I knelt on the rug and passed my hand over Debbie’s neck and ribs. She was thinner than ever, her fur dirty and mud-caked. She did not resist as I gently opened her mouth. The tongue and mucous membranes were abnormally pale and the lips ice-cold against my fingers. When I pulled down her eyelid and saw the dead white conjunctiva, a knell sounded in my mind. I palpated the abdomen with a grim certainty as to what I would find and there was no surprise, only a dull sadness as my fingers closed around a hard lobulated mass deep among the viscera. Massive lymphosarcoma. Terminal and hopeless. I put my stethoscope on her heart and listened to the increasingly faint, rapid beat then I straightened up and sat on the rug looking sightlessly into the fireplace, feeling the warmth of the flames on my face.
Mrs. Ainsworth’s voice seemed to come from afar. “Is she ill, Mr. Herriot?”
I hesitated. “Yes . . . yes, I’m afraid so. She has a malignant growth.” I stood up. “There’s absolutely nothing you can do. I’m sorry.”
“Oh!” Her hand went to her mouth and she looked at me wide-eyed. When at last she spoke her voice trembled. “Well, you must put her to sleep immediately. It’s the only thing to do. We can’t let her suffer.”
“Mrs. Ainsworth,” I said. “There’s no need. She’s dying now—in a coma—far beyond suffering.”
She turned quickly away from me and was very still as she fought with her emotions. Then she gave up the struggle and dropped to her knees beside Debbie. “Oh, poor little thing!” She sobbed and stroked the cat’s head again and again as the tears fell unchecked on the matted fur. “What she must have come through! I feel I ought to have done more for her.”
For a few moments I was silent, feeling her sorrow, so discordant among the bright seasonal colors of this festive room. Then I spoke gently. “Nobody could have done more than you,” I said. “Nobody could have been kinder.”
“But I’d have kept her here—in comfort. It must have been terrible out there in the cold when she was so desperately ill—I daren’t think about it. And having kittens, too—I . . . I wonder how many she did have?”
I shrugged. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Maybe just this one. It happens sometimes. And she brought it to you, didn’t she?”
“Yes . . . that’s right . . . she did . . . she did.” Mrs. Ainsworth reached out and lifted the bedraggled black morsel. She smoothed her finger along the muddy fur and the tiny mouth opened in a soundless miaow. “Isn’t it strange? She was dying and she brought her kitten here. And on Christmas Day.”
I bent and put my hand on Debbie’s heart. There was no beat.
I looked up. “I’m afraid she’s gone.” I lifted the small body, almost feather light, wrapped it in the sheet which had been spread on the rug and took it to the car. When I came back Mrs. Ainsworth was still stroking the kitten. The tears had dried on her cheeks and she was bright-eyed as she looked at me. “I’ve never had a cat before,” she said.
I smiled. “Well it looks as though you’ve got one now.”
And she certainly had. The kitten grew rapidly into a sleek, handsome cat with a boisterous nature which earned him the name of Buster. In every way he was the opposite to his timid little mother. Not for him the privations of the secret outdoor life; he stalked the rich carpets of the Ainsworth home like a king and the ornate collar he always wore added something more to his presence.
On my visits I watched his development with delight, but the occasion which stays in my mind was the following Christmas Day, a year from his arrival.
I was out on my rounds as usual. I can’t remember when I haven’t had to work on Christmas Day because the animals have never got around to recognizing it as a holiday; but with the passage of the years the vague resentment I used to feel has been replaced by philosophical acceptance. After all, as I tramped around the hillside barns in the frosty air I was working up a better appetite for my turkey than all the millions lying in bed or slumped by the fire; and this was aided by the innumerable aperitifs I received from the hospitable farmers. I was on my way home, bathed in a rosy glow. I had consumed several whiskies—the kind the inexpert Yorkshiremen pour as though it was ginger ale—and I had finished with a glass of old Mrs. Earnshaw’s rhubarb wine which had seared its way straight to my toenails. I heard the cry as I was passing Mrs. Ainsworth’s house. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Herriot!” She was letting a visitor out of the front door and she waved at me gaily. “Come in and have a drink to warm you up.”
I didn’t need warming up, but I pulled in to the curb without hesitation. In the house there was all the festive cheer of last year and the same glorious whiff of sage and onion which set my gastric juices surging. But there was not the sorrow; there was Buster.
He was darting up to each of the dogs in turn, ears pricked, eyes blazing with devilment, dabbing a paw at them, then streaking away.
Mrs. Ainsworth laughed. “You know, he plagues the life out of them. Gives them no peace.”
She was right. To the Bassets, Buster’s arrival was rather like the intrusion of an irreverent outsider into an exclusive London club. For a long time they had led a life of measured grace; regular sedate walks with their mistress, superb food in ample quantities and long snoring sessions on the rugs and armchairs. Their days followed one upon the other in unruffled calm. And then came Buster.
He was dancing up to the youngest dog again, sideways this time, head on one side, goading him. When he started boxing with both paws it was too much even for the Basset. He dropped his dignity and rolled over with the cat in a brief wrestling match.
“I want to show you something.” Mrs. Ainsworth lifted a hard rubber ball from the sideboard and went out to the garden, followed by Buster. She threw the ball across the lawn and the cat bounded after it over the frosted grass, the muscles rippling under the black sheen of his coat. He seized the ball in his teeth, brought it back to his mistress, dropped it and waited expectantly. She threw it and he brought it back again. I gasped incredulously. A feline retriever!
The Bassets looked on disdainfully. Nothing would ever have induced them to chase a ball, but Buster did it again and again as though he would never tire of it.
Mrs. Ainsworth turned to me. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
“No,” I replied. “I never have. He is a most remarkable cat.”
She snatched Buster from his play and we went back into the house where she held him close to her face, laughing as he purred and arched himself ecstatically against her cheek.
As I looked at him, a picture of health and contentment, my mind went back to his mother. Was it too much to think that that dying little creature, with the last of her strength, had carried her kitten to the only haven of comfort and warmth she had ever known in the hope that it would be cared for there? Maybe it was.
But it seemed I wasn’t the only one with such fancies. Mrs. Ainsworth turned to me and though she was smiling her eyes were wistful. “Debbie would be pleased,” she said.
I nodded. “Yes, she would. . . . It was just a year ago today she brought him, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.” She hugged Buster to her again. “The best Christmas present I ever had.”
James Herriot, D.V.M.
Princess Was a Nuisance
She was only a mixed-breed scrap of a dog. Her colors were black and tan, but her eyes were what made me take her. They were warm and had gold flecks in them. Other than that, she was nothing unusual, or as my father put it, “A damn nuisance.” I called her Princess.
Dad preferred his hunting dog, a massive hound named Rudy, who followed him everywhere. Rudy had status; Princess was barely tolerated. At mealtimes, she would wait until Rudy ate, then settle for scraps. She slept beside my bed, content that at least one person loved her.
One day Princess started barking like mad near the railroad tracks that ran beside our house. We realized something was wrong when Dad said Rudy had gotten loose. We followed Princess, who led us to Rudy’s lifeless body beside the
tracks. His neck was broken.
Dad stumbled back to the house in shock. The task of burying the huge dog fell to me. As I dug, Princess sat next to the body with a perplexed look in her eyes. When I lowered Rudy into the grave, she showed alarm. When I began to cover him with dirt, she became visibly agitated, so much so that I hurriedly unburied Rudy and made certain he was dead.
When I finished, Princess tried to unbury him. I chased her away. She tried again. I held her to me and told her through my tears that her friend was gone. An odd expression came over her features, and she walked over to the grave and lay across Rudy’s final resting place.
That night, I tried to get her inside, but she wouldn’t budge. I tried to get her to eat, but she ignored the bowl. Next day, the same thing. That night, a howling rainstorm roared in. She was still there the following morning and kept her vigil throughout the rainy day. I told Dad I was worried, but he said, “She’ll be in when she gets hungry and wet enough.” He clearly wasn’t concerned over what he considered an inferior animal. More important, he was doing his own grieving. Until then, he had not been able to even look at his pet’s grave.
The next morning, Princess was still in place. I ran downstairs, determined this time to drag her off. I stopped when I saw Dad emerge from the parlor carrying his buffalo-robe blanket. No one was ever allowed to touch that blanket. He told me to stay put. I watched from the window as he shook out the blanket above Princess’s soaked form, wrapped her up, and lifted her into his arms like a child. He told us to get towels and warm soapy water. My sister and I wanted to care for her, but he wouldn’t allow it. Never looking up as he worked on the bedraggled animal, he said the job was his alone.
He cleaned off the mud and dried her shivering body. Then he took her in his lap.
For a long time he sat there, tears running down his cheeks, the only sound in the room the rain beating on the windows. Finally, he said quietly that he had never known such loyalty from man or beast.
And so for as long as she lived, Princess sat at his feet, slept on his bed and ate from his plate—an honored member of our family.
Carol Ann Baum
A Horse and His Boy
When Wayne, my oldest son, turned two, I bought a four-year-old, black Appaloosa gelding named Sonny. The two quickly bonded. Even though Wayne was too small to ride Sonny, the two were inseparable. We installed a fence around our well-grassed sideyard and allowed Sonny to graze freely. He often came right up to the house. In fact, Sonny hadn’t been with us long when he ripped the screen off Wayne’s bedroom window. After that, I’d often find my son reaching out the window to pet Sonny or to give him food. And I’d even see Sonny’s black head inside the window, snoozing, while my son slept in his bed.
One day, I put Wayne to bed for his midday nap and busied myself with my vegetable canning. Time slipped past until I glanced at the clock. Wayne hated naptime and usually slept for only an hour or so. I suddenly realized he’d been quiet for nearly two. I walked to his bedroom and peered around the door. The bed was empty.
I called his name but heard no reply or noises of his playing. I searched under the bed and in his closet. I kept calling him and walking quickly through each room. Perspiration broke out on my neck as it suddenly hit me. Wayne was not in the house!
This was my worst nightmare. Our house was surrounded by wilderness. A wildcat frequently raided our henhouse and would view a small child as perfect prey. Rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths slithered through the thickets. If that was not enough danger, a fishpond nestled in the pasture just below the house.
I ran to the front door. It was still latched with a hook and eye far above my son’s reach. The back door was the same. I stood in stunned amazement for a moment, until I remembered Wayne’s open window. Fear rose in my heart as I pictured my toddler trying to climb out the window. The drop to the ground would have been more than five feet. Surely he would have hit the ground hard enough to make him cry. Why wouldn’t I have heard him?
Running out the door, I yelled for Wayne. Thankfully, he wasn’t lying beneath his window. But where was he? Sonny was lying in the middle of our yard, with his back toward me. As I looked at Sonny, he swung his head up and down, but never made an effort to get up. But Sonny was often lazy in the midday summer sun. Still each time I yelled for Wayne, Sonny swung his head up and down, more vigorously than before. I made a mental note that once I found Wayne, I’d have to put fly wipe on Sonny’s face. The flies must really be bothering him.
Yelling at the top of my lungs and beginning to panic, I raced to the fishpond. No Wayne. I ran to the barn, but again I didn’t find him. He had to be in the woods. I could travel faster and further if I rode Sonny. I raced across the yard to Sonny and dashed around his rump.
There, stretched to the four winds across Sonny’s four legs, lay Wayne, sound asleep. His head rested on Sonny’s front legs and one foot was propped on the horse’s hip, the other on one of Sonny’s back legs. Sonny lifted his head up and down once more before placing his muzzle across Wayne’s chest. Now I understood what all that head bobbing was about. Sonny couldn’t stand up without sending the child tumbling, and if he nickered, he’d wake the boy. Sonny had been doing everything he could to let me know Wayne was safely sleeping in his embrace.
I carefully picked Wayne up, carried him to his bedroom and eased him into bed. Sonny had already poked his head through the window by the time I got to the bedroom door. He whickered, and Wayne roused. I backed up so I could watch without being seen. Wayne went to the window and grasped Sonny’s mane. Sonny lifted his head, and Wayne wrapped his arms around Sonny’s neck. He was carried out through the window and slowly lowered onto the ground. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Another mystery solved.
When my husband came home, we discussed how we could stop another “window escape.” We replaced the screen and nailed boards across the window at intervals that were too close for Sonny’s head to fit through. The boy pouted, and the horse whinnied on the other side for a few days—until Sonny managed to get his teeth between the boards and rip off the new screen. His head still wouldn’t fit, but now he could at least get his nose between the boards.
With Wayne now safe in his room, I enjoyed walking by and seeing Sonny’s black muzzle thrust through the slats. And when my husband came home from work, often his first view of the house showed a huge, black horse pressed against the white boards with the lower part of his face disappearing inside the window.
Even when the cold weather forced me to close the window, Sonny remained outside with his face pressed against the glass, the comfort of a stable forsaken to be near his boy.
Alicia Karen Elkins
Greyfriars Bobby
In death they were not parted.
2 Samuel 1:23
Sometime in the mid-1850s, a Skye terrier came to live on a farm in the hills outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. Named Bobby, the little dog attached himself to Auld Jock, the farmer’s shepherd.
Auld Jock was a fixture in those Scottish hills, and soon he and Bobby became inseparable, tending the farmer’s sheep and traveling once a week to market in the capital. Market day always featured a special lunch at the Greyfriars dining rooms. When the Edinburgh Castle gun sounded at 1:00 P.M., Jock and Bobby left whatever they were doing and headed for the dining room where the man and his dog shared their meal . . . sometimes over the protests of the manager.
Within a couple of years after meeting Bobby, Jock’s age began to weigh on him, and he contracted tuberculosis. He headed into retirement, taking small quarters in Edinburgh. Forced to leave Bobby at the farm, Jock sadly bid his companion good-bye and moved to the capital alone.
However, the next day, when Jock showed up at the Greyfriars dining rooms at the sound of the one o’clock gun, he was astonished to see Bobby rushing in to join him. Bobby had escaped from the farm and run all the way down from the hills to make sure he kept up their market-day custom. Reunited, the two friends enj
oyed their lunch, then returned to Jock’s rooms where the old man made plans to return the little terrier to the farm the next day.
It was never to be. Before he could return Bobby, Jock’s tuberculosis overtook him, and he died. Two days later neighbors found Bobby guarding the body, at first not allowing anyone to come near. Jock’s few friends arranged a simple funeral.
As the mourner’s procession moved through the streets of Edinburgh, a small, distraught dog trailed behind them, following the casket containing his friend to Greyfriars Cemetery. The cemetery used for the royalty of Scotland was the final resting place for Auld Jock.
When the funeral service ended and the mourners departed, Bobby remained, lying on the grave, forlorn, a lone dog mourning his adored master. However, such revered ground wasn’t for the convenience of dogs. James Brown, the sexton, spotted Bobby lying on the newly made mound and chased him from the hallowed ground.
But the next morning, when Brown started doing his chores, he again spotted a sleeping dog on top of the most recent grave. Bobby must have sneaked back to the grave as soon as the sky had turned dark and spent the night there.
Brown chased him from the cemetery again, but that night Bobby returned and lay down once more on his master’s grave. The next morning was cold and wet and when the sexton saw the faithful animal lying shivering on the grave, he took pity on him. He gave him some food, and though it meant breaking the cemetery’s rules, Brown allowed Bobby to stay near the grave. He even taught Bobby to hide on Sundays, when the churchyard had its largest number of visitors. To the church’s high-ranking patrons, having a dog in the cemetery would have been next to blasphemy.
For a couple of weeks Bobby kept lonely vigil, without a break, ignoring even his own needs. Then one day, at the sound of the castle gun, he showed up at the Greyfriars dining rooms. The innkeeper recognized him as Auld Jock’s dog and fed him. From that day forward, Bobby arrived at the inn every day at one o’clock to be fed.