“I am very sorry to see that your boy has to go on crutches.”

“Yes, his father and I feel very sad about it,” Joe’s mother answered.  “We have already had the doctors do almost everything they can to cure him, but now we fear he must have another and worse operation.  I dread it, and that is why I would get him almost anything to make him happy.  He seemed very pleased with the Nodding Donkey.”

“I’m sure Joe will like that toy,” said Mr. Mugg.

And when Joe had the wooden animal in his hands, and saw how much faster the head nodded at him, the lame boy smiled and said: 

“Oh, this is the nicest toy I ever had!”

“I am glad you like it,” said the storekeeper.  “Geraldine, please wrap up the Nodding Donkey for Joe.”

All this while the Nodding Donkey had said nothing, of course, and he had done nothing, except to shake his head.  He took one last look around the toy store as he was being wrapped up in paper by Miss Geraldine.  The Nodding Donkey saw the Jack in the Box and the China Cat peering at him.

“I wish I might say good-by to them,” thought the four-legged toy, “but I suppose it isn’t allowed.  I shall be lonesome without them.”

The China Cat wished she might wave her paw, or even the tip of her tail, at her friend, the Nodding Donkey, and the Jack in the Box did seem to nod a farewell, but perhaps that was because he was on a spring, and could move so easily.  As for the China Cat, she had to keep straight and stiff.

With the Nodding Donkey safely wrapped in paper under his arm, Joe left the store of Mr. Mugg with his mother.  Joe limped along on his crutches, and he had to go slowly.  But he was smiling happily, and for the first day in a long time he forgot about his lameness.  And when his mother saw her son smiling, she, too, smiled.  But she was worried about another operation that Joe must go through.  The doctor had said that one of his legs had grown so crooked that the only way to fix it was to break it, and let it grow together again, straight.

But now, with his Nodding Donkey, Joe thought nothing about operations, or his crutches, or about being lame.  All his mind was on the Nodding Donkey, and he even tore a little hole in the paper so he could look through and make sure his toy was all right.

His mother saw him tearing this hole as they sat in the street car riding home, and as she looked down at him sitting beside her she smiled and asked: 

“Aren’t you afraid your Nodding Donkey will take cold?”

“Oh, no, Mother,” Joe answered.  “It is nice and warm in this car.  But I’ll hold my hand over the hole if you want me to, and that will keep out the wind when we walk along the street.”

Soon Joe and his mother left the car, to walk toward their home, which was not far from the corner.  The weather was getting colder now, and even inside the wrapping paper the Nodding Donkey could feel it, though the lame boy did hold his hand over the hole.