Crying Child by Barbara Michaels

most days, and I can imagine worse fates than being snowed in for a week or two. With one shed full of firewood and the other packed with canned goods…I’ve got five hundred books I haven’t had time to read and a tape recorder I can run from batteries.”
    I could understand the wistful note in his voice. The picture had a strong appeal for me too. A fire roaring up the chimney while the wintry blasts howled outside…. Books, music…and other equally cozy occupations…
    “It wouldn’t work,” I said regretfully. “You couldn’t be cut off from your patients.”
    “I could part of the time, if I could get another man here to share my practice. There’s workenough for two, God knows. And I have so much catching up to do. I haven’t even time to read the journals the way things are, and you can’t give your patients the best possible care unless you keep up to date.”
    So that was why he wanted to be marooned in his snug little house—to read medical journals in bachelor solitude.
    “If that’s what turns you on,” I said. “Personally, I’d go crazy buried in a place like this all winter.”
    “It’s lucky you aren’t then, isn’t it? Come on in, and meet the beasts, as Bertha calls them.”
    Knowing I had annoyed him, I followed him across the lawn. I was curious about the beasts; from Mrs. Willard’s tone they might be anything from mice to rattlesnakes. The first of the menagerie was sitting on top of the porch steps. The sheer size of him made me exclaim aloud.
    “Heavens, that’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen! What is it, a lynx or something?”
    The cat, a brown tabby, had hair almost as long as that of a Persian; it formed a manelike ruff around the smug feline face. The animal gave me a leisurely appraisal; then it rose to its feet, turned, and brought into view a tail so big, so bushy, and so long that it looked like a Cavalier’s plume. My gasp of admiration was the proper response; the cat gave me a coquettish leer overits shoulder and sat down with its back to me, waving the tail.
    “What on earth is it?”
    “She,” said Will reproachfully. “The breed is called Maine coon cats. You can see why, though of course the old story that they are a cross between cats and raccoons is nonsense. The two species don’t interbreed.”
    “I’ve never seen one like it.”
    “They are rare, except in New England.”
    “You breed them?” I sat down on the steps. The cat promptly climbed into my lap and sat down, purring so hard that its sides pumped in and out.
    “No, I don’t, really. They just keep on having kittens.”
    “Yes,” I said weakly. “I see they do.”
    Silently and slyly the cats had filled up the yard. There were more coon cats—a red, a silver tabby, a tortoiseshell; two Siamese; a black-and-white shorthair; and an exquisite long-haired creature with blue eyes and dark Siamese markings. Lined up along the path were more commoners—alley cats—in a startling variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. I had barely taken in this display when two dogs came stalking around the corner of the house. One was a terrier; the other, looming over his friend, was a St. Bernard. My head jerked back.
    “Good heavens,” I said.

    Will scooped the purring sycophant from my lap and pulled me to my feet.
    “You might as well see the rest,” he said, with the air of a man who wants to get a bad job over and done with.
    At least “the rest” were smaller than the cats and dogs. Two guinea pigs, a hamster, a squirrel, three snakes—one large, two small—and a parrot who, at the sight of me, let out a stream of profanity as colorful as his red-and-green plumage.
    “What,” I said. “No partridge in a pear tree?”
    “The partridge only comes in for chow.”
    I sat down, after a wary glance at the seat of the chair. My suspicions were understandable, but unjustified. The place was surprisingly clean. Neat it definitely was not, but the clutter was an attractive kind of clutter.