Nan Sherwood on the Mexican Border Part 17

"You've all had easy lives, so you don't know yet, really, what's worth while and what isn't."

"Now, that girl back there," he resumed his talk after a few moments of silence, "she has no conception what-so-ever of worth. What's her name, anyway?" he asked.

"Linda Riggs," Nan answered.

"Not the daughter of the railroad king?"

"That's right." Nan nodded her head.

"Knew him, when he was a young fellow," Adair paused, remembering his own youth. "He was a nice chap then. Can't understand how he could have reared such a poor excuse for a daughter. We belonged to the same college fraternity. He was president of it at one time I think. Always helping people out. Everybody liked him. That's how he happened to get on in the world the way he did. Met up with someone who had lots of dough and no son to carry on the family name. Riggs seemed to fill the bill, so the wealthy old codger took him into his business and taught him the ropes.

"Riggs wore well, and when the old man died he inherited the fortune.

Sounds like a fairy story, but those things happen. Jamieson here must know the tale."

Walker nodded in agreement. "Do. Interviewed the old bird one time under particularly difficult circ.u.mstances. There was a big railroad merger story about to break, and n.o.body wanted to talk. I got wind of it through a hot tip from a stooge in New York. Tried everything in order to get the story, and finally in desperation went to Riggs himself. It was rumored that he had the controlling interest in the stock. I had to go through a dozen secretaries before I finally got to him.

"Then he didn't want to talk either. However, some little thing I said in pa.s.sing, captured his fancy, and before I knew it, I was laying all my cards on the table and he was putting them together so that they made sense. When we were finished, I realized that I had one of the biggest stories of the year and was about to grab my hat and run out to put it on the wires, when he put out a restraining hand. 'Sorry,' he said, 'but I must ask you to keep this quiet for twenty-four hours longer. If you promise, I a.s.sure you that no one else will get the release until your paper has the scoop all sewed up.'

"In a way I was up a tree, because I knew that if the story had leaked out to me, someone else was very likely to get wind of it too. I hesitated. He stuck out his hand as though to shake mine and he did it in such a frank friendly fas.h.i.+on, that I agreed to what he asked, even though I knew it was a dumb thing to do under the circ.u.mstances.

"But there was something about the man that inspired confidence and regard."

"Lived up to the agreement, didn't he?" Adair said positively.

"Sure did," Walker a.s.sented, "and under difficulty too. Just as I suspected, some other paper did get wind of the story and sent one of their ace men out to get the details. Riggs let him in, quizzed him to find out what he knew, excused himself, and then called me to tell me that the time was up, that I'd better shoot the yarn right through if I wanted to scoop the rest of the dailies.

"Well, after he did that, he went back into his office and told the other reporter the whole story he had told me. It took him three hours to tell it, and when my compet.i.tor came out of the office our extras were already on the street."

"That was the Midwestern merger, wasn't it?" Adair questioned.

"Right!" Jamieson agreed. "Remember it, don't you? But you chits," he turned his attention to the girls who had been listening with their customary attention to his tale, "you wouldn't remember. You were hardly out of your cradles then. Nan here was probably still creeping around in rompers. Bess, well, Bess probably didn't creep, that was too dirty for her, but she was probably beginning to put her hands up to her father and saying, 'gimme'."

This brought a laugh from everyone, including Adair MacKenzie.

"Can't understand," he returned to the question of Linda, "how a girl with a father like Riggs could be such an obnoxious person."

"Oh, there are lots of explanations," Walker answered. "I happen to know that his wife died when the girl was just a baby. He was all broken up and turned to the child for comfort. Guess he lavished all his attention on her and spoiled her."

"Sounds plausible," Adair agreed, and then looked at Alice. "See how I ruined my daughter with kindness," he twitted. "Let her get out of hand completely. Now I can't do anything with her."

"Want to get rid of her?" Walker winked at Alice, as he asked the question.

"What's that?" Adair was startled.

"Oh, nothing, dad," Alice frowned at Walker. "Where are we going now."

"Don't know." Adair took out his watch as he shook his head. He frowned. "Guess we can make it though," he continued, laughing with the others at his own inconsistency.

CHAPTER XIX

FLOATING GARDENS

"Xochimilco or place of flowers. How lovely," Nan spoke softly in the presence of the beauty before her.

Adair MacKenzie in his desire to introduce the girls to something that would make them forget the bullfight had brought them to one of the prettiest places in all Mexico. Now, he was looking exceedingly pleased with himself.

"Oh, daddy," Alice too was thrilled at the spectacle before them. "Many, many times I've heard of the floating gardens of Mexico and I've always wanted to see them."

"Well, there they are," Adair said as off-handedly as possible under the circ.u.mstances. "Now you see them."

They laughed at his matter-of-factness.

"If you will allow me," Walker Jamieson who had deserted the party immediately after the car had been parked, now brought a canoe he had rented and paddled up one of the many ca.n.a.ls before them to a stop at their feet. He stood up and held out his arm to Alice.

"Fair lady, you come first." He said as he helped her in and a.s.sisted her to a seat opposite him. "And now, Nan." So one after the other he helped the members of the party to places in the large canoe.

"H-h-hm," Adair MacKenzie cleared his throat as he seated his bulk.

"Now, I'd say this is more in keeping with what young ladies should like. How about it?" He addressed his question to Grace who was beaming beside him.

She nodded in agreement.

Everyone was completely happy as Walker pushed the canoe off. So the rest of the afternoon was whiled away in paddling lazily through the flower-bordered ca.n.a.ls.

"Why are they called floating gardens?" Nan addressed her question to Walker who seemed a fountainhead of information about all sorts of things.

"Simply because they float," Walker answered as he disentangled his paddle from some lily stems along the side.

"But you can't actually see them move," Nan said as she peered earnestly at one of the many islands.

"No, you can't, now," Walker agreed. "But there was a time, Miss Curiosity, ages ago when these beautiful gardens actually did float from place to place, a time when you didn't know from one day to the next just where you'd wake up and find a certain particularly beautiful one."

"Why?" The subject was an intriguing one and Nan wanted to know all about it.

"Oh, they say," Walker continued quietly, "that the earth of the gardens lies on interlacing twigs. Naturally before the water filled in as it is now, these twigs moved with the current and carried their burden of earth and flowers along with them.

"This was always a beautiful spot," he continued, "even back before the Aztecs found the eagle on the cactus and conquered the region and settled their capitol. When they did all this and found themselves with leisure on their hands, the n.o.bles made of this place a playground, and the Aztec papa and mama came here with the Aztec child for Sunday picnics.

"Today, if I hadn't been as energetic as I am," he paused and grinned at the snort that this brought forth from Alice's father, "a descendant of these same Aztecs, who still, by the way, speaks the tongue of his forefathers, would have been plying this gondola. The Aztecs still live around here and still preserve many of the ancient customs of their people."

He rested the paddle on the side of the canoe as he finished and, as water dripped from it making little rings in the ca.n.a.l, he sat idly dreaming. The canoe drifted along and came to rest under an over-hanging willow. No one spoke. It was a magic moment, for the sun was setting and sending low rays over the water. Tropical birds were singing full-throated songs and in the distance they could hear, faintly, the sound of music.

Finally, Alice spoke. "It can't be very different," she said, "than it was centuries ago. For the same exotic flowers ran wild here then that do now, and the same birds sang. How queer that makes me feel. Century after century has unrolled and yet this is the same."

"I know." Walker looked across at her. "Makes you feel, doesn't it, that time isn't so important after all, that a philosophy in which 'manana'

is the all-important word is perhaps not such a bad one after all."