From Children's Literature

Have you seen a black cat named "Abdo," full of fur and coal-black, who plays with the children and sleeps among their legs in bed? Her face long, her mewing soft and tender? She is the cat of Sana Fouad Najjar, a pupil in the fifth elementary class at Ahliah National College. She lost her last month on Joan of Arc Street and shed abundant tears over her loss. And here she pours out onto paper some of what surged in her breast in one of her hours of longing:

"Abdo, Friend of My Life"

I am weeping in my sleep and I write to you weeping — so will you come back, my friend, or shall I go on weeping? And now I weep, and my heart is weeping. You have been gone from me days that seem like years, my friend in slumber and companion of dreams. The first day you were gone I did not miss you, for you often go away and come back without my seeing you — the people of our house see you and feed you. But now it is three days — and

like them, years — that you have been away from me... My friend, will you come back? "Abdo" — with her the sweet dreams come, as if she were an angel.

When I put her in my bed I feel nothing but her company; by her

faithfulness she conquered this age. Every morning she was between my legs — where have you gone, companion of dreams?