He flung a copper coin to a beggar woman, who crossed herself and blessed him.
“It is even pleasant to give to the beggars, instead of subscribing to an orphan asylum! We make virtue so dull and inhuman.” . . .
As they strolled towards the hotel for dinner, they were joined by a tall, lean, lank fellow countryman, whom Hollinger introduced to Brainard as Major Calloway,—“from Alabama, superintendent of the Jalapa-Vera Cruz branch of the railroad.” The three dined together in the patio with a young German, who was the agent for a firm of coffee merchants in Hamburg. They had an extraordinary Mexican dinner, consisting of the most fiery condiments that Brainard had ever put into his mouth. His eyes were constantly watering, and he drank quantities of water, much to the amusement of the others, who swallowed the pungent food with relish. They sat for a long time over their coffee and some very black cigars that Calloway produced, listening to the stories the Southerner told. It seemed that he had been in the country forty years, in fact ever since the close of the Civil War, in which Calloway had gained his title. Until recently the railroad had been but a mule tramway and Jalapa not even a “spot on the map.” He regarded it now as a metropolis. Mexico according to this old resident was hopelessly tame and civilized under the firm rule of Diaz and the influx of money-making Americans and Germans. “You should have seen it in the old days when a man could live as he liked. Why, they have even got extradition laws for most things now,” he complained.
“But they don’t use ’em,” the fight-trust man put in suavely.
Listening to the regrets expressed by the railroad manager, Brainard perceived that the perfect era of freedom and joy was always somewhat removed from the present time and place. Calloway was most friendly to the young American.
“I’ll show your young friend one of the old-time places to-morrow. It isn’t far from here—just a pleasant ride of a couple of hours.”
So a party was arranged for the early morning, and then Brainard excused himself because of his fatigue, while the others went out to a café for the rest of the evening.
Before sinking into his clean, inviting bed Brainard stepped to the balcony to look once more at the snowy crown of Orizaba that shone softly in the starlight across the valley. The plaza and the street beneath the balcony were deserted except for an occasional figure that slouched along, covered even to the head with a long cloak. At the next corner he saw a young man leaning against the window of a house, talking to some one within, doing his courting in the manner of the country. A sharp call rose into the night from the distance, answered by another, and then all was silence. From the plaza across the street came the sweet scent of lilies. It was the rich, languorous night of the semitropics, full of perfume and mystery,—romance for youth,—a bit crude, perhaps, and elementary, but appealing to every sense.
Brainard sank asleep to dream of a land of enchantment, full of hidden gardens, the sound of swaying trees and falling water, the scent of lilies, the sweet glances of dark women.