Great fields of maize are cultivated, of which there are two or three crops a year. The food of the people is tortillas, made out of this maize mashed into a paste and baked into flat cakes.
I ate those tortillas when I first came, as a curiosity, a native production, but I am not going to eat any more. While Uncle Theodore and I were watching a woman making them, great drops of perspiration fell from her brow into the paste. She pounded away, poor tired creature, and paid no heed to the drops. Poor women of Mexico, they have to work so hard, preparing the paste, and making those little cakes to be eaten hot at every meal! But no more tortillas for me.
We visited the old churches which are beautifully decorated with veined marble and alabaster. Precious stones seem to grow in this remarkable land.
"Keep your eyes open, Pearl," said my uncle, "and you may pick up some opals, or amethysts. They grow in this country, and I have heard they can be had for the picking."
I have made a discovery--I have found out America's Princely Man! It is Abraham Lincoln, and this is his Birthday!
Magazines have been coming down from the North telling us all about this Princely Man, and I have asked grandmother and Uncle Theodore hundreds of questions, it seems to me, about him. And I can see that they never get tired answering those questions, but seem as if they could talk about him forever.
Scarcely a political debate occurs, either in Congress or in the Press of the country, but the possible views or actual example of Abraham Lincoln are quoted as the strongest argument, Uncle Theodore says.
The magazines find it impossible to publish too much about him. Mention of his name in an incidental fashion from a stage or forum draws a burst of cheering; or if the reference is of a humorous nature the laughter is close to tears.
"With love and reverence his memory is cherished by the American people as is the memory of no other man," said dear grandmother. "Quoting a 'Decoration Day' orator," she added, "'He was called to go by the sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's woe, the cry of the uncomforted in his ears, the bitterness of their passion on his heart. Misunderstood, misjudged, he was the most solitary of men. He had to tread the wine-press alone, and of the people none went with him. But he turned not back. He never faltered. As one upheld, sustained by the Unseen Hand, he set his face steadfastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in Death's black minute he paid glad life's arrears: the slaves free! Himself immortal!'"