Geraldton Express and Murchison and Yalgoo Goldfields Chronicler – 23 December 1898, page 18
It was in the early, though not the ‘very’ early days, that Cue awoke one morning to find a charmer in its midst with golden hair that put the most glittering nugget to shame, and a sealskin jacket that brought back memories of English winters. Women, even of the barmaid cult, were few and far between in the fields in those times and the great heart of the community went out towards the latest arrival in frank and passionate adoration.
The pub which had been fortunate enough to secure her services dashed ahead of every rival establishment on the instant. Her shrine was thronged with thirsty admirers, it was even rumored that verses had been composed in her honour, although there was some tendency to regard this statement as savoring of exaggeration. Anyhow, she was quickly exalted to the position of a Helen or a Cleopatra among that chivalrous community, and when she crossed the apology for a main street in her full war paint, for she wore the sealskin jacket as well as the golden locks in the most blazing afternoon, every eye followed her with the longing looks a hungry cat throws upon a caged canary- In the
‘Lingua Franca’ of the field’s she was a “Stunner.”
A month or so elapsed and Cue awoke a second time—shaken to its very foundations. It was a stifling morning in late summer. Knots of men were to be seen gathered about the old well in animated discussion. One’s first idea was that a new rush of portentous dimensions was on the wire, but it was not so! On the iron roof of the pub lay a well-known head of hair (minus the head) which blazed like a hot coal between the scorching rays of goldfields sun. The locks were the locks of Hebe, or rather the locks which Art and some first-class hairdresser that had enriched that peerless damsel.
Some spiteful rival, it was insinuated, suspecting the imposition that was being practiced upon unsophisticated mankind, had stolen the wig while its possessor blissfully slumbered, and had perpetrated terrible and characteristically feminine revenge. The exposure was a dramatic one. but the ‘Hebe’, after spending a few days in decorous retirement, reappeared in her recovered property and soon lived down the incident. And after the first shock of the disillusion wore off, her admirers returned to their allegiance, and the slightest allusion to the event was considered in the worst possible taste.
Moya Sharp
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