It is a springtime night in New England. The air is sweet, and soft against your cheek. Look up, and you can see the lacy shillouette of maple flowers against a full moon. In the distance, you can hear those tiny frogs with the mighty voices, the Spring Peepers, singing their songs of love in the gritty, cold mud. In front of the Sargent-Colburn home, a large and a small ferret weave their way through a stand of fragrant hyacinth, pink in the daylight, but the color of ivory in moonlight. Each stop to put their face in the fragrant flowers, then move on, down to the lower driveway. You know, of course, what waits in the lower driveway. Grass green and daffodill yellow with massive rear tires and two tiny ones in front, a 1947 John Deere Model B tractor. It wants to go, it wants to play, it wants to belch smoke and fly...it hasn't moved in weeks. The other tractors are terribly jealous. It is time for a driving lesson. The larger of the two ferrets comes up to the tractor at a half gallop and stops, looks up. He is momentarily speechless. But not the smaller of the two. She is well acquainted with the proper steps necessary to bring this beast's cold, greasy, iron heart to throbbing life. She looks up at the machine, and smiles, tips her head one way, then another, lost in rememberance...."Heeeeeeee", she sighs. "Miss Lily," says the larger of the two in reverential tones, "that thing is *awful* big!" "Hee-hee-hee-heeee...." chuckles the smaller female. "And you want to start that thing with *ether*? Like, blows up *ether*? Bang? Ball of fire?" "HEE!" "Omigod. You'll blow the fur right off us Miss Lily!" The smaller female turns her head slowly and fixes the larger, younger male with a glare that he really, really wished he'd never had anything to do with. Miss Lily may be small, and six, and not well, but her glare works just fine, thank you! "You don't need to know the whole alphabet to know that she's alpha, and you're beta., dude!", the larger male thinks to himself. She allows just a hint of fang to show from beneath her right lip in a sort of Elvis maneuver. "Ok, Ok, Ok. What do you want me to do ma'am?", he says aloud. The smaller female closes her eyes until they are mere slits, and furrows her brow, wondering if this 'ma'am' business is insolence or ignorance. She opts for ignorance, which is regrettable, but requires no immediate correction. This boy Ping is...teachable, she believes. She utters a complex string of instructions, which Ping is He follows with intense concentration. Fear will do that for you. It focuses you like nothing else does. Ping immediately begins to search the cluttered driveway (his hoomin Daddy is NOT good at putting away his toys) for the required can of ether. Yes, ether. As Ping would say "Like, blows up, bang! ball of fire!" More Tomorrow Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML issue 4860]