IN THESE PLEASANT TROPICAL COUNTRIES NO PEON GIRL ESCAPES MATERNITY
So accustomed are the Latin-Americans to the timid, gently-shrinking type of woman that they usually misunderstand the visiting American girl. When the native gentlemen observe her chatting with masculine acquaintances upon the street in her frankly carefree manner, they leap immediately to the conclusion that she is of the demi-monde. And when a gringo informs them that her smiles mean nothing, they shake their heads in wonderment.
“Ay!” they exclaim. “Your Anglo-Saxon females are so cold! So unsentimental! Altogether sexless!”
They shake their heads again, in pity, reflecting that the poor girl is missing all the most delicious of life’s sensations. But since they are ever hopeful, they linger awhile, to make sure that the gringo did not err in stating that her smiles meant nothing.
X
Salvador has the smallest foreign colony of any Central-American country. Since it is entirely a coffee country, and since Central-Americans are essentially coffee planters, it has little need for outsiders.
It judges the gringo largely by the occasional deluges of tourists who make the brief automobile journey up from the port of La Libertad during their “Go-from-New-York-to-Frisco-through-the-Panama-Canal” trip. As this is the only capital hereabouts that can be reached within a couple of hours from the seacoast, they all rush up the mountains to laugh at “one of those ridiculous little countries that O. Henry used to write about!”
One group came up during my sojourn.
They came in five automobiles, pausing at the central plaza to exclaim, “So this is Paris!” They looked at the leading hotel—an unimpressive but comfortable establishment—and roared, “There’s the Ritz!” They stopped for dinner, and demanded frijoles, having learned the name of that dish from Latin-American fiction, and being anxious to tell their friends at home about a real native dinner. They waited with much trepidation, having heard that all native dishes were peppery. And when the waiter brought frijoles, they screamed with laughter.