Strawbridge

“ He was the most dignified man find had the most penetrating eyes that Strawbridge had ever seen in his life. He had that peculiar possessive air about him which Strawbridge had felt when once, at a New York banquet, he saw J. P. Morgan. By merely stepping out of the sentry-box this man seemed to appropriate the calle, the motor and men, and the llanos beyond the town. Strawbridge instantly knew that he was in the presence of General Adriano Fombombo, and the gaucherie of having turned around the little sentry's cap set up a sharp sinking feeling in the drummer's chest. ”

“ There will come a time, Señor Strawbridge, when our beloved valley will be decked with great and smiling cities; when men and women will live with no tyrant to make them afraid; then, carved in letters of gold in the pantheon of that happy people, will shine the name of Tomas Strawbridge, hero of San Geronimo!"
The President was moved. His eyes were misty as he drew from his pocket and pinned on the drummer's lapel a little gold decoration pendent from a rainbow-colored ribbon. It was the Order of the Libertador, for heroic action. ”

“ It amused Strawbridge to see a South American performing such military antics. It was like a child playing soldier. He was moved to mimic the little fellow by grunting back in the same tones, “Hup... Strawbridge... Caracas... Canalejos... sell guns and ammunition...” Then he wrote those answers in the book.
An anxious look flitted across the face of the sentry at this jocularity. His stiff “eyes front” flickered an instant toward the sentry-box. While the negro and the bull-fighter were filling in the register, a peon came riding up on a black horse. ”

“ It was clear that he did not want to go, but he could not hold his ground against the dynamic force of Strawbridge's enthusiasm. As he moved along he said:
"You are an American, aren't you?"
"Travel out of New York, but my home's in Keokuk. Great little burg; thirty thousand population and thirty-five hundred automobiles, not to mention flivvers...." Here Strawbridge laughed heartily, sharing the wide-spread American conviction that to make a distinction between an automobile and a flivver is the most amusing flight of human wit. ”

“ The priest's earnestness and simplicity brought Strawbridge a brief illusion that life did not end with his body, but that it stretched out in some mysterious sunshine beyond the physical facts of Canalejos, of Rio Negro, and, indeed, of the whole world. The bodies of men and women had an appearance of shells which contained reality and timelessness. ”

“ He was a graceful, sunburned fellow, and as he bent his head over the guitar, during his intermittent strumming, Strawbridge was surprised to see that his hair was done up like a woman's, in a knot at the back of his head.
Just why the American should have decided to ask this particular man for delicate information, it is impossible to say. It may have been because he was leaning against a shrine, or because he showed splendid white teeth as he smiled at the varying fortunes of the players. There is a North American superstition that a man with good teeth also possesses good morals. ”

“ While his two companions were signing, Strawbridge yielded to that impulse for horse-play which so often attacks Americans who are young and full-blooded. He leaned out of the motor very solemnly, lifted the cap of the sentry, turned the visor behind, and replaced it on his head. The effect was faintly but undeniably comic. The little soldier's face went beet-colored. At the same moment came a movement inside the sentry-box and out of the door stepped a somewhat corpulent man wearing the epaulettes, gold braid, and stars of a general. ”

“ Thomas Strawbridge smiled in the darkness.
"That's where you don't know men, señora," he assured her from his wider knowledge. "Every man cares about business. There is no man on earth that isn't wrapped up in some sort of business. Well, I think I'll step inside and see what I can do." He patted her hand where it lay on the arm of her chair. There was something about its softness and littleness that sent a strange, sweet sensation up Strawbridge's arm and suffused his body. The next moment he moved into the palace, with his usual quick, rangy strides. ”

“ Coronel Saturnino did not appear particularly gratified by this encomium heaped upon his home town. He picked up a paper-weight and looked at it with a faint smile.
"Did the general tell you about that?"
"Oh, yes," declared Strawbridge, heartily, "we buddied up from the jump. Why, I never meet a stranger. I'm just Tom Strawbridge wherever you find me."
The colonel passed over Mr. Strawbridge's declaration of his identity. ”

“ As the motor whirled cityward, the bull-fighter sat with both hands gripping the front seat, staring intently as the wedding music of the peons came to them, with its long-drawn, melancholy burden.
Strawbridge leaned back, listening and looking. He was still thinking about the play in New York and regretting the fact that in real life one never saw any such dramatic openings. In real life it was always just work, work, work—going after an order, or collecting a bill—never any drama or romance, just dull, prosy, commonplace business ... ”

“ Inside the fold was the sentence, “This will introduce to you a very worthy young American, Mr. Thomas Strawbridge, a young man of discretion, prompt decision, strict morals, and unimpeachable honesty.” It bore no signature.
Strawbridge turned it over and perused the address for upward of half a minute. Now and then he looked up and down the street, then at the numbers on the houses, after the fashion of a man trying to orient himself in a strange city. ”

“ Presently Strawbridge noted a surprising thing. Looking back over the cavalcade, he observed Father Benicio riding one of the confiscated horses. The good father jogged along in his dusty black cassock and his little round hat, with the sacred emblems dangling from his pommel, and he was riding a stolen horse. His questionable mount had not changed the priest's face at all. It was the same thin, ascetic face with its look of passionate spirituality burning through the repression, almost the mortification of the flesh. ”

“ Like all good Americans who observe a foreign military demonstration, Strawbridge thought:
"That's nothing. An American army with big American guns could blow that little toy right out of existence." Nevertheless he continued to be depressed and somehow dismayed by the hard and savage suddenness of the sunrise gun, and in his heart he determined firmly that he would not go with the army to San Geronimo. ”

“ Strawbridge lay flat on his back in the fish-boat, to keep the center of gravity as low as possible. The stars overhead appeared to him a whirling vortex of fiery points. He gripped the señora's hands in his good palm. He could feel her moving her rosary through her fingers. As they shot through the black thunder, the Spanish girl was praying to the Virgin of Canalejos. Dolores believed the Virgin was guiding the canoe down the perilous channel. Strawbridge's nerves were at tension, but he was not afraid. He believed in his luck. ”

“ Strawbridge stood looking at the tickets and shaking his head. Life, he told the ticket-seller, was what a man made it, and he could not afford to mix up his solid success with lottery chances and such like. What he wanted was certainties, and not moonshine. Here he handed back the sheaf and moved on briskly through the plaza, a big, well-tailored American, the ensample of a man who had taken his life in his own hands and molded it into a warm and shining success. The vender stared emptily after the drummer. ”

“ As he went, Strawbridge tried quickly to think of some other question to ask the police. He wondered if it would be best not to go up to the officer at all. If he knew the man with the hair was not looking after him... He was vaguely angry at everything and everybody—at Venezuela for making a law that would force an American salesman to go about the important function of business like a thief; at the consul for not giving him complete sailing instructions; at himself for asking ticklish questions of a man with a wad of hair. ”

“ As the general led the way into the palace, through a broad entrance hall, the cry of the peon girl still clung to the fringe of Thomas Strawbridge's mind. He put it resolutely aside, and assumed his professional business attitude. That is to say, a manner of complimentary intimacy such as an American drummer always assumes toward a prospective buyer. He laid a warm hand on the general's arm, and indicated some large oil paintings hung along the hallway. ”

“ Naked children, lottery venders, caged girls! Evidently the girls could not be trusted to walk abroad. Strawbridge looked at them—tropical creatures with creamy skins, jet hair, and dark, limpid eyes; soft of contour, voice, and glance.
A group of four domino-players were at a game just outside a peluqueria. A fifth man, holding a guitar, leaned against a little shrine to the Blessed Virgin which some pious hand had built into the masonry at the corner of the adobe. ”

“ An American caught in the presence of his mistress would probably be in a dour mood. On the other hand, the thought of the little monkey-eyed Josefa, lingering out another night in the filthy dungeons of La Fortuna, filled Strawbridge with pity and remorse. The youth was entirely innocent, and he, Strawbridge, had put him in his cell. On the other hand, a badly timed interview could very well be of no service to Josefa, and might lose the drummer a two-hundred-and-fifty thousand-dollar order for rifles. ”

“ The drummer saw the wretch thresh about as he was broken upon the stones.
For answer the insurgents deployed the width of the playa, between the houses and the palms, and charged. Horses, mules, howling peons, and chattering carbines roared down the quay. The Federals fired one more volley, then suddenly broke and fled. They scurried in every direction. Their little human speed was so puny that the horses overhauled them like giants. A feeling of tremendous strength filled Strawbridge. He was a Gulliver plunging down on Lilliputians. He selected a man to kill. ”

“ Presently she began telling Strawbridge her sensations when she came from Spain as General Fombombo's bride and found herself amid such a reign of terror.
"It was like stepping into hell, Señor Strawbridge. There never was a woman so miserable as I. I was afraid to confess such awful things, even to Father Benicio, but at last I did. He was the only human soul to whom I could turn. Good, kind Father Benicio! He saved me from going mad."
As she finished her story the American's optimism returned. ”

“ He began reproaching himself for ever having left her. A hundred misfortunes could befall an unaccompanied woman on Spanish-American streets after nightfall. Some of her pursuers could easily have followed the girl up the narrow calle. They might be carrying her back to Saturnino at this moment.... A chill sweat broke out on Strawbridge's face. He shoved along through the dancing crowd, past the bonfire, toward the church.
The leaping flames of the fire cast waves of illumination across the plaza and against the cathedral, causing its massive façade to glow and fade in the darkness. ”

“ Friends!" shouted the Trinidadian. "They are not Strawbridge's friends! We Anglo-Saxons trade with these natives; we talk with 'em, live among 'em, and occasionally marry 'em, but we never really get acquainted with any of 'em, and we never make a friend."
There was a certain verity in the rancher's appraisal, and the Tollivers themselves proved it. During this brief lunch hour the drummer and his English hosts were talking intimately and understandingly in a fashion which Strawbridge perhaps would never achieve with the colonel, Lubito, Father Benicio, or even with the señora.... ”

“ The high light of this ensemble, that which held it all together and subordinated it, was the peon girl Madruja. Strawbridge obtained rather a bewildered impression of her. In fact, no man ever gets the details of an unusually comely woman at first glance. ”

“ The powerful horse might have been a stanchion shoring up the column. His mere lunge turned three or four fugitives toward the enemy. This whirling movement became the focus of a renewed charge. Every man took courage from Strawbridge, from the thin-faced reprobate who led them. The column flung itself into the teeth of the fire from the roofs. ”

“ Strawbridge looked at the negro, but his humble expression appeared guileless.
“I am an American,” he nodded. “Now, just hand that to your master and tell him he can communicate with me at the Hotel Bolivia.” Strawbridge was about to go.
“Sí, seño',” nodded the servant, throwing away the mango stone.“ I tell him about de Americano. I heard about yo' country, seño', el grand America del Norte; so cold in de rainy season you freeze to death, so hot in de dry season you drap dead. Sí, seño', but ever'body rich—dem what ain't froze to death or drap dead.” ”

“ That explained everything. He often had nightmares. To Thomas Strawbridge's type of mind anything that happens often cannot possibly contain a mystery.
Nevertheless his experience left him in a dour mood. He turned out of bed, shoved his feet into some native alpargatas, and shuffled to the bath which adjoined his chamber.
The bath-tub was a basin of white marble, rather dirty, and built into the tiled floor. It was a miniature swimming-pool. Overhead was a clumsy silver nozzle on a water-pipe. The drummer turned it on, and the water which sprayed over him was neither cool nor very clean. ”