Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World

But he wasn’t listening. Say the word bath—or brush or comb or scissors or doctor or vet—and Dewey disappeared. Especially if Kay or I said the dread word. When I was away on library business or out sick, as I often was with my immune system so compromised by surgeries, Kay took care of Dewey. If he needed something, even comfort or love, and I wasn’t around, he went to Kay. She may have been distant at first, but after all those years she had become his second mother, the one who loved him but wouldn’t tolerate his bad habits. If Kay and I were standing together and even thought the word water, Dewey ran.

Then one day someone said bath and he didn’t run. He still ran when I thought bath, but not at the word. So I started to watch him more closely. Sure enough, he had stopped running away every time a truck rumbled by in the alley behind the library. The sound of the back door opening used to send him sprinting to sniff the incoming boxes; now, he wasn’t moving at all. He wasn’t jumping at sudden loud noises, such as someone setting down a large reference volume too fast, and he wasn’t coming as often when patrons called.

That, however, might not have had much to do with hearing. When you get older, the simple things are suddenly not so simple. A touch of arthritis, discomfort in the muscles. You thin out and stiffen up. In both cats and humans, the skin gets less elastic, which means more flaking and irritation and less ability to heal. These are not small things when your job is, essentially, to be petted all day.

Dewey still greeted everyone at the front door. He still searched out laps, but on his own terms. He had arthritis in his back left hip, and jostling him in the wrong place or picking him up the wrong way would cause him to limp away in pain. More and more in the late morning and afternoon he sat on the circulation desk, where he was protected by staff. He was supremely confident in his beauty and popularity; he knew patrons would come to him. He looked so regal, a lion surveying his kingdom. He even sat like a lion, with his paws crossed in front of him and his back legs tucked underneath, a model of dignity and grace.

The staff started quietly suggesting that patrons be gentle with Dewey, more aware of his comfort. Joy, who spent the most time out front with the patrons, became very protective of him. She often brought her nieces and nephews to see Dewey, even on her days off, so she knew how rough people could be. “These days,” she would tell the patrons, “Dewey prefers a gentle pat on the head.”

Even the elementary school children understood Dewey was an old man now, and they were sensitive to his needs. This was his second generation of Spencer children, the children of the children Dewey had gotten to know as a kitten, so the parents made sure their kids were well behaved. When the children touched him gently, Dewey would lie against their legs or, if they were sitting on the floor, on their laps. But he was more cautious than he used to be, and loud noise or rough petting often drove him away.

“That’s all right, Dewey. Whatever you need.”

After years of trial and error, we had finally found our finicky cat an acceptable cat bed. It was small, with white fake fur sides and an electric warmer in the bottom. We kept it in front of the wall heater outside my office door. Dewey loved nothing more than lounging in his bed, in the safety of the staff area, with the heating pad turned all the way up. In the winter, when the wall heater was on, he got so warm he had to throw himself over the side and roll around on the floor. His fur was so hot you couldn’t even touch it. He would lie on his back for ten minutes with all his legs spread out, venting heat. If a cat could pant, Dewey would have been panting. As soon as he was cool, he climbed back into his bed and started the process all over again.

Heat wasn’t Dewey’s only indulgence. I may have been a sucker for Dewey’s whims, but now our assistant children’s librarian, Donna, was spoiling him even more than I did. If Dewey didn’t eat his food right away, she heated it in the microwave for him. If he still didn’t eat it, she threw it out and opened another can. Donna didn’t trust ordinary flavors. Why should Dewey eat gizzards and toes? Donna drove to Milford, fifteen miles away, because a little store there sold exotic cat food. I remember duck. Dewey was fond of that for a week. She tried lamb, too, but as usual nothing stuck for very long. Donna kept trying new flavor after new flavor and new can after new can. Oh, how she loved that cat.

Despite our best efforts, though, Dewey was thinning down, so at his next checkup Dr. Franck prescribed a series of medicines to fatten him up. That’s right, despite the dire health warnings, Dewey had outlasted his old nemesis, Dr. Esterly, who retired at the end of 2002 and donated his practice to a nonprofit animal advocacy group.