you lay in the warm, sweet Rec-om-pe