" Living in Paradise now under a
paternal all-providing government, they seemed to have forgotten
the rolling-pin days of the past. It was here in Paraiso that I
first encountered that strange, that wondrous strange custom of
lying about one's age. Negro women never did. What more absurd,
uncalled-for piece of dishonesty! Does Mrs. Smith fear that Mrs.
Jones next door will succeed in pumping out of me that capital bit
of information? Little does she know the long prison sentence at
"hard labor" that stares me in the face for any such slip; to say
nothing of my naturally incommunicative disposition. Or is she
ashamed to let ME know the truth?--unaware that all such
information goes in at my ears and down my pencil to the pink card
before me like a message over the wires, leaving no more trace
behind. Surely she must know that I care not a pencil-point
whether she is eighteen or fifty-two, nor remember which one
minute after her screen door has slammed behind me--unless she has
caused me to glance up in wonder at her silvering temples of
thirty-five when she simpers "twenty-two"--and to set her down as
forty to be on the safe side. Oh now, please, ladies, do not
understand me as accusing the American wives of Paraiso in general
of this weakness. The large majority were quite pleasant, frank,
and overflowing with cheery good sense.
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