A Gringo in Mañana-Land

by Harry L. Foster

And conversation, as I recall it, invariably ran somewhat as follows:

Ay, but one was surprised that to-night we came to their bench! After the way we had stared at Carmen Rosa María de la Concepción Purísima Rodríguez, one expected that we might have gone to her bench. Ay, but both of them had seen! And Carmen Rosa María was the most beautiful girl in Mazatlán, no? No? Then who was? Ay, gracias, gracias, señores! So nice it was that we should say so! Did we really think so? Ay, but we were simpatico—muy simpatico—to say it!

Then commenced the Spanish lesson. It seemed, at times, a trifle impractical, for it was usually limited to phrases conveying admiration of feminine charm. If the male Latin-American revels in flattery, the female lives upon it, and these two señoritas were merely typical of most of their sisters in Mexico. A young man in their country was expected to spend the entire evening raving about their beauty. It mattered not how elaborate were his phraseology; he could expand his theme to a degree which would have brought any American flapper to her feet with the disgusted exclamation of, “How do you get that way? Do you think I’m a dumb-bell?”, yet here it was not only accepted, but demanded. This, as any traveling Gringo soon discovers in Mexico, was the theme most interesting to a señorita.

I suspected, at times, that I lacked the true grace of the Spanish cavalier. Since my command of the language was still somewhat limited, it was necessary to repeat the same phrases with tiresome regularity. I became aware of a foreboding, as we sat there beneath the coco-palms, that if I recited those phrases once more, all the cocoanuts would drop on me.

But when I suggested, as a change of entertainment, that we stroll over to a little café on the harbor-front for ice cream, the señoritas were quite shocked.

Ay, but one was now in Mexico! It was not custom! People would talk! And was it true that in the United States the girls—nice girls—could do such things? One had heard so, but it sounded incredible. One had even heard that young people went away, without chaperones, to theaters or dances. And was this true? One had actually heard that there were petting parties. How delightfully wicked! Ay, what a wonderful place must be the United States!

There was a pleasing simplicity about these little convent-sheltered maidens. If they craved flattery until it seemed a bit monotonous, one could at least pay it with veracity. And the plaza, although it was overpopulated with observers, was always pleasant. One had the illusion, particularly in the evening, that it was a theater where one collaborated with the rest of the populace in enacting a polite comedy-drama. The palms and ferns hung lifeless in the tropic calm, and the red hibiscus resembled paper flowers. The old cathedral transformed itself into a backdrop. The strains of the band came to one as from an orchestra hidden off-stage. There was something unreal about the soft whispers and the rippling laughter of the other youths and maidens. And when, as the chimes announced the hour of ten, the señoritas betook themselves homeward with cheerful little calls of “Adios until to-morrow!”, I waited expectantly for a curtain to descend.

One evening, after the girls had departed, Werner stopped at our bench.

“Just thought I’d warn you,” he said. “I know you don’t mean any harm. There’s something about this place that makes one lonesome for feminine company. But down here, unless you show very definitely that you intend marriage, they take it for granted you’re up to monkey business. So just go easy, or you’ll have their family jumping on your necks.”

We thanked him. It was timely advice. And when, on the following evening, the girls suggested that we meet the family, we agreed. It seemed advisable as an indication of the highly sanitary state of our consciences.