Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Before long, however, he began to enlarge his horizons. He wanted to get into the action. The contents of my car boot were soon as familiar to him as his toy box at home, and he delighted in handing out the tins of stomach powder, the electuaries and red blisters, the white lotion and the still-revered long cartons of Universal Cattle Medicine. Finally he began to forestall me by rushing back to the car for the calcium and flutter valve as soon as he saw a recumbent cow. He had become a diagnostician as well.
    I think the thing he enjoyed most was accompanying me on an evening call, if Helen would allow him to postpone his bedtime. He was in heaven driving into the country in the darkness, training my torch on a cow’s teat while I stitched it.
    The farmers were kind, as they always are with young people. Even the most uncommunicative would grunt, “Ah see you’ve got t’apprentice with ye,” as we got out of the car.
    But those farmers had something Jimmy coveted: their big hob-nailed boots. He had a great admiration for farmers in general; strong hardy men who spent their lives in the open and who pushed fearlessly among plunging packs of cattle and slapped the rumps of massive cart horses. I could see he was deeply impressed as he watched them—quite often small and stringy—mounting granary steps with twelve or sixteen stone stacks on their shoulders, or hanging on effortlessly to the noses of huge bullocks, their boots slithering over the floor, a laconic cigarette hanging from their lips.
    It was those boots that got under Jimmy’s skin most of all. Sturdy and unyielding, they seemed to symbolise for him the character of the men who wore them.
    Matters came to a head one day when we were conversing in the car. Or, rather, my son was doing the conversing in the form of a barrage of questions which I did my best to fend off while trying to think about my cases. These questions went on pretty well nonstop every day, and they followed a well-tried formula.
    “What is the fastest train—the Blue Peter or the Flying Scotsman?”
    “Well now … I really don’t know. I should say the Blue Peter.”
    Then, getting into deeper water, “Is a giant train faster than a phantom racing car?”
    “That’s a difficult one. Let’s see, now … maybe the phantom racer.”
    Jimmy changed his tack suddenly. “That was a big man at the last farm wasn’t he?”
    “He certainly was.”
    “Was he bigger than Mr. Robinson?”
    We were launching into his favourite “big man” game, and I knew how it would end, but I played my part. “Oh yes, he was.”
    “Was he bigger than Mr. Leeming?”
    “Certainly.”
    “Was he bigger than Mr. Kirkley?”
    “Without a doubt.”
    Jimmy gave me a sidelong glance, and I knew he was about to play his two trump cards. “Was he bigger than the gas man?”
    The towering gentleman who came to read the gas meters at Skeldale House had always fascinated my son, and I had to think very carefully about my reply.
    “Well, you know, I really think he was.”
    “Ah, but …” The corner of Jimmy’s mouth twitched up craftily. “Was he bigger than Mr. Thackray?”
    That was the killer punch. Nobody was bigger than Mr. Thackray, who looked down on the other inhabitants of Darrowby from six feet seven inches.
    I shrugged my shoulders in defeat. “No, I have to admit it. He wasn’t as big as Mr. Thackray.”
    Jimmy smiled and nodded, well satisfied, then he began to hum a little tune, drumming his fingers on the dashboard at the same time. Soon I could see he was having trouble. He couldn’t remember how it went. Patience was not his strong point, and as he tried and stopped again and again, it was plain that he was rapidly becoming exasperated.
    Finally, as we drove down a steep hill into a village and another abortive session of tum-te-tum-te-tum came to an abrupt halt, he rounded on me aggressively.
    “You know,” he exploded, “I’m getting just about fed up of