Armed Forces -- Fiction; English poetry; Prisoners -- Fiction; Short stories, English
Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused
the visitor that day to receive two weeks’ delayed mails in one from a
casual postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a
strap, he dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged,
undressed to his sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on
guard over a dozen heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming
Atlantic boat.
“Excuse me, Mister,” he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed
his nationality), “would you mind keeping away from these garments?
I’ve been elected janitor—on the Dutch vote.”
The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to
his mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured
man turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his
close-set iron-grey eyes.
“Have you any use for papers?” said the visitor.
“Have I any use?” A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off
the outer covers. “Why, that’s the New York postmark! Give me the ads.
at the back of _Harper’s_ and _M’Clure’s_ and I’m in touch with God’s
Country again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?”
The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
“Providential!” said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
task; “both in time and matter. Yes! … The _Scientific American_ yet
once more! Oh, it’s good! it’s good!” His voice broke as he pressed his
hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the
end. “Can I keep it? I thank you—I thank you! Why—why—well—well! The
_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?”
“I’m on the free list,” said the visitor, nodding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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