“Please Wizard Ben, tell me why you have frog’s feet!” Little Paris begged. He was paid to sweep the floors, not stick his nose in Ben’s business, but the old wizard had a soft spot for him.
Crossing his ankles and giving his webbed feet a little shake, he lit his pipe and began his story.
“I wasn’t much older than you when it happened. I was camping in the woods with friends, down by the Lungip River when a huge crocodile snuck out of the water and dragged me back in by both feet. I hadn’t learned magic then, so I fought with my bare hands; thrashing, and wrestling with the beast.”
Little Paris stopped sweeping and stood wide-eyed by the fireplace. “Wow! What happened next?”
“Two friends waded in and pulled me free. But alas, the crocodile had bitten off and swallowed both of my feet. I would have died right there if my friends hadn’t summoned Wizard Roz to save me.”
“Ah, so Wizard Roz gave you the frog’s feet? But why? Didn’t you want new human feet?” Paris asked.
Ben puffed on his pipe and nodded a few times. “Of course, I wanted human feet! But Wizard Roz explained that the only way I could have them was if I took them from another human. If I cut them off someone else, he could use magic to attach them to me, but he couldn’t make new feet out of nothing.”
Paris was quiet for a moment, deep in thought. “How could anyone take another person’s feet? It’s barbaric!”
“I agree,” Ben continued. “And so, I have the feet of the only animal I was willing to steal from. A common frog. My friends suggested all kinds of other animals; horses, sheep, rabbits, even ostriches, but I didn’t have the stomach for it.” Leaning back in his rocking chair, Ben closed his eyes for a moment, remembering that tough decision.
“Your friends were stupid,” Paris announced. “Horses and sheep? They have four legs and you only needed two feet. How wasteful!” Resuming his sweeping, he prattled on. “I guess rabbit’s or ostrich’s feet would be cooler than frog’s feet, though. With rabbit’s feet, you could jump high, and they’d always be warm. And ostrich feet would make you run fast.”
Ben chuckled at the boy’s imagination. “Good points of course, but faced with the same dilemma, I doubt many people could bring themselves to chop off either animal’s feet.”
“I hope I never have to make such a choice,” Paris replied somberly.

***

It was only a few months later that Ben received some terrible news.
“Did you hear, Wizard Ben? Poor little Paris was attacked by a mountain lion and had his whole nose bitten off!” Mrs. Grosby shared. “His mother said he is healing well, but is there anything you can do for him?”
Ben’s instinct was to rush to the boy, yet he composed himself. The lad would come to him in time if he was prepared for an extreme remedy.
“I’m afraid not,” he told Mrs. Grosby, and turned away before she could further plead for his help. There was a limit to what magic could do.
Not two weeks later, Ben was tending to his green tomatoes out back of his cottage when Paris appeared at the gate.
“Wizard Ben! Greetings!” He called. The poor child’s face was half-covered in a bandage, but it warmed Ben’s heart, to see Paris was still the same cheerful boy he knew.
“Good day, young Paris! I’m very pleased to see you.” Wiping his dirty hands on his gardening apron, Ben met up with Paris by the fence. He stretched out a hand to shake the lad’s, not noticing at first the cage Paris had been carrying.
“What do you have there?” he asked, opening the gate to let the boy into the yard.
“It’s a fox,” Paris explained. “She got caught in one of Father’s traps and her hind leg is pretty mangled and infected. She’s barely breathing now. I don’t think she’ll live much longer.”
“Let me see.” Ben crouched down and put his hand between the cage bars to feel the creature’s life force. “Ah, she is too close to death for me to save. But I’m guessing, that’s not why you brought her here?”
Fresh tears escaped the boy’s already red eyes. “If you can save her, please do. But if you can’t….I wonder if it’s possible….?” He didn’t ask the question. He didn’t have to.
Ben took the cage and put an arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Come inside and let’s get to work. I think you’ll look quite fetching with a fox’s snout.”