A SAD STORY

Southland Times, Issue 20445, 24 March 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

A SAD STORY

THE BOWLER’S HUSBAND

(By

A. Vic Tim.)

These are strange times we are living in. I don’t bowl, but my wife does. Hence this story. There are times when a husband may legitimately be annoyed, and one of these times is when his wife catches the bowling fever. If your wife, gentle reader, does not fever. If your wife does not play, you will dub me a grouch; but, if she does, you will shed tears of sympathy with me. The trouble began in this way. The young folks got up and off our hands, and my wife had at last a taste of peace and ease. But, truly, Satan findeth mischief still for idle hands to do, and another lady of leisure tempted my wife, not with a luscious apple, but with a pair of bowls. This other lady knew a man, who did not play often, and would be pleased to lend his bowls. And so the plot thickened and matured. Now, no reasonable man could object to his wife having some healthful pastime. So, the first step was taken, and an occasional game played. But, mark the result. Practices, ladders, tournaments, matches developed. The telephone went from 7.30 a.m. till, perhaps, 2 p.m., “deavin’ ” an unsympathetic non-player. Then, after the game or match, the lady of the house would return, so charged with information, personal, social, municipal, that the Dee Street Parliament would have to take,second place as a disseminator of news and arbiter on controversial subjects. Many an invitation has been given me to visit the green as an onlooker, but even the promise of afternoon tea could not “fetch” me. But on Wednesday, this week, came the crowning effort of our ladies. They had dared to challenge the famous lady bowlers of Dunedin. First, I would, and then, I wouldn’t, but, at last, I consented to witness what promised to be an Armageddon. Oh! the sacrifices we men have to make for our womenfolk. The Southland Club actually gave up their green for the occasion. Heroes all, the ladies’ men among them sitting like rows of extinct volcanoes, or going into convulsions of polite attentions; a few, whom I at first admired and envied, withdrawing to the shades of the Water Tower. Personally, I would rather have enjoyed, like Dick Swiveller, “a few winks of the balmy,” or, like Father Prout, indulged in “otium cum diggin’ tatties” in my garden. I am a late Victorian, naked and unashamed, and hold strong views on ladies’ dress, occupations and pastimes. Yet here was I, all prejudices overcome, walking down the banks of the sparkling and salubrious Puni, making for the scene of female conflict! What malign chance turned my wife into a bowler? And yet the scene and experience upset my presuppositions. I have seen crowds in Edinburgh, London, Melbourne, but never before such a crowd on a bowling green. Ladies smartly gowned (skirts rather short for the game), active, gay, confident. What impressed me most was their youthfulness, even those approaching the autumnal as agile as the flappers. Not a man on the green! And, just as Joseph Chamberlain saw that the days of the Dukes were oyer, sb I thought that the day of the ladies had dawned, or, rather, had reached the meridian at last. Confidence, skill, enthusiasm were so marked, that the men forgot that they were extinct volcanoes, and broke out into a continuous spluttering of clapping and cheers. Once, when a skip, in the final shot, carried “kitty” right out of a Dunedin stronghold, and landed it among four Southland bowls, one would have thought that the end of all things had come. I enjoyed that afternoon, not only the game, but the company. For I sat beside an old Scottie, and, when we brither Scots ' foregather, stories are exchanged. He told me one, which nearly split my sides—and his sides too, for that is the best of him—that he laughs as heartily at his own stories as at mine. Just then two skips looked at us. One asked what we were laughing at. ' They felt just a little hurt, suspecting we were laughing at their shockingly short i skirts. As if we sober-sided old fellows : would take notice of the trivialities of; fashion! That particular story must be' reserved for the first smoke concert, but : here are specimens of what we were able i to whisper in the lucid intervals between 1 spasms of excitement. Matrimony is not ■ a word: it is a sentence. It is said that ' there are 128,000 hairs on a man’s head, j provided that he lives on good terms with ' his wife (My auld freend and I have about i 1200 hairs between us, but we are both i bowlers’ husbands). A negro told his min- i ister that he was applying for a divorce ! from his wife, and was reminded that he I had taken her “for better or for worse.” I “Yah,” he replied, “but she is so much I worse than I took her for.” (Probably she i bowled.) Some people think that, in the ! presence of a minister, they should be very ■ correct and proper. A lady was entertain- ■ ing one of the cloth in her drawing-room, ’ when her little boy came rushing in, his i eyes staring in his head. Not noticing the j minister, he exclaimed, “Oh! mammy, I ! killed a rat. I whacked it, and thumped ' it, and jumped on it, until”—then, noticing j the minister—“until God called it home.” j A man was very kind to a bishop, so he left ) him his episcopal ring in his will. But, i before the will was read, the bishop with j his ring had been buried. In course of 1 time the man died, and they met in the other world. “Oh,” said the bishop, “I have always been sorry that you did not get this ring.” and handed it over to him. “By gum,” he said, “but it was hot.” But there was an anti-climax to all this. At 4.50, when some rinks had played out, and the excitement was at its height, my wife had just time to rush over to me, and gasp, “You had better go home, and get the tea ready.” I’ve made more teas during the last two years than in all my past life. And that is one of the penalties of being a bowler’s husband.