The War-God's Country

TOMMY TINKER was eating a slice of bread and butter. He was biting it very carefully round the edges and between bites he looked at it thoughtfully.

“What in the world are you doing!” asked his father.

“I’m biting a map of North America,” replied Tommy. He placed it carefully on the tablecloth. “There’s Alaska on this corner, Labrador on this corner, Florida on this corner, and Yucatan opposite it.” Then he rolled out a little tail of bread and placed it on the other corner. “And there’s Lower California.”

“I ought to send you from the table for playing with your food,” said his father; “but I won’t if you can tell me where the Gulf of California is.”

“It’s not in California,” said Tommy. “You didn’t catch me that time. It’s in Mexico and so is Lower California too—both are in Mexico.”

“Right,” said his father. “When I was a boy my teacher asked me where the Gulf of California and Lower California were and, though I hadn’t studied my lesson, I answered ‘California,’ for I felt sure that must be right.”

“Did your teacher ever show you this one?” asked Tommy. He curved the finger and thumb of his left hand to form the letter “G.” “ G is for Gulf of Mexico,” he said. “My finger is Florida, my thumb is Yucatan and here is Mexico. Do you see it?”

“They didn’t teach me geography that way when I went to school,” said his father.

“They don’t now,” said Tommy. “I made that up myself.”

Perhaps you have heard people speak of some place as “God’s Country.” Well, the country just south of the United States is named “God’s Country,” but it is the War God’s Country. It is called Mexico after the Indians’ God of War, Mexitli.

When you cross the line from the United States to Canada you hardly know you are in another country—the people are the same, they talk the same language. But when you cross the line from the United States to Mexico you do know you are in another country—the people are different and they talk a different language. Mexico used to belong to Spain across the Atlantic; it now belongs to itself.