IX
To be fair to these countries, no story of revolution is altogether typical of any of them.
Life even in Mexico or Honduras is normally tranquil. Bloodshed and comic opera are not the rule, but the exception. If all of these republics have their turbulent moments, they quickly recover.
After the flight of Tinoco, Costa Rica settled quickly into its accustomed routine. Through the narrow Moorish streets the oxen plodded slowly behind the driver’s goad-pole, their noses to the ground, their massive shoulders swaying from side to side. In the coffee fields outside the capital the peons laughed and chatted as they filled their baskets with red berries. In the plaza the military band played on Sunday evenings, while youths and maidens strolled beneath the palm trees. And the same moon that smiled upon Mexico peeped over the low flat roofs, while the plaintive notes of the gendarme’s whistle echoed through the quiet city with its benediction of “All’s well.”