New Shoes
After the confusing encounter and unlikely escape from his sister, Ned was content to get as far away from the house as possible. As far as he knew, he wasn't needed for anything, so he set off into the surrounding woods in search of a nice place to sit. Unfortunately, said woods were very thin at this time of year and didn't yield that much area to choose from, so Ned took his usual route. Across the hill he went, crunching through the leaves and stepping over the viny trip-hazards. A small mound of dirt and root marked an old fallen tree. It also had fairly good tree cover and a nice view of the house, so he sat down there and began to think. His most pressing matters were that of new shoes. New boots, to be exact. He'd been using a very nice, tall pair of boots for the past few weeks, but their previous owner had worn them down pretty well already. The effects of this wearing were obvious in the cracked rubber line down the fronts, the cat claw marks in the sides, and most plainly the nearly smooth tracks. They were still workable, but the bottoms were really getting to him, what with all the slip-sliding he'd done recently. First it was the horse stall, then it was the squishy muddy hill, and finally the numerous other encounters with smooth floors. He'd decided by then that it was time for a new pair. It was sad though because the boots were still usable, just needing a little home repairing that Ned probably couldn't manage. That only left buying a brand new pair as the solution, but how? As far as he knew, that brand was very expensive (for good reason though), and might not have that exact kind anymore.