The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-11
CREEPS into The SYSTEM
TROPICAL LAZINESS 0VERTAKES
ALL IN THE WARM LATITUDEs.
Experience of q Warrington Man
mala-Habit Is Permanent.
Washington Star.

Washington Star.
"A man from these ATTITUDES might as
well attempt to brush back a tidal wave
with the palms OF his hands as to fight the
lassitude of the tropics" said Washing
tonian who is back home for a visit after
five years spent on a coffee plantation in
Guatemala.
This young man used to be noted among
his Washington friends as a hustler. He
walked with springy step and he was al
ways on the jump. His alertness was so
pronounced that he almost seemed nervous.
He always appeared to be going somewhere
and he was perpetually getting a move on.
His friends instantly noted the difference
in him when he got back from his long
stay in Guatemala. His health was all
right. He had taken care of himself down
there. SO that the Creeping Johnny"
which is another name for the chagres
fever, hadn't got him. But he had become
siow-gaited and his old running mates here
noticed what a penchant he had developed
for sitting down. A dreamy expression had
taken the place of the sharp look in his
eyes. He speaks twice as slowly as he did
before he went down to Central America,
and a panied look crosses his features when
he sees anybody hurrying. In brief, to en-
ploy the phrase of his friends. his life
down in the tropics has made him "dopey."
az don't mind you fellows calling me a
dope, either" he went on, explaining the
peculiar change that had been wrought in
suppose that I'd ever be anything else now,
even if 1 stayed back here. which L don
intend to-the dopey life is pretty good, af,
ter all, and I'm going back as soon as L
al Of be
I'D heard a lot of the enervation OF the
tropics before / went down to Guatemala
plantation, but didn't take much stock in
these stories. Tropics or no tropics, I'm
not going to become any dope said | TO
myself o. on c my way GOWN o,n mere re- change
fellows habits so much as all these yarns
tell about. Fellows from the temperate
zones who go to the tropics call II LASS, iassi
When / get down there I'm going TO get
swift move on and beat out this pipe-dream
about the enervation OF the tropics-watch
mel
$50, you see, went down there prepared
to fight the thing. Looking back now, can
see what nuisance 1 made of myself in the
view of my cousin and partner during the
first few months. He went there from Chi
cago, and he used to be good deal Of a
posed to exert himself any more than abso-
lutely necessary when l found him, how
ever, and, OF course, 1 slammed in and re-
proved him for it, Told him that he'd be-
come a first-rate imitation of the extinct
species known as the sloth, and all that.
He only grinned and blew smoke rings at
me.
You just wait, that's all. You'll get
yours.
Then he'd turn over on his sitting-room
couch and blow smoke at the wall, as if
talking were too much like work.
''Oh, / was Busy Icy all right-for all Of
a month, perhaps two months. L declared
against the midday siesta from my first
day, although everybody down there, in
Guiding the plantation hands, knock off and
do full-length sprawl for three hours at
the height of the day. 1 told my cousin that
this siesta business was silly, not to say
disgusting. He didn't hear me, though for
he was half asleep before I'd got through
telling HINT was at the beginning OF the
siesta. L clattered around the house and
the sheds and made enough noise during the
siesta period to keep anything but a bunch
of chloroformed men awake-but they never
woke UP. They just let me clatter and be
dinged. At first 1 put in my best working
ticks during the siesta hours. My cousin
would lie on his couch and grin at me when
he was emerging from his siesta slumber,
but he wouldn't say much, except to tell me
that L might as we'll be gay as long as /
felt that way.
Il inaugurated the rule for myself that
I'D dress for dinner every day, no matter
how tired / felt-'There's no use in a fell
lows letting himself go to seed and degen-
crate into an oaf just because he's made Il
change of base TO the tropics, was my way
of putting il TO my cousin i'm establishing
the dressing for-dinner rule for myself. and
then he chuckled and told me To 20 as far
az liked-pajamas Were good enough wear
Tor him TO eat IN, as long as there were no
guests.
For the first month or so / rode regu-
larly. every week, the thirty miles To the
coast town 10 the Pacific Mail liner drop
into the harbor and TO take a look at the
passengers. This. too. amused my cousin
and partner "A great deal.
III used TO do that when | first came
down. he told me. Liked To catch the
CLINT of the sapphire sea and all that Bull
~ the sapphire sea. wish they d
bring IL up here SOS could look at II once
in while
"1f you like it so much said to him.
impatiently. why don't you get astride Of