WILLOW WALY
By HELEN SIMPSON
COMING home from some errand I went by an hotel with whose commissionaire I am on speaking terms ; that is to say, as I was passing one day he burst out, a propos of some modernist sculpture opposite : " What have I done ? They don't see it, they're inside, I've got to look at it twelve hours a day ; what have I done ? " This time he was moving on four or five determined looking boys clasping flat books. They moved, but returned the second he had a taxi's door to open. Again he scattered them ; again, selecting their moment, they returned. I took advantage of our acquaintanceship to ask what it was all about, and got such answer as might have been expected. " We've 'got the Australian cricketers here."
At once I went back through time and space to a -schoolroom in Sydney, pepper trees outside the window, locusts croaking, and my English governess reading aloud from Alice. " Do cats eat bats ? " she began, and could not go on for laughing. The question did not seem so preposterous, and one of us answered gravely : " Not in Australia, but • white ants do." They did. Our family bat had met with just that fate, and next day, as a reward for some good deed, I was chosen to buy another at the shop of Victor Trumper.
Is he forgotten ? I know that in 1910 when he went to the wicket a certainty of excitement possessed all watchers in the stands and on the hilt. His bat was Harlequin's wand ; it scored from impossible angles ; he might have played without pads, so gracefully sure was his defence. A light build made his centuries the • more miraculous. I once retrieved a ball at which he seemed only to flick, which went for six into the fourth row of seats in the members' stand. In dreams children saw themselves partnering Trumper, scattering the English attack ; his physical frailness gave the dream a quality of probability which it would have lacked had • the hero been Armstrong, a sizeable man. He was the Shelley of cricket, and for once I was to see him plain. Next afternoon the governess took me, ellisping my autograph book, to the little shop. I had qualms on the tram—would he be there ? The shop was empty • when we pushed open its glass door, and I stood still just inside with a feeling of sickness that I have not known with graver disappointments since. Then there was movement behind a rack of clubs, and Victor himself came towards us. I gazed, could not speak, and the governess made my wants clear; a bat for the children's use, to cost so much. Trumper nodded, gravely surveyed my height, selected a bat and gave it to me with the words : " Try how she feels."
I felt the weight, balanced it as professionally as I knew. The bat was perfectly comfortable, but if I said so delight was at an end. I shook my head. He took it away, brought another, and another. At last I had to make up -my mind. I chose blindly, a bat with a knot near the splice. The governess exclaimed, but Trumper said : " I never mind a knot meself."
Approval goes quickly to a child's head. I took the 'bat and began to show off, playing imaginary forcing shots, forgetting style, brandishing wildly. Trumper watched, then spoke. The Australian voice can take an extraordinarily sardonic and wounding twist, and this, rather than the wording of his brief comment, showed me just what he thought of the performance.
" Bit of a golfer, areritcha ? "
When my governess had paid for the bat, she said ; " Oh, but you haven't asked Mr. Trumper—where's your autograph book, dear ? "
I could not bear it. I wanted never to be reminded of that comment or that moment. To the astonishment of the governess I shook my head and ran from the shop, gulping. Actual tears, thank goodness, kept back till we were in the street.
Most loving's mere folly, and mine was not the only extravagance. There was the boy of twelve who plagued his parents to let, someone see to his teeth. Obliged by them (wondering) he rejected the man they had chosen and demanded Dr. Noble, M. A. Noble, - who, in time snatched from captaining Australia, practised dentistry for a living. He got his way, and sat ecstatically writhing while the demi-god drilled. There was the child who kept a tram-ticket discarded by Cotter, the fast bowler, in her prayer book.
. Well, that's all over. However, memory of it made me ask the commissionaire not to be too harsh with the boys. His answer was discouraging : " You can't be - too harsh with boys." The end of this incident was hidden, but if I know anything of the cunning, tact, patience, and lack of scruple inspired by cricket hero- worship, the boys defeated him.
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