And the I'm going to be. Welcome to Snuscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. On Snuscast, we read excerpts

from Public Domain Works and occasionally original stories.

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This episode is brought to you by The Forest Floor.

Tonight we'll be reading the beginning of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles-Gannett, first published in 1948. A Newberry Honor Book, this children's

story follows the adventures of a young boy, Elmer Elevator, who runs away to Wild Island to rescue a baby dragon. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bad.

Now, take a few deep breaths. Chapter 1. My Father meets the Cat. One cold rainy day, when my father was a little boy, he met an old alley cat on his street. The cat was very

drippy and uncomfortable so my father said wouldn't you like to come home

with me?

This surprised the cat.

She had never before met anyone who cared about an old alley cat's.

But she said, I'd be very much obliged if I could sit by a warm furnace and perhaps have a saucer of milk.

We have a very nice furnace to sit by, said my father.

And I'm sure my mother has an extra saucer of milk.

My father and the cat became good friends,

but my father's mother was very upset about the cat.

She hated cats, particularly ugly old alley cats.

Elmer Elevator, she said to my father, if you think I'm going to give that cat a saucer of milk, you're very wrong.

Once you start feeding stray alley cats, you might as well expect to feed every stray in town, and I'm not going to do it.

This made my father very sad, and he apologized to the cat because his mother had been so rude.

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