I was eating breakfast at home in Hampshire in March this year, scrolling (滚屏) through social media on my phone, when a story caught my eye. It was about a nine-year-old dog, Charlie, nicknamed the loneliest in Britain. He had been in a rescue center in Somerset for more than 500 days.

For some reason, nobody wanted to ad opt him. I clicked on the link and right away Charlie’ shuge, sad eyes stared back at me. I was attracted by him. I turned to my husband, Sam, and said: “We’ve got to have him.” He read the article over my shoulder and felt exactly the same way. We wanted to give Charlie a happy home and a new life. Over the past few years we have tried to adopt a few different dogs, but we haven’t had any luck—we were never top of the list. Sam and I got used to filling in forms and not hearing anything. We’d almost given up hope.

But Charlie is an older dog and we felt we’d be suited—even older dogs have a lot of love left to offer. So we took our time with the application, sent photographs of our house and garden. We explained why Charlie would be happy with us, and then forgot all about it.

A few days later we received an email from Brent Knoll animal center, saying we’d been shortlisted. We were so amazed! They asked us to visit Charlie and to see if he liked us. When we arrived, we were taken to the staff room. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t been told much about Charlie’s circumstances, but as he had been given up for adoption and hadn’t been placed with a new owner for so long, we thought there might be issues. But the dog was full of joy and charisma (魅力).

He came straight over to us, all curious.

Day after day, we occupied ourselves in Charlie’s company.

One day, while Sutter surfed the Internet watching some videos of cute animals with his mom, he came across a story posted by the local animal shelter (收容所). It explained that there was a cat, which was named Hazel by the workers, living in the shelter and needing help.

The workers found the cat at a transfer station where garbage and other waste are sorted. At first, the workers thought Hazel was just looking for food. But they later discovered that the back legs of the cat were injured. What was worse, after a physical examination, they found the bones of the cat were broken and that necrosis — meaning the death of cells in some part of the body — had set in. The workers thought Hazel would need surgery (手术) to get better. So they called on the community to raise money for the cat.

That was when Sutter got to work. After he knew the story about the poor cat in his community, the nine-year-old cat lover said to his mom,“I just can’t stop thinking about the cat. It is in urgent need of surgery. I want to raise money to help the cat.”Hearing those words, Sutter’ s mother was happy that her son was a kind-hearted boy and decided to help him.

Then Sutter came up with a good idea: making use of the power of cinnamon buns ( 肉桂卷). He knew if there was anything that could get the community members to empty their pockets, it would be this sweet treat: cinnamon buns. Then he and his mom started baking cinnamon buns, and his mom posted Sutter’s efforts on a social media page. Knowing Sutter’s good intention, the whole community reached out and donated money to Sutter. Finally, Sutter was able to raise $850 in total. Then Sutter and his mom gladly went to the animal shelter and dropped the money there.

With the money, Hazel was able to receive the surgery.

Since adopting Hazel, Sutter has done a lot to help it recover.

I was invited to a cookout on an old friend’s farm in western Washington. I parked my car outside the farm and walked past a milking house which had apparently not been used in many years. A noise at a window caught my attention, so I entered it. It was a hummingbird (蜂鸟), desperately trying to escape. She was covered in spider-webs (蛛网) and was barely able to move her wings. She ceased her struggle the instant I picked her up.

With the bird in my cupped hand, I looked around to see how she had gotten in. The broken window glass was the likely answer. I stuffed a piece of cloth into the hole and took her outside, closing the door securely behind me.

When I opened my hand, the bird did not fly away; she sat looking at me with her bright eyes. I removed the sticky spider-webs that covered her head and wings. Still, she made no attempt to fly. Perhaps she had been struggling against the window too long and was too tired? Or too thirsty?

As I carried her up the blackberry-lined path toward my car where I kept a water bottle, she began to move. I stopped, and she soon took wing but did not immediately fly away.

Hovering (悬停), she approached within six inches of my face. For a very long moment, this tiny creature looked into my eyes, turning her head from side to side. Then she flew quickly out of sight.

During the cookout, I told my hosts about the hummingbird incident. They promised to fix the window. As I was departing, my friends walked me to my car. I was standing by the car when a hummingbird flew to the center of our group and began hovering. She turned from person to person until she came to me. She again looked directly into my eyes, then let out a squeaking call and was gone. For a moment, all were speechless. Then someone said, “She must have come to say goodbye.”

A few weeks later, I went to the farm again.

I was just about to leave when the hummingbird appeared.