why does the writer say that the little cluttered room had been miss stubb world for so many years? class 11 english supplementary God is Near by james herriot
Answers
Explanation:
The card dangled above the old lady's bed. It read GOD IS NEAR but it wasn't like the usual religious text. It didn't have a frame or ornate printing. It was just a strip of cardboard about eight inches long with plain lettering which might have said "No smoking" or "Exit" and it was looped carelessly over an old brass gas bracket so that Miss Stubbs from where she lay could look up at it and read GOD IS NEAR in square black capitals.
There wasn't much more Miss Stubbs could see; perhaps a few feet of privet hedge through the frayed curtains but mainly it was just the cluttered little room which had been her world for so many years.
The room was on the ground floor and in the front of the cottage, and as I came up through the wilderness which had once been a garden I could see the dogs watching me from where they had jumped onto the old lady's bed by the window. And when I knocked on the door the place almost erupted with their barking. It was always like this. I had been visiting regularly for over a year and the pattern never changed; the furious barking, then Mrs. Broadwith, who looked after Miss Stubbs, would push all the animals but my patient into the back kitchen and open the door and I would go in and see Miss Stubbs in the corner in her bed with the card hanging over it.
She had been there for a long time and would never get up again. But she never mentioned her illness and pain to me; all her concern was for her three dogs and two cats.
Today it was old Prince and I was worried about him. It was his heart--just about the most spectacular valvular incompetence I had ever heard. He was waiting for me as I came in, pleased to see me, his long fringed tail waving gently.
The sight of that tail used to make me think there must be a lot of Irish setter in Prince but I was inclined to change my mind as I worked my way forward over the bulging black and brown body to the shaggy head and upstanding Alsatian-type ears-well, at least he kept one of them upright but the other tipped over at the top. Miss Stubbs often used to call him "Mr. Heinz" and though he may not have had 57 varieties in him, his hybrid vigor had stood him in good stead. With his heart he should have been dead long ago.
"I thought I'd best give you a ring, Mr. Herriot," Mrs. Broadwith said. She was a comfortable, elderly widow with a square, ruddy face contrasting sharply with the pinched features on the pillow. "He's been coughing right bad this week and this morning he was a bit staggery. Still eats well, though."
"I bet he does." I ran my hands over the rolls of fat on the ribs. "It would take something really drastic to put old Prince off his grub."
Miss Stubbs laughed from the bed and the old dog, his mouth wide, eyes dancing, seemed to be joining in the joke. I put my stethoscope over his heart and listened, knowing well what I was going to hear. They say the heart is supposed to go "Lub-dup, lub-dup," but Prince's went "swish-swoosh, swish-swoosh." There seemed to be nearly as much blood leaking back as was being pumped into the circulatory system. And another thing, the "swish-swoosh" was a good bit faster than last time; he was on oral digitalis but it wasn't quite doing its job.
Gloomily I moved the stethoscope over the rest of the chest. Like all old dogs with a chronic heart weakness he had an ever-present bronchitis and I listened without enthusiasm to the symphony of whistles, babbles, squeaks and bubbles which signaled the workings of Prince's lungs. The old dog stood very erect and proud, his tail still waving slowly. He always took it as a tremendous compliment when I examined him and there was no doubt he was enjoying himself now. Fortunately his was not a very painful ailment.