A Ferret Christmas Story
 
Long ago, in a far away time, in a place that would someday be called
Wisconsin - a place that no one would associate with Christmas for a very
long time - a very small, perhaps fragile, young ferret by the name of
Dances with Joy climbed a hill and rested her whiskered nose upon a snow
covered log and gazed up at the night sky.
 
Grandmother Moon was high and bright in the eastern sky, leading her Sky
Children on their nightly procession toward dawn.  The Seven Sisters shown
with twinkling brilliance as they danced among the bright stars of all the
souls that had ever lived, or would ever be.
 
Dances with Joy sighed as a single snowflake landed on her nose and, melting
there, seemed to whisper a single word =96 a Word that Dances could not
quite hear.  While she strained with all her senses to capture that fleeting
sound, she felt the new life that stirred within her.  She knew that her
time was near.
 
Her concentration was broken for a moment as the smell of birch smoke
penetrated her consciousness as it wafted up from the camp below her perch
upon the hill.  Distracted, she looked down and saw the bouncing form of
her mate, Gnaws on Wood, as he followed Tree Shaper and his wife, New
Mother, into their lodge of hides and logs and mud.  She laughed along with
the laughter of the band's children as they headed off to their own lodges
form a warm winter's night sleep.
 
Soon, all was quiet in the village below.  Fires were banked for the night
and even the Old Chief finally limped to his lodge and began snoring that
musical snore that only he could snore =96 a snore that meant that all were
safe for yet another night.
 
Dances was nearly asleep herself when she felt an aching to be with Gnaws
on Wood, for she had a feeling that this would be a special night.
 
Drowsily, she got up from her perch and felt the kit within her stir again.
 
"Be still, little One," She said as if to herself.  "I'm not sure if your
time is yet, but I know that it will soon come.  Be patient while I go to
join your father in the warmth of our lodge this night."
 
She shook the snow from her whiskers and tail and started down the hill,
looking forward to curling up beside her hard working and loving mate.
 
Before she had gone more than a few steps through the deepening snow, she
was blinded by a light that seemed to fill the sky from east to west =96 as
if a new star had been born and was rushing to fill the night with it's
brilliance.  At the same moment, she heard New Mother cry out in her sleep.
 
To be continued...
 
Joy to the World!
Paw Paw
[Posted in FML issue 2496]