THE HAPPY BOWLER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16846, 23 September 1922, Page 15

THE HAPPY BOWLER.

A FASCINATING GAME. I REFLECTIONS AT PAPANUI. 1 (Written for \the “ Star.”) 1 £ The bowler, like 'an old war-horse, ‘ £ sniffs the battle from afar. Each day <j that has gone by since the shortest 8 day has been a milestone passed on | the road to the Glorious Fourteenth, s Spring, the happy-eyed, brings no- | thing to him but that day. The rose J may put forth its buds, but he’ll never If see the bloom. A baby may be born g in his house, but he’ll never know its s got a tooth till the season is over, s Bowls to him is all. “No hungry gen- l eration treads it down,” no care or tcanker of the work-a-clay touches it. ■; Wife, children or wealth are as nought r t to him who has been bitten by the | Bug Bowleritis. Now only three weeks remain, $ twenty-one days, and the fourteenth g of October will arrive, and Papanui [ bowlers will sally forth in blazers, hats g and rubber shoes to their grassed | arena in Langdon’e Road. Walk down our street any night now. j and as each house you pass. you’ll hear a weird rumble. Pass on undismayed. Jt is only dad practising on the hall carpet with the bath soap for the kitty. After the fourteenth, and 1 all through the summer, while the oliurch bells merrily ring, Papanui bowlers j will cut their lawns. Instead of. doing j it on Saturday afternoons they prefer I to risk their salvation and play bowls, j Fools that they are to wish to swop their harps for bowls, their halos for their sun hats, and their wings for Hazel's! Every Saturday, with Drake, . they sav, “ There is plenty of time to I finish our game of bowls and cut the ] lawn to-morrow.” After the fourteenth mother will do the gardening, chop j the morning wood, and clean the fowlhouse. She would also mow the lawn, J if the mower were not too hard for I her t-o shove. The ancient game of bowls! Yes, ] it’s as ancient as the first loafer, the ! j first shirker. The .first lazy husband j who determined to leave his wife to ' skin the Pchthyomis invented the game, and his opponent was the husband who should have been minding Freddy while his wife went visiting her neighbours* caves. Every bowler is a dodger. After tea lie rushes off for a game and plays until he cannot see the divot, then he sits on the hank and smokes and lies till it is time to go home to bed. It is not a game Tt is an excuse. And it is only because women are unorganised that such a state of things continues. One bowler I knew had a hard les son. He was newly married to a tender-hearted young lady a woman made to be petted and loved-* a creature so sensitive that a stern look would make her shrink and falter. She did not know he was a bowler, but when October came she learned. At first it was just Saturday afternoons and three nights a week, but soon it was every night. She was too timorous to complain, but soon the roses left her cheeks. Then came a cough and when he cam© home tired from bowls, her coughing would keep him awake. “ .1 wish to goodness you’d get some ; medicine for that cold,” he said sav- ; agelv one night. Meekly she prorftised. but next night, when he came home for tea, he found her lying on the couch her face flush- : ed and her breathing uneven and fast, j He hurried home as soon as it was too dark to play, and helped her to bod.' In the morning she was still ill, and as soon as he arrived at his office he rang up for the doctor to call. He had lunch in town to save her getting a hot dinnqr for him and in the afternoon lve found himself continually thinking of her. In fact, by three o’clock he was**thinking more of her than of his bowls. He thought of their ! marriage day, of how beautiful and wonderful she had seemed to him. of g how he had promised to care for her. 'j “ I’ve been a brute,” he said sadly, “ I Have deserted her these last few months. How '-lonely she must have been.” He got off early and rushed home, i "With heart almost stopping he open- j ed the door, and found her sitting by ! the fire. She was better but still weak. He kissed her again and again. Then his eyes fell on the clock. “By Jove!” he said, grabbing his hat. “ I've just got time for a game before tea.”