Old Jim ‘The Hatter’s’ Christmas Party –

Old Jim ‘the Hatter” lay in bed half asleep. At least he reckoned himself half asleep, although he knew well enough that it was Christmas morning and time to get up. But he had dreamt such a wonderful dream and the illusion, the charm of it, so persisted that he hated to open his eyes.

Such a wonderful dream, and even now he still fancied that somewhere a bell was tolling, just such a bell as had tolled when he had been a boy long, long ago. Of course, there was no bell, there couldn’t be! It was only part of his dream, an echo still ringing in his ears, part of the unreality that had seemed so real. One of the queer things he fancied at times, queer fancies that came to an old man who lived always alone, with no one to talk to except his dog. So he lay listening to the dream bell, fearing to open his eyes lest the drabness of reality should shatter the wonder of illusion. Old Jim was a dryblower, the last on the long worked out Taurus Rush. A solitary old man who lived in a tattered canvas humpy by the roadside. A trifle mad, they said; the thoughtless laughed at him; the kindly pitied him.

He wore corks around his hat!

But once he had been brave and strong, massive of frame and with an eye like an eagle. He had done gallant things in his time given his last pint of water to a perishing stranger on the track; his last pound note to a mate with a sick wife, and once had trudged the bush for days seeking a lost child and, when all hope had gone, had found it, barely alive, and in his strong arms had carried it back to its half-demented mother.

Brave and strong: to the weak, tender as a woman.

But men had forgotten, and now, as he sat at his door by the seldom travelled road, such as passed nodded at him lightly – Old Jim the Hatter! But Old Jim went his ancient ways, digging and sifting, finding a little gold here, none at all yonder, yet always hoping to find a pocket, the something big he had spent his life searching for!

“But you’ll never find it!” someone cruelly had told him. “You’re too old now.”

Too old! He knew that! But still he must keep on searching: it was his life: his tattered bag humpy was home and where else could an old man go who had no friends. Old mates all were dead. So he had gathered his few grains of gold and had tramped five miles to the nearest store to buy such few things as would carry him over the Christmas season. Maybe he’d have a drink, for there was a hotel by the store. No matter; it’s a poor heart that never rejoices. Five miles there and five back! It must have been sheer weariness that made him fall asleep as he sat at his door watching the road where now men so seldom came.

It had been a busy road once upon a time. Thousands had hurried along it, men on horse back, on bicycles, in carts and drays, on foot. Afghans, too, had been there, and camels, long strings of the patient beasts, as alien to Australian soil as their drivers. And all had been off to the great gold rushes of the hinterland. Jim had gone with them, played his part. Now he was back, old and bent, back to the Taurus, his first love, where gold had once been his by the handful.

But now the gold was gone, while along the road men on horseback seldom passed, Afghans and camels never: only once in a while a car, a whirling cloud of dust that in an instant was gone. Sitting at his door, Jim watched them go, motor cars, part of another world, a world that had left him far behind. Yet it had been in a car that his dream ladies had come, in a splendid car that had reflected the afternoon sun. But when it had stopped at his door he knew that it wasn’t a car at all, only a dream.

Two ladies had stepped out, so beautiful, so charmingly dressed that they seemed faerie. “Oh, Jim!” the elder one had cried, “I know you even now, in spite of your white hair.” He knew that she was wrong. How could she know him, Old Jim the hatter? But he had let it pass. Then they had gone into his camp, laughing their delight at having found him, and patting Lassie, who fawned upon them. He had liked that, their taking so kindly to Lassie and she to them.

Then they had said, “Now, Jim, you must come with us; we’re going to give you a wonderful Christmas.” “But I have no clothes!” he had protested, though he longed to go with them. They would take no denial. “Just as you are will do!” So he had got into the car, Lassie too, both with a big rug around them. Then had come the long delightful ride. How swiftly they had travelled! Past deserted camps, through busy townships, past worked out mines, through belts of scrub and forest: on until, close to sunset, they had arrived at a big town. “Kalgoorlie,” the elder fairy had said. And the car had stopped at a fine hotel that stood in the fine wide street.

Of course it was a bit muddled and mixed, as dreams are when we try to remember them. “We get out here!” He had felt a bit timid about getting out: such a lot of people seemed to be about and some stared to see the old unkempt dryblower in the car with two fine ladies. But his fairies hadn’t cared about the people. “Come on. Jim!” And they had helped him out. Then through a big door, up a broad flight of stairs to a landing with palms and flowers and beautiful lights.

Then he had found himself in a bathroom, all tiles and enamel and nickel. As a general rule he was a bit shy of baths, having lost the habit through being so long away from the water. But this! And the water was so pleasantly warm. It made him feel a new man. Then a barber had come in with a bathrobe and scissors. And new clothes had appeared from somewhere, everything, including a suit of serge that fitted as though he had been measured for it.

Outside the two fairies had been waiting, and when they saw him so trim and clean the elder had thrown her arms around him and kissed him: him, Old Jim the hatter! Then the younger one, her daughter, it seemed, had given him a demure little peck. After that they had taken tea on the balcony, where one could look down and see hundreds of people passing, and bright lights, and tramcars, and even hear a band playing. So different to the night silence of his lonely camp. Then, with tea over, they had left him-to go shopping, they said. After that he had watched the scene below until at last the lights had dazzled him and he had started to fall asleep.

Then someone had come to him and shown him into a bedroom, where everything had seemed white – roof, walls, sheets, blankets. Lassie had been there, too, coiled up on a rug. He had felt uneasy in that bed at first: it had been too soft, But soon everything had faded. And that had been the end of it, his strange and wonderful dream!

He was wide awake now, but he kept his eyes shut just to preserve the illusion a little longer How beautiful it had seemed, and how well he retained the memory of it, even to the echo of that bell which somehow still tolled. But he knew that when he opened his eyes he would hear nothing; would see not the white bedroom, but the old smoke-stained roof of his humpy, with its sapling ridge pole and the hole by the chimney that he must mend before winter came.

So he kept his eyes shut: he wanted his dream the wonder and sweetness of it. He was too old for the Taurus now, too old ever to find his Eldorado. He hated to go back: he must dream just a little longer. A smooth hand caressed his hair. “Jim, wake up!” It was the voice of the elder fairy. He still dreamed!

“Wake up! Are you going to sleep all this lovely Christmas Day?” He opened his eyes. “It isn’t real!” he faltered.

She laughed merrily. “But it is, Jim. I’m your little sister, your tiny sister, ever so much younger than yourself, whom you placed in a boarding school with enough money to keep her until she grew to be a woman. I am that woman. But, oh what a long time it has taken me to find you, my dear old brother Jim.”

by W Charnley.