A freezing rain washed the street in front of the small-town bar. I sat staring at the watery darkness, alone as usual. I had been in that old pub for a half hour, quietly holding a drink, when my thoughful stare finally focused on a medium-sized lump (一团) in a puddle (水洼) a hundred feet away.
I remembered the night before, a dog named Shep came into the bar begging for potato chips. He was starving and just the size of the lump. "Why would a dog lie in a cold puddle in the freezing rain?" I asked myself. The answer was simple: He was too weak to get up.
The shrapnel (弹片) wound in my right shoulder ached all the way down to my fingers. I didn't want to go out in that storm. Hey, it was't my dog. It was just a stray (流浪的动物) on a cold night in the rain, a lonely drifter (流浪者).
"So am I," I thought, as I laid down my drink and headed out the door.
He was lying in the water. When I touched him, he didn't move. I thought he was dead. I put my hands around his chest and lifted him to his feet. He stood unsteadily in the puddle, his head hung like a weight at the end of his neck. Half his body was covered with mange (兽疥癣). His floppy ear were just hairless pieces of flesh dotted with open sores (疮).
"Come on," I said. His tail wagged once and he followed weekly behind me. I led him to a safer comer next to the bar, where he lay on the cold ground and closed his eyes.
A block away I could see the lights of a late-night convenience store. It was still open. I bought three cans of Alpo and fed him. But his tongue hung out and only the tip of his tail moved. 1 wanted to pet him, but he smelled like death and looked even worse. The local vet (兽医) was still at his office, so I loaded the poor dog into a taxi and headed there.
注意：
1．所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2．按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
The vet checked the pitiful dog immediately.
……
I sighed loudly and said, "He's got a home."
