The Lord God Made Them All Read online

  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 this!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, old lad.” I thought for a moment “I think it’s Lilliburlero you’re trying to get.” I gave a swift rendering.

  “Yes, that’s it!” He slapped his knee and bawled out the melody at the top of his voice several times in triumph. This put him in such high good humour that he broached something that must have been on his mind for some time.

  “Daddy,” he said. “Can I have some boots?”

  “Boots? But you’ve got some already, haven’t you?” I pointed down at the little Wellingtons in which Helen always rigged him before he set out for the farms.

  He gazed at his feet sadly before replying. “Yes, I know, but I want proper boots like the farmers.”

  This was a facer. I didn’t know what to say. “But, Jim, little boys like you don’t have boots like that. Maybe when you’re bigger …”

  “Oh, I want them now,” he moaned in anguished tones. “I want proper boots.”

  At first I thought it was a passing whim, but he kept up his campaign for several days, reinforcing it with disgusted looks as Helen drew on the Wellingtons each morning and a listless slouching to convey the message that his footwear was entirely unsuitable for a man like him.

  Finally Helen and I talked it over one night after he had gone to bed.

  “They surely don’t have farm boots his size, do they?” I asked.

  Helen shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but I’ll look around in any case.”

  And it seemed that Jimmy wasn’t the only little boy to have this idea because within a week my wife returned, flushed with success and bearing the smallest pair of farm boots I had ever seen.

  I couldn’t help laughing. They were so tiny, yet so perfect—thick hob-nailed soles, chunky uppers and a long row of lace-holes with metal loops at the top.

  Jimmy didn’t laugh when he saw them. He handled them almost with awe and once he had got them on, his demeanour changed. He was naturally square-set and jaunty, but to see him striding round a farmyard in corduroy leggings and those boots you would think he owned the place. He clumped and stamped, held himself very upright and his cries of “Hello! Hello!” took on a new authority.

  He was never what I would call naughty—certainly never destructive or cruel—but he had that bit of devil which I suppose all boys need to have. He liked to assert himself, and, perhaps unconsciously, he liked to tease me. If I said, “Don’t touch that,” he would keep clear of the object in question but later would give it the merest brush with his finger, which could not be construed as disobedience but nevertheless served to establish his influence in the household.

  Also, he was not above taking advantage of me in awkward situations. There was one afternoon when Mr. Garrett brought his sheepdog in. The animal was very lame and as I hoisted him onto the table in the consulting room, a small head appeared for a moment at the window that overlooked the sunlit garden.

  I didn’t mind that. Jimmy often watched me dealing with our small animal patients, and I half expected him to come into the room for a closer look.

  It is often difficult to locate the source of a dog’s lameness, but in this case I found it immediately. When I gently squeezed the outside pad on his left foot he winced, and a tiny bead of serum appeared on the black surface.

  “He’s got something in there, Mr. Garrett,” I said. “Probably a thorn. I’ll have to give him a shot of local anaesthetic and open up his pad.”

  It was when I was filling the syringe that a knee came into view at the corner of the window. I felt a pang of annoyance. Jimmy surely couldn’t be climbing up the wistaria. It was dangerous, and I had expressly forbidden it. The branches of the beautiful creeper curled all over the back of the house, and though they were as thick as a man’s leg near ground level, they became quite slender as they made their way up past the bathroom window to the tiles of the roof.

  No, I decided that I was mistaken and began to infiltrate the pad. These modern anaesthetics worked very quickly and within a minute or two I could squeeze the area quite hard without causing pain.

  I reached for the scalpel. “Hold his leg up and keep it as steady as you can,” I said.

  Mr. Garrett nodded and pursed his lips. He was a serious-faced man at any time and obviously deeply concerned about his dog. His eyes narrowed in apprehension as I poised my knife over the telltale drop of moisture.

  For me it was an absorbing moment. If I could find and remove this foreign body, the dog would be instantly rid of hi