Summary
Chapter 31
Herriot is called in the middle of a night to treat a mare that is having difficulty giving birth. Herriot has already been called out of the house twice that night and has barely slept. He decides not to bother getting dressed, and leaves the house in his pajamas. The farmer teases him, but Herriot is still able to help the mare give birth. He then goes to a local café, forgetting that he is in his night clothes. The other patrons of the café loudly comment on his pajamas, but Herriot just wants to eat and get out. However, when his food comes, he realizes he does not have money on him. The other people in the café laugh at him, and Herriot leaves before any problems begin.
Chapter 32
Herriot tends to a cow that appears to have milk fever, which occurs in some cows after giving birth. Herriot gives her the usual remedies; although the cow becomes alert again, she does not walk. She spends many days on the ground, without walking. Herriot hears her pelvis creaking, which causes him to conclude that the cow has a broken pelvis and will not be able to walk again. However, the next day, the cow is perfectly fine. Siegfried explains that the pelvis creaking can happen after calving, and is fairly normal. The farmer believes it to be a miracle, and tells everyone about “the cow that Mr. Herriot said would never get up n’more.”
Chapter 33
Mrs. Pumphrey calls one morning, and Siegfried answers. Siegfried tells Herriot that Mrs. Pumphrey has asked Herriot to examine her new pig. At first, Herriot believes Siegfried is teasing him, because he has been the butt of many jokes due to his being Tricki Woo’s “uncle.” When Herriot goes to Mrs. Pumphrey’s home, he meets her new piglet, Nugent, who is living in the kitchen. Herriot realizes this is another opportunity to be “Uncle Herriot” to one of Mrs. Pumphrey’s animals; so, even though examining the pig seems ridiculous, he complies. Herriot tells her that pigs are outdoor animals, and that Nugent must be kept outside. Mrs. Pumphrey has a luxury pen built for Nugent, and Nugent spends his days eating well and playing with Tricki. One day, Mrs. Pumphrey calls Herriot because she is concerned about the strange way Nugent urinates “in fits and spurts”—but Herriot assures her this is normal for pigs. And, as Herriot thought, Mrs. Pumphrey sends Herriot presents to say "thank you" from Nugent.
Chapter 34
Herriot has to temporarily help another vet, Angus Grier, due to an injury that Grier got from a horse. Herriot is not happy about it, because he remembers how Grier had humiliated him by dressing him up in the rubber suit the first time they met. Grier is irritable and inhospitable, and is constantly yelling at Herriot for being late. Grier’s wife also is always keeping an eye on Herriot and scolding him. They feed him for his work, but only plain porridge and flavorless soups. When Herriot works on a cow with a prolapsed cervix, Grier tells him not to use sutures, even though this is what Herriot normally does. As Grier gets well again, he begins to accompany Herriot on visits. Unsurprisingly, the prolapsed cervix of the cow comes back out. The farmer is upset and blames Herriot. Grier fixes the cervix using sutures, like Herriot originally suggested. Grier lets Herriot take the blame, and does not admit that Herriot had been right in the first place.
Chapter 35
A lady named Mrs. Mallard calls for Grier, saying that her dog is sick. Grier tells Herriot that nothing is wrong with the dog, but that Herriot should say there is something wrong anyway. Herriot is puzzled by Grier’s certainty that there is no issue. Herriot arrives at her house and is surprised to see her dressed in a green ball gown and a glamorous, elaborate hairstyle. The lady is surprised to see Herriot, but she lets him in. The dog is clearly very healthy and energetic, and she nervously says that he must have gotten better. The next day, Mrs. Mallard’s neighbor visits Herriot. As they talk, he comments that the vet’s car is always outside Mrs. Mallard’s house. Herriot says that this is strange because the dog appeared to be very healthy. When the man comments that the vet often comes at night, Herriot realizes that Grier has been having an affair with Mrs. Mallard.
Soon after, Grier recovers, and Herriot happily returns to Skeldale House.
Chapter 36
Herriot is grateful to be back at work in the Dales. He takes in the beautiful views. He thinks about how he got to be a vet in the countryside. Originally, he had wanted to run his own practice for cats and dogs, but now he loves living in the country.
Herriot goes to see Terry Watson’s cow. Herriot remarks that Mr. Watson is a hardworking and poor farmer, who works for other farms but keeps a few of his own stick as well. The cow has an infection known as mastitis and is unable to produce milk. Herriot tells the farmer to massage the udder and milk out the infected teat, which is releasing a dark liquid instead of milk. Mr. Watson ends up massaging and milking the cow all night. Eventually, the cow is back to normal. Herriot tells Mr. Watson to go rest, but he tells Herriot he has to go to work.
Chapter 37
This chapter provides another example of Siegfried’s contradictions.
When Siegfried and Herriot work on a dog at the practice, Siegfried tells Herriot he is using too much suture material, too much cotton, and too much iodoform powder, which is wasting money.
On a later farm call, Siegfried and Herriot are operating on a wounded colt. Herriot tells about how they usually do surgery on horses in open fields, and Herriot anesthetizes the horse gradually with chloroform. In his narration, Herriot notes that, in his modern-day practice, they use a much faster injection to put the horse out.
In this surgery, Siegfried hands Herriot the needle and asks him to stitch up the horse. Herriot remembers Siegfried’s recent advice to be economical with the materials. For that reason, he only uses a small amount of material to close the wound, and it is taking twice as long. Siegfried chastises Herriot for being too thrifty. Siegfried finishes the job using a large quantity of the materials.
Chapter 38
Herriot meets Mr. Worley, a pig-breeder, and owner of the local inn. Herriot realizes that, although the inn is Mr. Worley’s big business, Mr. Worley cares the most about his pigs. He has six sows that he breeds.
Herriot likes Mr. Worley’s inn because Mr. Worley serves him beer in the afternoon, which is against local regulations. However, Mr. Worley has an agreement with the local constable.
One late night, Herriot comes to treat one of the sows who is not giving milk. Afterwards, when Herriot goes inside to wash up, he is surprised to see the inn is crowded despite it being past closing time. Just after Herriot leaves, the pub is raided by a new police constable, and Worley is fined.
Chapter 39
Tristan drives Herriot to a farm call, as Herriot’s arm is in a sling due to a bad infection. After the call, they smoke, relax, and reflect on the day. Suddenly, they realize their car is rolling down the hill—the car is old, and the brakes are broken. As the car rushes downwards, their equipment falls out, with bottles breaking and bags of powder exploding. At the bottoms of the hill, the car crashes into a shed belonging to the local golf club. Luckily, only the rear light of the car is damaged. However, as the driver, Tristan knows Siegfried will be mad at him: Tristan recently wrecked another one of Siegfried’s cars. Luckily for Tristan, Siegfried forgot about the incident after he bought himself a nice, new car, a Rover.
While the car is getting fixed, a farmer calls with an emergency, and Siegfried is forced to let Tristan drive his new, expensive car. However, Tristan and Herriot get into an accident that is not Tristan's fault: another man is speeding past a large truck and comes head-on at the Rover. The other man is a farmer, who survives the crash fine, except that he is covered in broken eggs and his chickens get loose. He promises to repair the damage. The Rover has two whole doors ripped off, and a lot of other damage. Siegfried is furious. Tristan is surprisingly unconcerned, as he comments, “Things usually turn out better than you’d expect.”
Chapter 40
Herriot is called to look at an injured calf at Heston Grange. There, he meets Helen Alderson, the daughter of the farmer, who takes him to the calf. As they climb the hill to reach the calf, Herriot notes that Helen is wearing slacks, and Herriot feels that the new trend of women wearing pants is very practical. After Herriot fixes the calf’s leg, he and Helen take a seat in the grass of the hilly property and engage in conversation. Herriot realizes it has been a long time since he spoke with a girl his age. Siegfried tells Herriot that Helen is popular with the men—“Half the young bloods in the district are chasing her”—but that Helen appears to be very picky and is not dating anyone.
Analysis
These chapters provide a series of humorous anecdotes. For example, Herriot recalls the time when he didn’t feel like getting dressed in the middle of the night, so he operated on an animal in his pajamas. Forgetting what he was wearing, he then went to a café, where the people were highly amused and thought his behavior very odd. Humor is evoked in the description, “A fat man in a leather jacket sat transfixed, a loaded fork halfway to his mouth, while his neighbour, gripping a huge mug of tea in an oily hand stared with bulging eyes at my ensemble.” Within these moments of comic relief are very serious reflections on the hardships of Herriot’s occupation. For instance: “Everybody was asleep. Everybody except me, James Herriot, creeping sore and exhausted towards another spell of hard labour” (187). The author skillfully blends comic and serious scenes to illustrate the protagonist’s good-natured personality. Even in difficult times, he is able to understand the humor of his predicaments.
The human-animal connection theme continues in these chapters, expressed astutely in two episodes involving pigs. One episode is that of Mrs. Pumphrey, who makes her last appearance of the book in Chapter 33, this time with an even more ridiculous request for Herriot: to examine her new pig. Mrs. Pumphrey’s eccentricity seems to have gone to new heights in this humorous chapter, as she initially plans to keep the pig in the house. Luckily, by this point in the novel, Herriot has learned how to best handle Mrs. Pumphrey, and is able to professionally convince her to have the pig live outside. In another episode about pigs in Chapter 38, Herriot meets Mr. Worley, an inn owner with a passion for pig farming. Mr. Worley’s connection to his pigs is heartwarming, if a bit strange, as demonstrated by his “pig language” conversations with his animals: “Mr. Worley knelt by Queenie’s head and patted her and sort of crooned into her ear. I couldn’t make out the words he used—maybe it was pig language because the sow really seemed to be answering him with little soft grunts” (227-8). The human-animal connection clearly is happening in both directions here; Herriot shows that it is not just humans who feel this connection, but animals, too.
Another important theme, that of culture/leisure, is expressed through a humorous subplot development of the Farnon brothers. In this comic episode, Tristan crashes Siegfried’s new Rover (a fancy sportscar). Tristan seems to bring disaster to Siegfried no matter what, which is part of what makes him Siegfried’s foil. In Chapter 39, Tristan is forced to drive Herriot’s car after Tristan has already crashed the older car; when both cars are out of commission, he has to use Siegfried’s new Rover. Tristan, however, is not even at fault for the accident, which is all the more comical. Herriot, despite being a passenger in the accident (in which no one was hurt), acts more as an observer, wondering how Tristan will manage to get out of this situation, and how Siegfried will react. Coincidentally, Siegfried is sick with a cold, and although he does have a strong reaction, stating, “You bloody fool! You’re sacked!” (243), he then immediately falls back asleep due to his illness. The situation is ironic because both Tristan and Herriot are expecting Siegfried to be very seriously angry with Tristan. Against their expectation, Siegfried has one intense reaction and then falls asleep! Tristan, afterwards, understates his relief when he says, “‘A tricky little situation, Jim, but you know what I always say.’ He struck a match and pulled the smoke down blissfully. ‘Things usually turn out better than you expect.’” (243). This is, in fact, not “usually” what happens, emphasizing the irony of how the expectations of a violent reaction from Siegfried were not met. And, subverting our expectations again, Tristan acts as if he knew this would be the outcome all the while.
In another set of challenging and comic episodes in Chapters 34 and 35, Herriot again has to work with Angus Grier, the cantankerous vet from Chapter 22. Grier is injured and Herriot serves as his assistant to help him with his rounds while he recovers. Chapter 22 has already provided a picture of Grier’s behavior toward Herriot, in the rubber-suit incident. That treatment thus foreshadows Grier’s treatment of Herriot during these chapters. Herriot is mistreated and second-guessed by both Angus Grier and his wife. Herriot does, however, make one interesting discovery about Grier: he is having an affair with a local woman. Herriot is surprised by this information, but the neighbor, who shares this gossip with Herriot, says to him, “It’s a rum old world, you know!” (213.) This phrase is a colloquial way of stating that the world is a crazy place. Apparently, Herriot did not know this. This, too, serves as part of Herriot's coming-of-age, into a world that is full of strange happenings and strange matches, like an ugly old vet and an elegant aristocratic woman.
The novel also explores how the Great Depression made life extremely difficult for poor farmers at the time, who would struggle just to attain the basics for survival. This can be seen through the plight of Terry. Terry is described as a “grim” man in his early twenties, who “was prepared to labor all day for somebody else and then come home and start work on his own few stock” (217) in order to provide for his family. Terry fears that his cow will be unable to make milk, further worsening his economic condition. Terry’s resiliency helps cure the problem because he spends all night massaging the cow, which clears up the issue. This, however, does not solve all of the farmer’s problems, as he still has to go off to work.
The stories about Herriot’s work show his growing level of comfort in his profession, and this is paralleled in Herriot’s love for the Dales. When he returns to Skeldale House and the surrounding landscape, he is very grateful for the return to the familiar scenery, “the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly” (215). The imagery here allows the reader to imagine the feeling of complete satisfaction that Herriot feels, in his life and in his job.
In Chapter 40, we are introduced to Helen. She is a major character because she is Herriot’s love interest, and eventually becomes his wife. From the very beginning, Helen is described as domestic, beautiful, and polite, qualities well admired in women during the 1930s. We are introduced to her while she is engaged in the homely task of cooking—“A dark girl in a check blouse and green linen slacks was kneading dough in a bowl. She looked up and smiled” (247). She also appreciates nature, and she tells Herriot the names of the surrounding mountains, speaking of them “like old friends” (244). This highlights her affection and curiosity for the wider world, and parallels Herriot’s love of the Dales. Clearly, they are very compatible.
