Then suddenly―plump-plop!―with a thud fell some powdered snow onto his head. The little fox rushed away in a panic, but when he stopped to look back, he saw no one. The snow had actually slipped off the branches of a fir tree. He watched some of it still sliding down like threads.
Later, the little fox went home. “Mommy, my hands are cold―they’re tingling!” said he, holding out his sore wet paws to his mother. She blew on them with her warm breath and muffled them gently in her paws. “They’ll get better soon. Snow won’t hurt you,” said the mother fox. But she was worried that his paws might get swollen, and so she decided to go to town that evening to buy woolen mittens in her child’s size.
Darkness came over the forest and the field; still the snow remained white during the night. Then the two animals left home. The child walked along, staying beneath his mother and looking all around with curious eyes.