Every Living Thing by James Herriot Read Free Book Online Page B

paid no attention as she picked away happily at the hay in the rack. My big fear was that the calf might stick at the hips but with a final heave from us the little creature slid out into the world and I caught the slippery body as it fell.
    Ted lifted a hind leg. “It’s a bull. Reckon it had to be when it was as big as that.” He smiled happily. “Most times I want heifers, but this ’un will sell well for breedin’. He’s got a fine pedigree on both sides.”
    He began to rub ribs and head with straw and the calf responded by raising his head and snuffling. Clover looked round quickly at the sound and gave a soft moo of delight and, it seemed to me, surprise, because she had known nothing of the operation and clearly was a little mystified as to how this enchanting newcomer had arrived. We pulled him up to her head and she commenced an enthusiastic end-to-end licking of the little body.
    I smiled. I never got tired of this—the most rewarding thing in my veterinary life. “Nice to see, isn’t it, Ted. I wish all calvings finished up like this.”
    “By gaw, you’re right, Mr. Herriot, and I can’t thank ye enough. I really thought I had a dead ’un on me hands this time.” When I bent over the bucket he gave me a friendly thump on the back.
    As I dried my arms I looked round the byre with its row of well-kept cows. Over some months Ted had gutted the place completely, hacking out the ancient wooden partitions and replacing them with tubular metal, plastering the walls, digging up the cobbled floor and laying down concrete. He had done all the work himself.
    He followed my gaze. “What d’you think of me little place now?”
    “It’s great, you’ve done wonders, Ted. And you’ve built a nice little dairy, too.”
    “Aye, ah’ve got to get that T.T. licence somehow.” He rubbed his chin. “But there’s a few things that don’t come up to standard. Like not enough space between the channel and the back wall. There’s nowt I can do about that and one or two other points. But if the Ministry’ll grant me a licence I’ll get another fourpence on every gallon of milk and it’ll make all the difference in the world to me.”
    He laughed, as though reading my thoughts. “Maybe you don’t think fourpence is much, but you know, we don’t need a lot o’ money. We never go out at night—we’re quite happy playin’ cards and Ludo and dominoes with the kids, and with these cows to milk and feed and muck out twice a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, I’m tied to the spot.” He laughed again. “Ah can’t remember when I even went into Darrowby. No, we don’t want much money, but right now I’m just hanging on—only keepin’ my head above water. Any road, I’ll know after next Thursday. They’re having a meeting to decide.”
    I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell him that I was the one who had to make a confidential report to the Milk Committee on that day about him and his farm and it all rested on whether I could convince them. Ted’s fourpence a gallon was in my hands and it frightened me a bit, because if the T.T. licence didn’t go through I dared not think how much longer he could carry on his struggle to make a go of this wind-blown farm with its sparse pastures.
    I packed up my gear and we went outside. Breathing in the cold, clean air I looked at the cloud shadows chasing across the tumbled miles of green hills, and at the few acres that were Ted’s world. They made a little wall-girt island lapped around by the tufted grass of the moorland, which was always trying to flow over and swamp it. Those fields had to be fed and fertilised to keep them from returning to their wild state, and the walls, twisted and bent by the centuries, kept shedding their stones—another job to be done by that one man. I recalled a time when Ted told me that one of his luxuries was to wake up in the middle of the night so that he could turn over and go to sleep again.
    As I started the