Goldie's Footwear Hunt

1) One snowy day, a red vixen named Goldie Fox went to the house of Cindy and Clara Wolf. She rang the doorbell.
Cindy Wolf opened it up.
“Howdy, Goldie,” said Cindy. “C’mon in and make yourself comfortable.”
Used to removing her shoes inside a house, Goldie took her shoes off.
“How about ya remove them socks, too?” Cindy asked. “We done usually ask our guests to do that.”
“Why?” she asked.
“‘Cause your paws would feel more free and without no pain without nothin’ on them,” Cindy answered. “Trust me. You’ll feel more footloose.”
Cindy and Goldie laughed at that pun, and Goldie removed the socks from her feet.
“Do make yourself comfortable,” she said.
As Goldie sat down on the couch, Cindy brought her the footstool.
“Foot paws?” she said, and Goldie placed her bare feet on top of it.
“Hey, ma! Goldie Fox has come!” Cindy then called to her mother Clara.
When Clara came down, Cindy whispered to her.
“What are you whispering about?” Goldie asked Cindy.
“No worries, y’all,” Cindy replied as she got a special power tool out. It had brushes at one end.
“What’s that?” Goldie asked.
“This here’s a paw cleaner,” Cindy replied. “I reckon it’ll tickle, but it’ll feel nice and shine your foot paws. Just relax.”
Cindy turned on the paw cleaner, making its brushes move around as she brushed the soles of Goldie’s feet. She laughed so loudly she couldn’t hear the door open and close.

2) Eventually, after Clara came back in the house and closed the door, the soles of Goldie’s feet were shining like diamonds.
“Well, I do declare,” Cindy said. “Your foot paws are clean.”
Goldie looked at her soles.
“They’re so shiny,” she said.
“Told ya,” Cindy said.
“Well, it was nice being here, but I’d like to go outside and play, so I’ll just get my…”
As she was reaching for her shoes and socks, she found that they were gone.
“What happened to my shoes and socks?” she asked.
Both she-wolves shrugged their shoulders.
“Y’all can’t let that there footwear of yours being gone stop ya from goin’ outside to play,” Clara said.
“We done wore nothin’ on our foot paws, and we is dang proud of it,” Cindy remarked. “Ain’t that right, Clara?”
“Yep, she’s right,” Clara replied. “Try it and see.”
Oh, well, Goldie thought. If they can adapt to walking barefoot in the snow, I suppose I shall give it a try, just in case they’re scattered outside.

3) Without nothin’… I mean, without anything on her feet, Goldie walked slowly and uncomfortably on the snow. Her bare feet turned blue and she gritted her teeth. She just walked back to the house, in which Clara and Cindy, with their feet on the footstool, wiggle all twelve of their toes.
“My feet are freezing, and I’ll be catching a cold soon,” she said to Cindy and Clara. “Don’t your feet ever freeze? Don’t you ever catch colds?”
“Nope, we done never catch colds,” Clara said, as she and Cindy kept wiggling their toes.
“Also, we know how not to freeze our paws in the snow without nothin’ on them,” Cindy said. “We think of it as somethin’ warm. That always helps.”
“She’s right. Y’all can do it too,” Clara said.
“Thank you,” said Goldie. “I hope it works, because even if it kept my mind off the chill, I’ll still catch a cold.”
“Trust me,” said Clara. “It’ll help, and you’ll never catch a cold.”
So, Goldie tried it again, but she was doing it to look for her shoes and socks. In the meantime, she was thinking of the snow as warm sand.
“This feels like sand,” she said to herself.
She looked in the barn, in the fields, in the pens, and up trees, but not a shoe or a sock did she find.
“I give up,” she said, and walked back to the house. Soon, once again, on the way, the snow felt cold under her feet, and all this time, she never noticed any small trace of where holes had been dug.

4) “I couldn’t find my shoes or socks,” complained Goldie. “I looked everywhere.”
“Did y’all at least think of the snow as somethin’ warm?” Cindy asked.
“Briefly, but I never found my shoes or socks,” she said. “Because of this, I forgot about it and it felt cold again.”
“Just keep thinkin’ about somethin’ warm when y’all walk in the snow without nothin’ on your paws,” Clara advised.
“Okay,” Goldie said without enthusiasm.
Back outside, Goldie, thinking of the snow as sand, dug in the it with her hands. She kept looking, and looking, and looking, until finally, she found one of her shoes, all wet, to her own dismay. She dropped the shoe, and she continued to look until she found one of her socks. It was soaking wet, much to her own dismay. She groaned at this. She kept looking, and found the mates to her shoe and sock. She wrung the water out of her socks and shook her shoes.
“I found them, and they were all soaking wet,” Goldie told the wolves, who had just come outside.
“I did it so you could give feelin’ the snow with your foot paws,” Clara explained to Goldie. “Also, I was checkin’ to see how y’all liked the feel of the snow under your foot paws.”
“Well, it was okay, since, as you said, it helped to think of the snow as warm sand,” said Goldie. “But I don’t think I’ll be going barefoot in the snow anymore.”
“That’s fine with me,” said Cindy. “But Ricky the Lion didn’t like it at first, and he loved it when he tried it.”
“I’d like to meet him someday, with or without shoes or socks,” said Goldie.
“Oh, you will someday. I know you will,” said Clara.
“Is there any place I can have my shoes and socks set to dry?” asked Goldie.
“Yep,” Clara said. “Hang them by the mantle.”
“Thank you,” she said and hung her shoes and socks by the fire.
“It is nice to end every walk in the snow with warming your paws by the fire,” Clara said to her.
So Goldie rested her feet by the fire, enjoying the actual warmth of the flames, while her shoes and socks were drying.

5) After a fine dinner Goldie had with the Wolf family, including Tod and Tom, and dinner consisted of fried chicken, potatoes, and corn, she checked her shoes and socks, and they had finally dried out.
“Thank you for the dinner, Clara,” Goldie said, putting her socks on. “It was fantastic.”
Feeling the warmth of her socks, she added, “And these socks feel so warm.”
“Y’all is welcome,” Clara said.
Goldie hugged Clara.
“Now, I must be going home, but I’ll come back another time,” said Goldie to Clara.
“Okay,” Clara replied.
Goldie began to leave, but Clara said,
“By the way, Goldie?” Clara called out.
“Yes, Clara?” Goldie asked, looking back.
“Next time y’all walk in the snow barepawed, try not to think about no footwear. Just think of the snow as warm.”
“Okay, I will,” she said, and left, but then, she realized, she had forgotten her shoes when she stepped in the snow. She groaned and walked back into the house to get her shoes, but despite her socks being wet again, she put her shoes on and then started to leave for home.
“Good-bye, Wolf family!” she called.
“Bye, Goldie!” Clara said, waving.

THE END