All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small opens with Herriot recounting a particularly difficult calving. The night is cold, the activity physically strenuous, and worse, Uncle, a relative of the Dinsdale family who owns the farm, continuously compares James to another, more experienced vet. James miraculously delivers the calf alive, but his labors still go unappreciated.

In Chapter 2 the story steps back in time to describe James’s job interview with veterinarian Siegfried Farnon. It is a hard time for newly qualified vets to get work, so James is determined to make a good first impression. Siegfried has forgotten about the interview and James has a long wait, but it allows him to meet some Yorkshire residents. Unable to understand the local terms for animal diseases, James is daunted by the prospect of taking the job. When Siegfried finally arrives, he brings James along on a few visits and lets him show his skills. James is aware he is being tested, and he does his best, even when a horse uses him as a resting place and a cow kicks him repeatedly. Siegfried offers him the job, which he gladly accepts.

James’s first solo case involves a horse with colic that belongs to a local lord. The horse is suffering terribly, and James is certain that his bowel is twisted and there is no cure. He decides that he must put the horse down, and does so, against the wishes of the lord’s farm manager. The farm manager threatens to sue him if the postmortem doesn’t prove his diagnosis correct. Siegfried confirms the diagnosis but, although James was right this time, Siegfried warns him that in the future he will be wrong. Animals are unpredictable, and a vet’s life is full of both triumphs and disasters.

Siegfried’s younger brother Tristan enters the story as a veterinary student who has just failed two exams, and James gets a glimpse of his and Siegfried’s volatile relationship. After tuberculin testing a herd of Galloway cows, James realizes that even though his job leaves him sweaty, bruised, and exhausted, he is happier in his choice of career than he would have been in any office job.

Chapter 8 is a series of stories about Siegfried’s eccentricities. Too vain to hear criticism, Siegfried arrives at the wrong farm for a postmortem and terrifies the family by demanding a carving knife and then, deeming it insufficiently sharp, sharpening it enthusiastically with no explanation as to why he is there. Siegfried is also free with advice that he then hypocritically scolds James for obeying. First, he complains that James tells the farmers to call any time of the day or night; then he scolds James for not going out in the middle of the night to treat a minor ailment. He also advises James to stay calm and not let things bother him when he himself becomes infuriated by a tiny insult.

James is allowed to use a beat-up Austin automobile for his visits. When it starts using too much oil, Siegfried pays for it to be repaired, and then warns him to treat it carefully, to the point of never driving it above 30mph. James dutifully obeys, until Siegfried borrows the car while drunk and drives at high speeds on and off the roads. To James’s indignation, when it once more starts needing too much oil, Siegfried scolds him for treating it poorly.

Chapter 9 is about Tristan’s life in Darrowby, where he spends his time avoiding work, going out with young women, and playing practical jokes. Part of his friendship with James involves making him the target of prank calls. Tristan calls up late at night pretending to be a farmer needing a vet. Finally, James gets him back. After a long morning helping James put an everted cow’s uterus back in place, Tristan is worn out. James warns him that the uterus may come out again, and since Tristan is the only one on call that afternoon, he’ll have to put it back in all by himself. Enjoying his half-day out, James spies a phone box and prank-calls the practice, pretending that the uterus has come out again. He fools Tristan, coming clean only after he hears Tristan’s true despair and is very pleased to have successfully pranked him back.

In another vignette, James offers to drive a family of Dales farmers into town to hear the Messiah sung but doesn’t realize that their sense of time differs from his. After waiting for them to finish their extensive lunch, they make it into town in time for the show, but James must bolt his lunch and sneak into the concert late.