All the donkeys heard some strange people coming up the dirt path that led to the farmhouse. The donkey corral was near the side of the house. Simon was the proud owner of seventeen donkeys. He and his wife, Ruth Ann, had raised each donkey from birth.

“Who knows what it’s all about?” said one donkey.

“Yeah, we don’t get many visitors here at the farm,” said another.

“And they don’t look like farm people,” said a third donkey. “They look like city people.”

“Yeah, their clothes are so clean and new,” the first donkey said.

The visitors went inside the house with Simon. They stayed there with him and his wife at least twenty minutes, maybe more. None of the donkeys had a watch, of course, so they couldn’t be dead sure.

Still, all seventeen of them waited in the corral with excitement. They were so curious to know why the strangers had come to the farm.

Then Simon and his wife and the visitors came out of the house and walked over to the donkey corral.

They stood there at the gate looking at all the cute but dirty donkeys.

The donkeys, in turn, looked at their owners and the visitors.

“That one over there,” said one of the visitors. “I like that one. I like its height and shade of gray. I like its face, too.”

The visitor had pointed at the donkey they all knew as Brutus. Brutus was indeed special and all the other donkeys knew it. He was considered the sweetest of them all.

“I won’t charge you too much. We call that one Brutus,” Simon told the visitor.

The visitor took some money from his pocket.

Simon clapped his hands once or twice and called out to Brutus. Oddly, Brutus obeyed and began walking toward the gate where Simon stood. Simon and Ruth Ann looked at each other surprised because they’d never seen Brutus so obedient before.

“Who did you say the donkey was for?” asked Simon while opening the gate.

“A good friend of ours,” one of the visitors answered. “He’s going to Jerusalem next Sunday and wants a donkey. He’s going to ride the donkey into the city.”

“Whatever,” Simon said. “Takes all kinds in this world, doesn’t it?”