Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul Read Online Free PDF

Debbie.”
    “Debbie?”
    “Yes, at least that’s what we call her. She’s a stray. Comes here two or three times a week and we give her some food. I don’t know where she lives but I believe she spends a lot of her time around one of the farms along the road.”
    “Do you ever get the feeling that she wants to stay with you?”
    “No.” Mrs. Ainsworth shook her head. “She’s a timid little thing. Just creeps in, has some food, then flits away. There’s something so appealing about her, but she doesn’t seem to want to let me or anybody into her life.”
    I looked again at the little cat. “But she isn’t just having food today.”
    “That’s right. It’s a funny thing but every now and again she slips through here into the lounge and sits by the fire for a few minutes. It’s as though she was giving herself a treat.”
    “Yes . . . I see what you mean.” There was no doubt there was something unusual in the attitude of the little animal. She was sitting bolt upright on the thick rug which lay before the fireplace in which the coals glowed and flamed. She made no effort to curl up or wash herself or do anything other than gaze quietly ahead. And there was something in the dusty black of her coat, the half-wild scrawny look of her, that gave me a clue. This was a special event in her life, a rare and wonderful thing. She was lapping up a comfort undreamed of in her daily existence.
    As I watched she turned, crept soundlessly from the room and was gone. “That’s always the way with Debbie,”
    Mrs. Ainsworth laughed. “She never stays more than ten minutes or so, then she’s off.”
    Mrs. Ainsworth was a plumpish, pleasant-faced woman in her forties and the kind of client veterinary surgeons dream of—well off, generous, and the owner of three cosseted Basset hounds. And it only needed the habitually mournful expression of one of the dogs to deepen a little and I was round there post-haste. Today one of the Bassets had raised its paw and scratched its ear a couple of times and that was enough to send his mistress scurrying to the phone in great alarm.
    So my visits to the Ainsworth home were frequent but undemanding, and I had ample opportunity to look out for the little cat that had intrigued me. On one occasion I spotted her nibbling daintily from a saucer at the kitchen door. As I watched she turned and almost floated on light footsteps into the hall and then through the lounge door. The three Bassets were already in residence draped snoring on the fireside rug, but they seemed to be used to Debbie because two of them sniffed her in a bored manner and the third merely cocked a sleepy eye at her before flopping back on the rich pile.
    Debbie sat among them in her usual posture; upright, intent, gazing absorbedly into the glowing coals. This time I tried to make friends with her. I approached her carefully but she leaned away as I stretched out my hand. However, by patient wheedling and soft talk I managed to touch her and gently stroke her cheek with one finger. There was a moment when she responded by putting her head on one side and rubbing back against my hand, but soon she was ready to leave. Once outside the house she darted quickly along the road then through a gap in a hedge, and the last I saw was the little black figure flitting over the rain-swept grass of a field.
    “I wonder where she goes,” I murmured half to myself.
    Mrs. Ainsworth appeared at my elbow. “That’s something we’ve never been able to find out.”
    It must have been nearly three months before I heard from Mrs. Ainsworth, and in fact I had begun to wonder at the Bassets’ long symptomless run when she came on the phone.
    It was Christmas morning and she was apologetic. “Mr. Herriot, I’m so sorry to bother you today of all days. I should think you want a rest at Christmas like anybody else.” But her natural politeness could not hide the distress in her voice.
    “Please don’t worry about that,” I said.