For a time, as long as the road was smooth, the staff seemed to be all that he needed; but when he came to an uneven place, he found that it did not answer. It was too short, though as long as that sort of wood grew, and it was too rough, hurting his hand as he leaned upon it. Beside this, it did not take a firm hold on the ground, but slipped from under him, giving him many falls.
After one of these falls, while he was lying prostrate and hardly able to rise, a man came to him with a pair of crutches in his hand. The man raised him up from the ground, put the crutches under his arms, and showed him how to walk with them.
And now the poor cripple was overjoyed to find that he could walk with comparative ease and with perfect safety. Yet he kept the staff that he had cut for himself, carrying it, thrust under his girdle, across his back, behind him.