Once upon a time, there was a very small - and very bad ferret whose name was Odie. He really was small, but he really wasn't all that bad. He just liked to get into things and have a good time with them. He seemed to be posessed by a particular joy of life that many folks just could not understand. His penchant for fun had gotten him into trouble many times. His life had begun in a cage in New York. He often drempt of the happy times he spent there with his mother, brothers and sisters. He often chuckled at the trouble he had gotten them all into with his spirit of adventure and fun. Time went by and Odie found himself in a place called Illinois. He was happy there for he was loved and had many good friends to play with and to get into trouble with. He often drempt of his mother and the happy days of his kithood. He also began to dream those other dreams. More time went by, as it always does, and Odie found himself living at a University in the state of Georgia. He liked it there, applied himself to his studies and became a very educated ferret. He also managed to have a very good time and to get into lots of trouble. Every night he dreamed those other dreams. They were becoming more and more real to him. Visions of fig trees and of desert sands remained with him long after he awoke each morning. He frequently thought that he could still hear the sound of a baby's cry as he made his morning rounds and woke up his Dad's roomates. By and by, he found himself living in another place. He wasn't sure why he'd had to move, but figured that it had something to do with the fact that he was being bad and becoming unmanageable - whatever that meant. It wasn't a bad place. Actually, he came to like it very much. It was the home of a kindly old couple, if you could discount the fact the Old Man did get grouchy now and then. It was also the home of a good natured young ferret by the name of Tater. Odie quickly decided that Tater was one of his long-lost brothers from that place in New York. It didn't matter to him that it might not be so. He decided that truth should never get in the way of a good feeling. Odie was happy and content. Even so, his dreams of another place and another time did not cease. He'd frequently wake up with the feeling that he'd been on a very long journey through a hot and barren desert - whatever a desert might be. It was on a Thursday afternoon, late in the month of November, that everything began to fall into place for Odie. The humans had cooked the largest bird that he had ever seen; stuffed it with wonderful and tasty things. He and Tater had eaten themselves to the point of bursting with a wonderful new food called 'leftovers'. All was right with the world. The humans, it seems, had also eaten themselves into a similar state of stupor. "I'm so thankful," Odie thought as he settled into the old man's lap for a well deserved nap. "Thankful to be who I am; thankful for a full belly of tasty stuff; thankful for the love I've found here." Having thought this with his last conscious thought, Odie yawned and drifted into a peaceful and dream-filled sleep. The dream was more real than it had ever been. It was much more than a dream this time. It was a memory. "Chop, chop, chop," he heard as Joseph worked the timber with a vision of the table that it would become. "Joseph," he heard Mary say, "The soldiers are in the square. It's something about a census. Put down your adze and let's go see what it's all about." "Soldiers?" Joseph replied. "Are you sure that it's a census that they're about? Or have they found out about Josh, our ferret?" To be continued... Joy to the World! [Posted in FML issue 1770]