“Well,” said Roy, with a sigh, “I see one thing. I’ve got to learn how to speak English all over again or these folks won’t know what I’m talking about. How does it come that southerners talk so different from the rest of the country?”
“It’s easy to see that you’ve never traveled,” replied the purser, “or you wouldn’t say that. New Englanders don’t talk any more like New Yorkers than New Yorkers talk like folks out west.”
Roy’s eyes opened wide. “I never knew that,” he said. “What’s the reason for it?”
“The size of the country,” said the purser. “The United States of America is as big as half a dozen countries of Europe rolled into one. We don’t think it strange that people of different nations speak different languages and it isn’t any stranger that people in different sections of such a vast country as the United States should develop different dialects.”
“I never thought of that before,” said Roy.
They passed on into the city. But though it was midday very few persons were to be seen.
“What’s the matter?” queried Roy. “The streets are almost deserted and there doesn’t seem to be any business going on at all.”
Again the purser smiled. “Just another difference in customs,” he said. “In England, you know, all business stops for five o’clock tea. Here it is the custom to rest during the middle of the day. That’s a common practice in all hot countries.”
“Well, I never!” cried Roy. “I’m certainly learning a lot.”
They passed on into the city. The business houses were mostly low and old-fashioned. The dwellings were mostly detached frame structures, each standing in a yard full of flowers and shrubbery. There was an almost utter absence of large trees, but after what Roy had learned about the grade raising he understood why there were none. It astonished him to learn from the purser that there never had been any real tall trees, because the island was so near tide level that the salt water seeping through the sand killed all deep-rooted growths. What particularly delighted Roy was the presence everywhere of rich growths of oleanders, and other tropical plants that he had never seen before.